Inclusion Theater: When Accessibility Is More About Optics Than Reality

There’s a particular kind of moment I’ve learned to recognize.

It’s when a space, an event, program, or a company wants credit for being inclusive. You can feel it before you can prove it. The language is there. The branding is there. Sometimes even the signage is there. Accessibility has been acknowledged, technically.

And yet, something doesn’t work.

Not in a dramatic, obvious way. Nothing so blatant that anyone would point and say, “this isn’t accessible.” It’s more subtle than that. It’s the accumulation of small frictions, quiet omissions, and unexamined assumptions. The kind of things that don’t show up in a checklist but define whether a space is actually usable.

That’s what I think of as inclusion theater.

It’s not exclusion. It’s something stranger. It’s the performance of inclusion without the substance to back it up.

I’ll admit, I’m not always entirely convinced. The cynic in me sometimes suspects that what

looks like sincerity may actually have its roots in a marketing meeting-something designed to

sound good, align with branding, or resonate with an audience rather than reflect a deeper

commitment.

Still, for the sake of this discussion and to avoid getting lost in that cynicism; I’m willing to

concede that, at least on the surface, these efforts begin with good intentions. A company decides accessibility matters. An event organizer adds it to the planning document. A venue installs a feature or adopts a policy that signals awareness.

And then, somewhere along the way, accessibility becomes a box to check instead of a condition to design for.

A website is labeled “accessible,” but key navigation elements don’t work with a screen reader. An event offers “assistance upon request,” but no one has thought through what that actually looks like in practice.

A social space prides itself on being welcoming, but relies entirely on visual cues or hearing for interaction. On paper, everything is there. In reality, it falls apart the moment you try to use it.

What makes inclusion theater frustrating isn’t just that it doesn’t work. It’s that it looks like it

should. When something is clearly inaccessible, expectations are low. You adapt, work around it, or opt out. There’s a kind of honesty in that, even if it’s not ideal.

But when something presents itself as inclusive, it creates a different expectation. You assume it has been thought through. You assume someone has considered your experience. You assume you won’t have to negotiate your way through it. And then you do.

That gap-between what’s promised and what’s real-is where the frustration lives.

There’s also a social layer to this.

When a space has already declared itself inclusive, pointing out problems can feel like pushing against a narrative people are invested in. No one wants to hear that their efforts weren’t enough.

No one wants to feel like they got it wrong after trying to get it right.

So the burden shifts. Instead of the system being questioned, the individual experience gets quietly minimized. Maybe it’s framed as a one-off issue. Maybe it’s something you’re expected to “just ask for help” with. Maybe it’s not acknowledged at all. Inclusion theater doesn’t just fail to include, it makes it harder to talk about why.

Part of the problem is that accessibility is often approached as a feature, not a foundation.

A feature can be added late. It can be layered on top of an existing design. It can be adjusted without changing the core structure.

A foundation is different. It shapes everything built on top of it.

When accessibility is treated as a feature, it tends to address the most visible or easily understood barriers. It focuses on what can be seen, measured, or demonstrated. It prioritizes what signals inclusion rather than what sustains it.

But real accessibility isn’t about signals. It’s about whether something works-consistently,

predictably, without requiring extra negotiation.

There’s also an element of optics.

Accessibility, like many things, can be used to tell a story. It can signal values. It can position a brand or an organization as thoughtful, progressive, aware. And once it becomes part of the story, there’s an incentive to maintain the appearance of getting it right.

The risk is that the appearance becomes more important than the reality.

Because reality is messy. It requires ongoing adjustment. It involves feedback that isn’t always easy to hear. It means acknowledging that what worked in theory doesn’t always work in practice. Optics, on the other hand, are clean. They’re easier to manage. They don’t require the same level of change.

None of this is to say that effort doesn’t matter.

It does.

The shift from ignoring accessibility to acknowledging it is significant. It reflects a broader

change in awareness, and that’s not nothing. But awareness is only the first step. If it stops there, it creates a surface-level version of inclusion that doesn’t hold up under real use.

And over time, that can be more isolating than outright exclusion.

Because now the problem isn’t just that something doesn’t work-it’s that it’s supposed to work, and doesn’t.

If there’s a way out of inclusion theater, it probably starts with a different question.

Not “does this look inclusive?”

Not “have we addressed accessibility?”

But simply: does this actually work for the people it’s meant to include?

That question is harder to answer. It requires asking the people who actually live with these

barriers-people with lived experience-and being willing to listen to what they say, even when it’s inconvenient or challenges existing assumptions. It means testing, revisiting decisions, and sometimes rethinking them entirely. It doesn’t lend itself to quick wins or clean narratives. But it’s the difference between inclusion as performative and inclusion as practice.

And trust me, we can tell the difference!

Written By Michelle Friedman

Michelle Friedman is the board chair of Keshet in Chicago, a member of Disability Lead and has been a disability advocate for 40 years. She has written two children’s books and is a frequent speaker for elementary and high school-age students. #AllInForAllAbilities