Morrison’s Space: A DeafBlind Activist

May 9, 2026

By Morrison

I’ve been thinking about the word, access. What many assume it means and how it is misperceived, misdefined and continues to be. Many assume that access is what’s needed for people with disabilities or “special needs” populations when that’s not the truth, or accurate. Over time, since the erection of the ADA, the concept has been perceived as a checklist that is unchangeable, not fluid, rigid in its own set of rules where many are not in compliance… It’s created by those who don’t live our life. The kind of access I’m talking about is something far more fundamental. It is space. It is the space we live in, move through, shape, and breathe. It is the space that holds our language, our communication, our relationships, and our ways of knowing, and living. After giving a workshop recently, I felt the need to write about this, not as a critique, but as an invitation to rethink what access actually is and to ask our community how you define access, what does access looks like, and how is access created.

For me, access is not a feature, a tool, or a service. Access is the environment we inhabit. The space we dwell in is access. Within DeafBlind spaces, access is organic. It grows from our tactile language, our shared norms, our ways of orienting and connecting. It is not something we “add,” it is something we live. When I am in a DeafBlind-centered space, I am not “receiving access.” I am simply existing in a world built with my body, my senses, my culture, and my relationships in mind. That is access, that is space.

This is why I say access = space. Access is space, and space is access. To have space is to have access, and to have access is to have space – they coexist, intertwined as one. To have access to space and vice versa means having the space in which access is organic, can exist, grow, and sustain us. Access is what makes a space livable, and space is what allows access to take form – hence they become one. When we have space, we have access; when we lose space, we lose access. Think of how a turtle or a fish cannot thrive in a restricted, artificial environment like an aquarium that is too small, shallow, unnatural for their needs. In that confined, rigid space, they cannot grow, orient, or live fully because they are not in their space; there is no access (no space), no room for their natural ways of being. They survive, but they do not thrive, they do not grow as they should. Only when they are returned to their natural environment, their space, their access, they regain what they need to live, flourish, and exist as themselves. The same is true for us… without the space, without the access, that reflects our bodies, our language, our culture, and our ways of knowing, we cannot thrive. But when we are in our own space, when access and space align and become one, we live, grow, and become fully ourselves.

But when we leave our own space, our own access, and enter another group’s domain, everything shifts. We can feel it, we know we don’t belong… Suddenly, we are navigating a space, access, that was not built with us in mind. We were not part of its creation, its norms, or its design. We come in later, and we are expected to adapt, adjust, and bring our own access with us, layering it onto a space that already has its own rules – and often those rules resist our space in theirs. This is the part people often miss, access is not neutral. Access belongs to someone, a community. Access comes from somewhere. When we enter someone else’s space, we are entering their access, and unless they meet us halfway, we are forced to abandon parts of our own. 

My home is a DeafBlind space, not because I labeled it that way, but because I built it that way. I learned from another DeafBlind person who once walked me through their home, showing me how they created their space, their access through intentional design. They pointed out the area rugs, each one placed with purpose. A rug marking the transition from the living room to the dining room. A runner guiding the path through the kitchen. Each texture slightly different, each one a tactile landmark. We take our shoes off so our feet can read the space. We orient through touch. We navigate through texture. We live in this space, not as an accommodation, but as a tactile way of being, tactile language. This is what I mean when I say access is space. It is created by those who live in it. It is shaped by lived experience, not imagination.

This becomes even clearer when we look at how different communities create their own access. Gallaudet University designed its campus around visual communication with open sightlines, circular gathering spaces, classrooms with desks set in a semi-circle, transparent walls – an environment intentionally crafted by Deaf (sighted) people, for Deaf people. This is Gallaudet’s design as access, as space. NTID once shaped a cultural norm known as the “no voice zone,” encouraging American Sign Language (ASL) as the primary mode of communication and signaling that this is a Deaf-centered environment. This is NTID’s no voice zone as access. These spaces were not imagined by outsiders; they were built by the people who live in them. And this is exactly why access created for us, without us, so often fails. Access cannot be reverse-engineered from the outside. It must be grown from lived experience for the very seeds of the communities themselves. This is also why the expectation that we should always “meet people where they are” is incomplete, the sense of space becomes lost. Yes, we can meet you where you are, but only if you also meet us where we are. That reciprocity is what makes access relational, equitable, and sustainable, and it is at the heart of community defined access as a collective.

I’m sharing these reflections because I want to open a conversation, not just about access, but about DeafBlind space, and how we can build a space together, not for – but with. So I’m asking you, How do you define access? How do you define space with this concept? What does access look like in your life? How do you create access in your own space? How do you create your space with access? And what does reciprocity in access, space, mean to you? 

Look within, from the inside out.