Blindness with Florian Beijers

What does it really mean to live, work, and game while blind? In this episode of Day in the Life, host Taylor Dorward talks with Florian Beijers, a fully blind accessibility professional and content creator, about blindness beyond stereotypes. They discuss assistive technology, digital accessibility, gaming, employment, independence, and self‑advocacy—offering real‑world insight for disabled listeners, accessibility professionals, and allies alike.

Transcript

Florian 0:02

What you see a lot with, I think, people who want to ally and who want to advocate is that they forget to actually include the people they are allying with or advocating for. So they'll they'll think something doesn't work, and then you know, the person either decides to just go on a high horse and essentially yell at people for doing something that would so and so like that might inconvenience me. But what my partner does is they'll ask me, like, listen, this looks like it will be annoying. Is it actually annoying? And then we'll have a conversation about it.

Taylor 0:31

Welcome to the Accessible Community Podcast, where we will be exploring disability, aging, and accessibility through lived experiences. Join us to deepen your understanding in these areas, and for show notes, you can find them at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcasts. Be accessible and be inclusive. Hey everyone, and welcome to a new episode of Day in Life, a podcast series brought to you by the wonderful people at Accessible Community. Our main goals during this podcast series are to educate, raise awareness, and provide an environment for people to share their story and live the experience with different disabilities. And each month we will be covering a different disability. And so this month we are covering blindness. And so before I pass it over to my next guest, a quick introduction from myself. I'm a certified accessibility professional and a disability advocate. And I'm a white male with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a short brown beard. Today I'm wearing a white undershirt with an olive green jacket layered over top. So with that, I will pass it over to my next interviewee, and then we can get rolling on.

Florian 1:57

Sounds good. My name is Florian. I am in the Netherlands. I am fully blind, and I have graciously accepted to be interviewed today.

Taylor 2:08

Yes, and we we certainly appreciate it. It's very nice to have you. So uh before we get talking a little bit more about disabilities and yours specifically, can you just tell us more about yourself?

Florian 2:21

What makes me me is I think that I wear a ridiculous amount of hats. I um do a lot with foreign languages as an interest and as a hobby. Also been working into the accessibility of learning set foreign languages. I've also been um doing a lot of content creation on Twitch and YouTube. Again, in the accessibility niche, mostly technology and video games. In my day job, I mostly do accessibility remediation and auditing. I'm also a bit of a developer, as I've done back end development for several years, so I have that background as well. And uh I dabble in music every so often, and I'd say that's a bit of a sort of a 37,000 feet bird's eye view of what I do on a daily basis.

Taylor 3:06

Nice, nice. So for music, do you play any instruments?

Florian 3:10

I do, yes. I play several instruments, mostly um keyboard and other things with keys on them, but I have been dabbling in strings and percussion as well.

Taylor 3:20

Nice. And for languages, how many do you speak?

Florian 3:24

Um I'd say about six or seven in like to be dangerous enough to get myself understood, and then a couple of other ones that I know, like a handful of phrases in.

Taylor 3:36

Nice. Yeah, I'm I'm still trying to master the one, so I pride you for that. So uh tell us some more about your disability. You said you're fully blind, but as I'm sure you're well aware as well, there are varying types of blindness and severities, which is not as well known. So could you tell us more about your specific case?

Florian 3:56

Yeah, to that's honestly a bit of a soap soapbox topic for me. I feel that when you say you're blind, um, that implies lack of sight, like a full lack of sight. Because that's what when we call when you say blindness in the Netherlands, um, that's what we generally refer to. There's not really a sliding legal scale as as you would see in the US that much. So in my particular case, when I say blind, I have no usual vision. I can see a little bit of light perception. I can't see light. I have light perception, therefore I can see a bit of light, and um that's really enough to not quite slam into a wall, but really not much more. So, in a sense, I feel like safe calling myself blind. But yeah, that's that's essentially my disability. I do not have any usable vision to pretty much do anything with.

Taylor 4:44

Very interesting, and yeah, that's uh very interesting topic. I always like to point out, because I I think the statistic is around 90%, but blind people still have some functional vision, which is right a very, very common misconception that all blind people see just darkness.

Florian 5:04

I feel I feel that that the problem with that particular like terminology is generally that um the adaptations you make for blind people in air quotes um are very different to the accommodations you make for people who still have some usable vision. Like they're two completely different animals, basically. So in that sense, I feel there should be a like hard line where blindness begins and partial sightness sightedness begins. And yeah, honestly, the fact that blind can mean so many things, particularly over there in the US, works me to no end. Because it's a very confusing thing for laymen as well.

Taylor 5:43

Yeah, absolutely. And and that's what I find so fascinating about disabilities as a whole, like blindness, autism, hearing disabilities, like each one, like disability in general is a spectrum. But then even when you talk about a specific in quotes disability, that them themselves are their own spectrum. It's like I have cortical blindness, my blindness isn't the same as yours, and even someone else with cortical blindness as well may perceive things a bit differently than myself. So I would say that's a very interesting topic. And something we had talked about for a moment there was we were using kind of bouncing back and forth between person and identity first language. So I'm curious, do you have a preference when talking about it yourself?

