Equality Federation acknowledges and deeply apologizes for perpetuating the systemic harm and exclusion of disabled people at our 2025 Leadership Conference.

Leadership Conference is a gathering for our network of LGBTQ+ member organizations and partners. In response to the isolation of members doing this work, we built the Leadership Conference to be a place of togetherness, of solidarity, and of deep love for each other and the people we serve. This year, we failed to live up to this promise for all of our attendees. 

Now is not the time to allow daylight between movements. As LGBTQ+ people, our experiences of exclusion demand heightened responsibility for our movement to create spaces where everyone can engage.  

We have received feedback from community members this week, including from Deaf people, and are committed to actively engaging in the accountability process in pursuit of our necessary improvement.

We continue to be in communication with one impacted individual. Through continued dialogue with our community, we expect to identify and implement steps to ensure our spaces allow everyone to engage with the Equality Federation network. 

Equality Federation will operationalize and integrate event accessibility best practices moving forward. We are committed to growing in our understanding of the elements of accessibility. To ensure that we are thorough and intentional in our pursuit of updating planning policies to include best practices, we have sought the guidance of disability justice organizational partners with expertise and lived experience.

Equality Federation will partner with New Disabled South to identify appropriate resources, consultants, and disabled community members to support us in ensuring that our work is reflective of our values. We will conduct a full and comprehensive audit of conference planning policies and practices to ensure accessibility is integrated into all community-based events. 

Internally, the Equality Federation team will also undergo cultural competency training focused on receiving input from disabled community members. To ensure we are acting in cross-movement solidarity with the disability community, we are taking the time to identify the appropriate next steps in our work to unlearn ableist practices.

Disability Justice is explicit that collective liberation is impossible without collective access, intersectionality, and the leadership of directly-impacted people. 

We commit to immediately taking these steps:

• Collecting feedback from Equality Federation members on accessibility in our annual Member Census being conducted August - September 2025;
• Partnering with New Disabled South to identify resources for auditing our event planning policies and procedures for accessibility by November 2025;
• Including and elevating disability justice programming at our next 2026 Leadership Conference, to be led by LGBTQIA+ disabled leaders;
• Cultural competency training for our staff on disability justice and accessibility leading up to Leadership Conference 2026.

Equality Federation is committed to long-term learning on disability justice and ensuring that our growth is measurable and not performative. Accountability is a gift, and we are grateful for the opportunity to prove our dedication to a movement that leaves no body or mind behind.