Hey. You. SFF writer going “I don’t need sensitivity readers; it’s all made up-“
I PROMISE you, it’s not. Whether you mean to or not, you will draw on tropes and stereotypes that run through the real world. Your READERS live in the real world and will draw connections. It’s inevitable.
Is it really worth alienating and injuring people who put their trust in your words to help them escape or examine the world?
Think about something important to your identity. For me, that’s disability. All of my books feature an element of it. If I am reading someone else’s work-
That highlights a disabled character in a way that bolsters ableist stereotypes, I am out of that story in an instant, thinking about all the times people have been inappropriate or worse to me. That’s not a happy place to be.
Why do you want to put your reader there?
YES! I accidentally made a caste system in my TTRPG that was racist. I didn't realize it, hired a sensitivity reader, they flagged it, and I went, "Oh, shit. You're right. Okay, time to make changes."
There will be times you don't realize what you're saying is problematic and you don't realize it.
There are so many cis-het white dudes (and women) who continue to do this, make profits, don't care who they harm; very frustrating. I just had this discussion with a friend re: a show I'm watching. The teens go to Paris, all nondisabled, stairs everywhere--what if a disabled person wanted to go?
Curious as to a solution to this tho, the Paris thing. Is the problem that they didn't have a disabled teen to show that Paris is not accessible or should have they shown accessibility in Paris?
Yeah, I mean, I'm disabled, and it's good to know that getting around Paris is going to be hard if i ever make it there. (Though it's hard to travel when you're poor bc you're disabled.) But does every story need a token disabled person to show the downsides of a city?
Those are all good points -- it's just frustrating as a disabled viewer to look at yet another "travels around Europe" scene or historical series where if any of the characters would have been disabled, they could not navigate. Income challenges are also a factor for sure.
It's a systemic issue that is not limited to this show. The solution is not necessarily to have a token disabled character or to have shown accessibility in Paris. Eg. Sex Education did a good job with Isaac, a wheelchair user--the nondisabled students advocated with him to solve a lift problem.
