Disability Pride Festival 2026
- Katrina Mae Leuzinger
- Aug 9
- 6 min read
Buffalo, NY
Good Time Rating: 5 out of 5 bags of brochures
Accessibility Rating: 5 out of 5 wicked fast ASL interpreters
07/24/26
July is Disability Pride Month, which means my post is arriving a wee bit late, but in my defense, I've been spending a lot of time in Middle Earth* lately....
But I took a break from appearing in The Hobbit to go to Buffalo's Disability Pride Festival at Riverworks. I left grinning ear to ear with a balloon crown and 2 bags full of literature.
I have a couple of quibbles about the access at this year's event, and we'll get to that, but I want to start with all the things they got right.
The program for the day's events was available in physical, digital, and audio, and there was a tactile map. Every speech, every song, every spoken word poem was translated by a sign language interpreter. There was a quiet room available for those experiencing sensory overload. A blender for folks who needed their snack bar concessions pureed.
And the bathrooms! The worst I can say about the bathroom situation at Riverworks is that it's a big place with only the one set of bathrooms. But they're plenty big, and - at least for sure the women's - has two accessible stalls. And the best was the mobile accessible restroom parked in front of the facility. Folks, it had everything. A lift to get inside. Grab bars every which way. Transfer room on both sides of the toilet. An adjustable height sink. A winch on the ceiling to help disabled users and caregivers navigate transfers - with a track that ran the length of the trailer. A roll-in shower. And an adult-sized changing table. It was an absolute game changer, and less than $3,000 to rent for eight hours. I want one parked at every music festival, community event, and political protest from sea to shining sea. Now that I know this exists, I don't want a single disabled person worried they can't attend an event because the restrooms aren't accessible ever again.
I might do a whole damn blog about just this mobile restroom thing, because it was that freaking cool. For now, it's sort of a pilot program, with only a few of these trucks in the country. Do what you can to spread the word and get a truck at the event you're planning.
But I don't have time to go over every organization that was present at Disability Pride because boy howdy, there were a lot of them. I mean A LOT! There were a couple rows of tables inside, and more tables filled BOTH skating rinks outside.
I signed up to join an inclusive choir. Parks and Rec was there talking about which parks are accessible and their partnership with NFTA to provide free standard and para transit bus service to the parks on select days. The County Office for People with Disabilities came in hot, passing out what is essentially a phone book of disability services (you can find the same directory on their website). A guy with WNY Independent Living taught me how to properly administer Narcan and then presented me with a very official-looking certificate to prove it. Tons of legal services were there. Even more advocacy groups. And so, so many healthcare organizations. As a resource fair, Disability Pride succeeded on every level.
As a fun time, perhaps less so, but I don't fully mean that as a criticism. There was entertainment, to be sure. The main stage had musical acts, dance, poetry, and stand-up. There was a children's area with costumed characters, airbrush tattoos, and the aforementioned balloon animal guy. Fun was had, for sure, and I certainly had a lot of it, but it just wasn't a party-time atmosphere in the same way that, say, the LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations of the previous month were. My joy came more from seeing so many disabled folks in one place. Complimenting everyone I saw with a customized mobility aid. Laughing at T-shirts with slogans like "Sorry! No inspiration today" and "This body came with a lot of terms and conditions that I did not agree to." Next year, I think I'll spend less time visiting every resource table, and more time just listening to good music and talking to people.
My one accessibility quibble about the festival and Riverworks in general? It was the damn rubber mats. They covered the only ramp down to the skating rinks, all layered atop each other. There were gaps between them. There were places you'd suddenly step up or down because they were uneven. It didn't pose a problem to my power chair, but as someone who also uses a cane (and can't get back up if I fall down), I immediately identified them as a major trip hazard. I especially identified them as a trip hazard because this was an event full of blind people. I did find out later that human guides were available upon request to help folks navigate, among other areas, that ramp. For this, I've chosen to still give the event the full five stars, but a better solution would have been to just remove the damn trip hazards, right?
The capstone of the event was the parade, and it was preceded by a series of speeches - including one by Mayor Ryan. As he left the stage, I noticed him doing the shake babies and kiss hands thing (strike that, reverse it). With no time like the present, I did something I'm ashamed to admit I've never done before, and that's roll on up to my elected representative and demand they represent my interests. I probably could have talked the man's ear off for hours about the disability access in our city, so I reeled myself in and focused on one issue - the sidewalks. They're bad. They're worse in lower-income neighborhoods like mine. If I can't use the sidewalk safely, I have to travel in the street, where cars are less likely to see me because I am seated. I was short, sweet, and to the point. I got an answer from Mayor Ryan that wasn't perfect, but it at least felt honest. He said he knew that it was a problem and that he wished he could tell me it would be fixed this year, but he can't. According to him, Buffalo has fallen far behind on public infrastructure-type projects, and it'll be at least two years before the sidewalks could be addressed. He thanked me for putting a human face on the issue - there's a difference between empirically knowing the sidewalks are fucked and meeting someone who is personally affected by it.
And then the parade began. This year they had a station full of blank white flags and fabric markers where you could make your own flag to wave in the parade. That might have been my favorite activity (except for that part where a guy using a wheelchair and filled with cognitive dissonance talked at me about how people with depression really just need to look on the bright side).
Again, I reach for the comparison to an LGBTQ+ Pride Parade, because this was not that. Our Unity Walk and Roll made a small loop from the Riverworks snack bar, out around one of the skating rinks, and back again. Witnesses to our parade consisted largely of the vendors at their tables and a few odd bar and restaurant patrons. We weren't raising any kind of awareness. No one saw the messages we'd all lovingly written on our flags except for people who were already convinced those statements mattered.
We did it for us.
*Shameless plug for The Hobbit, a free outdoor production by Theatre in Hamlin Park and the Aurora Players. We've got 4 more shows August 13-16, and if you don't come see it, you'll be sorry.
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