Don’t “Try Out” a Disability, and Other Actions for Allies

Better allyship starts here. Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a workplace where everyone can thrive.

In honor of Disability Pride Month (July), today’s newsletter is focused on how we can be better allies for people with disabilities. I hope you find it helpful. And if you have other suggestions, please reply to this email and let me know. I look forward to learning from you.

1. Don’t “try out” a disability

What if your workplace held a disability awareness event where participants wore blindfolds, used earplugs, or navigated an obstacle course in a wheelchair?

It may sound educational, but disability advocate Emily Ladau argues it can do more harm than good.

In her book *Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally*, Ladau explains that such simulations won’t help you understand a person’s entire life experience and identity.

Instead, they often leave participants with feelings of pity or fear rather than understanding.

She also shared this story from when she was in college:

A resident assistant asked to borrow Ladau’s wheelchair for a disability awareness obstacle course in her dorm. She remembers thinking, “What was I supposed to do while she was using it? Sit stranded in my room?” More importantly, she writes, the event wasn’t about learning from disabled people. It was about letting nondisabled people pretend to be disabled for a few minutes.

She declined.

Instead of trying out a disability, Ladau recommends learning directly from disabled people:

• Read books and essays by disabled authors.
• Listen to podcasts.
• Watch documentaries.
• Seek out conversations with people willing to share their experiences.

Share this action on Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube.

This week’s Better Allies content is sponsored by:

Inclusive leadership starts with communication. The words leaders choose, the stories organizations tell, and the conversations teams have shape culture every day. Double Forte helps organizations communicate with clarity, credibility, and purpose during the moments that matter most. Learn more at double-forte.com.

2. Listen patiently to stutterers

In Just Listen, the American Institute for Stuttering (AIS) sends a powerful message: that people who stutter aren’t asking to be fixed. They’re asking to be heard.

This one-minute video includes a cameo by the actress Emily Blunt, who has had a stutter since childhood. On a recent episode of the Today Show, Blunt expressed how lonely and misunderstood people who stutter can feel.

To be better allies for those who stutter, AIS recommends:

• Don’t finish their sentences or guess what they’re trying to say.
• Skip advice like “take a breath” or “slow down.”
• Be patient. Don’t rush them or signal that you’re in a hurry.
• Focus on what they’re saying — not how they’re saying it.

AIS has additional resources, if you’d like to learn more.

3. Use italics sparingly

A few years ago, a disability advocate taught me something I hadn’t considered.

They asked if I could stop using italics for long passages of text because, as they explained, “Italics result in decreased reading rate and can be challenging for individuals with vision and neurocognitive disabilities.”

Up to that point, I regularly formatted long quotations in italics.

Thanks to their feedback, I changed my editorial style. Today, I use quotation marks for long quotes and reserve italics for book titles, publication names, and the occasional word or phrase I want to emphasize. (You may have noticed this approach in #1 in today’s newsletter.)

As I learned, italics can help give meaning to content, but only if used sparingly.

4. Ask before helping

On a recent afternoon, I was shopping with some friends in downtown Healdsburg, CA. I noticed someone really struggling to push a woman seated on a rollator (a mobility device) onto a sidewalk. I could hear some frustration between the two of them, and it was clear they were having a difficult moment.

I wanted to rush over and help. But then I remembered a best practice I’ve shared in previous newsletters.

Don’t assume someone with a disability needs assistance. Ask first.

So I walked over and said, “That looks hard. I have some experience helping my mom with her rollator. Would you like some help?”

Both immediately smiled and said yes. And I helped the woman and her rollator get safely onto the sidewalk.

While offering help is kind and a good thing, asking first respects someone’s independence. It also fits in well with the disability rights principle of “nothing about us without us.”

5. Community Spotlight: Avoid saying “differently-abled”

This week’s action from the Better Allies community comes from a subscriber who wrote,

“I recently attended a webinar on living with disabilities that featured a panel of speakers. And every person on that panel indicated that they prefer the terms ‘disabled’ instead of ‘different-abled.’ This was partly because they felt like ‘different-abled’ was infantilizing, but even more so, because they felt the reframing from ‘disabled’ to ‘different-abled’ erases the need to provide additional resources and support.”

Thank you very much for sharing the panel’s advice. And, as I’ve explained previously, “disability” is not a dirty word.

If you’ve taken a step towards being a better ally, please reply to this email and tell me about it. And mention if I can quote you by name or credit you anonymously in an upcoming newsletter.

That’s all for this week. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me,

Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of the Better Allies® book series

Copyright © 2026 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

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