Can Identifying As Blind Harm The Blind Community?

Content Warning: This episode contains references to alcoholism and suicide, and also contains what some may consider to be strong language.

Today is a little different on Double Tap, as we ditch the theme music, put Mr. F into his bed with hot cocoa, and Steven, Shaun and special guest Matthew Alcock sit down for a good old-fashioned heart-to-heart.

It all starts with a tweet. A tweet that was meant to show support for the blind community, but backfired massively. Matthew, who considers himself to be low vision, argues that those who are also low vision and are content creators or gaming enthusiasts, and do not use tools or features that totally blind people to do these types of activities, should not call themselves blind to the wider public. He believes it damages the blind community as those who do not understand vision impairment may assume that if a gamer who identifies as blind can play a game, that in fact is not accessible or playable by someone with no sight, it can confuse and create issues in furthering the understanding outside of our community.

In this hour-long special, we delve into these topics, which open up some interesting and fascinating personal stories from Matthew and the guys.

As always here at Double Tap, we pride ourselves on allowing everyone the freedom to talk and discuss their views. However, we also rightly take those views to task, so expect an interesting and engaging discussion which I’m sure you won’t want to switch off.

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