The access needs of one group of people shouldn’t override the needs of another group. Especially not as a blanket policy.
If a person who needs an assistance dog needs to interact with someone who is allergic to dogs (even if that interaction is indirect, such as sharing the same space), this is what disabled folk call “competing access needs”.
There is no simple solution on what to do when this problem arises, because actually building an accessible society requires conversations that go beyond universal guides or protocols. There are often ways to find compromises to make a situation work. Sometimes there aren’t. But the most important first step is for the people who are affected to be able to have a productive conversation about things, because without that, we would be undermining disabled people’s agency and bodily autonomy.
It’s not your place to decide who “really needs” a service dog or not. People who try to gatekeep accessibility resources or reasonable adjustments to people who “really need” them often mean well, because they think that the people who “don’t really need” them undermine access to resources for the “real disabled people”. Unfortunately, that rhetoric ends up shutting out a heckton more “real disabled people” than the people who genuinely don’t really need support.
The access needs of one group of people shouldn’t override the needs of another group. Especially not as a blanket policy.
If a person who needs an assistance dog needs to interact with someone who is allergic to dogs (even if that interaction is indirect, such as sharing the same space), this is what disabled folk call “competing access needs”.
There is no simple solution on what to do when this problem arises, because actually building an accessible society requires conversations that go beyond universal guides or protocols. There are often ways to find compromises to make a situation work. Sometimes there aren’t. But the most important first step is for the people who are affected to be able to have a productive conversation about things, because without that, we would be undermining disabled people’s agency and bodily autonomy.
It’s not your place to decide who “really needs” a service dog or not. People who try to gatekeep accessibility resources or reasonable adjustments to people who “really need” them often mean well, because they think that the people who “don’t really need” them undermine access to resources for the “real disabled people”. Unfortunately, that rhetoric ends up shutting out a heckton more “real disabled people” than the people who genuinely don’t really need support.