Florian 6:31

I do not. Um, again, this is one of those things that really didn't take off very much here. Um, like when we do it here in the Netherlands, we ape it from the US, but we pretty much don't have the same, I guess, gravitas to it. Basically, we we do it because uh yeah, America does it, but we don't quite have the same stake in it, I would say. So I don't really have a preference. No, I I tend to just I I'm a person who is blind. I tend to not even mention my blindness as part of my identity unless it's relevant most of the time. In this particular case, it obviously would be given that's what the podcast is about, but um I'm not one of those people that essentially puts their blindness front and center on things like job applications or dating profiles or other things. I really only put it in my identity when whatever I'm talking about or talking to is relevant, like like that knowledge is relevant for that particular conversation. So I'm a blind person, I'm a person who is blind, potato potato for me.

Taylor 7:34

That's very interesting, and and I hear a lot of different perspectives on that topic. And that's why I always like to ask, because some people uh do do have a strong preference one or the other. So for my like for myself, for a long time, I preferred person first because I retained my blindness later in life. And so I didn't really want to embrace it as part of my part of who I was, but over the over time it stopped getting better, and I realized it's just part of what makes me me, and sort of slowly been shifting to more identity. But I'm also very similar to you, I don't have too much of a preference. I'm not gonna be offended if someone uses one or the other. So, but it is good to know so you don't uh unintentionally offend someone. So it's good to know.

Florian 8:22

Right. Like obviously, I have this is maybe running the gun a little bit, but I do have congenital blindness. I've always been the exact amount of blind that I am currently at. So to me, this is the same as having blonde hair or two arms. It's just that's just you know, I am a person that breathes, I'm a person that's blind, like there knows no real difference there. Just I bleached the importance, I guess, out of that entire situation years ago, like decades ago.

Taylor 8:50

That's very interesting. So, right now, are you are you currently working? I am, yes. So, can you tell us a little bit about what you do?

Florian 9:00

I'm uh mostly working in accessibility. Um I know it's a story, it's a stereotypical quintessential thing to work in as a blind person, but that's where I ended up. I used to be a developer for several years, um, back end developer primarily. So that means you work on the server side of things, not so much the pointy-clicky side of things. And um, when the COVID pandemic hit, I basically switched over to freelance work first in development, and then the more um pandemic sort of stretched on, the more I sort of veered towards more accessibility, auditing, testing, remediation, and training. And that's pretty much what I do these days for several companies.

Taylor 9:39

Wonderful. Yeah, I would say I'm fairly similar, and I know a lot of other people are the exact same way. They have a passion for it because they themselves have a disability. And there's there's nothing wrong with that because if you're passionate about it, you you know you're gonna be happy doing what you do for a long time. So and that's that's not something that everyone finds. So it's it's good to see that you have the passion for it as well. Um, so you talked a little bit about your hobbies, and we don't want to spend like all the time just talking about your blindness. So I want to learn and allow everyone else to learn a little bit more about you. You talked about music and stuff like that. But can you tell us a little bit more about that stuff and maybe if being blind has affected them in any ways or anything like that? Well, my hobbies are yeah, like for example, like learning new instruments, or are there specific instruments you were pulled more towards since there might be easier for you to learn?

Florian 10:39

Right. So piano is just something that honestly my parents decided was a good idea. I think a lot of people can share that story. It's the quintessential um parents decide that the their their offspring is going to learn an instrument, and usually it's either the recorder or the piano. I was lucky enough to get the piano. Played it a lot in my like high school days, sort of fell off it when I moved it, moved out and went to college. But I do like the linearness of piano, it's very flat in some respects. Like with guitar, you have to really think about where do you put your hands, where do you put your fingers, and I don't necessarily think that's less accessible, it's just less intuitive to me because it piano is just you have a row of keys, and if you put your fingers on the right keys, then the right noises happen. Whereas for guitars, you need to put um your fingers on the right strings and on the right threats, and sometimes they change to be able to get to the next chord quicker, and it's just a lot more to keep in my head, in my opinion. But honestly, that's me being a dabbler and not a like a German guitarist. So, in that sense, that is uh very much something that I really just need to get used to. Um accessibility-wise, it hasn't really affected me that much. I mean, there have been instruments where really specific technique is important, things like flutes. And um, yeah, I'm not I'm not great on those. I I might need to, that's that's one of those things where you have a teeth where you're having a teacher who can tell you what minute micro gesture you're doing wrong in order to get a good sound of the instrument is is really helpful. But I think that's true for most, if not all instruments. Yeah, you can learn some things off YouTube, and I think that's still true for um people who are visually impaired, just a little harder. But uh having a teacher, particularly when you're first starting out, is definitely very valuable. I am lucky in the sense that I was also born with perfect pitch, so when I hear a note, I can reproduce it or at least know which note it is, and that has essentially sidestepped the side readingslash um sheet music issue for me, because there is such a thing as brill sheet music, but it's obviously you can't be playing and reading at the same time, so it's more of a memorization device, which I never really felt anything like positive towards. Like I can read it kind of, but not very well. And I just listen to learn a piece.

Taylor 13:15

And that's part of why we're doing what we're doing. So someone someone else who's behind me watch this and hear your story and think, oh, well, that seems like something that I'm gonna want to try. So really appreciate you sharing that. That's very interesting to know more about it.

Florian 13:30

Yeah, that's honestly one reason why I stream as well. So I do a lot of streaming on Twitch and YouTube, both in, like I said, the video game and the tech spheres. And and one of the reasons I do that is to give people that sort of stimulants of stimuli of like, hey, oh, I can actually do this because he's doing it. Also, on the other side, there might be teachers watching, there might be people watching who need to improve the things I'm looking at, and they might see how a user, a real user is struggling with certain things that they might be able to improve. So there's a lot of like, I think, value in showing rather than telling. And I try to do that in my streams. Obviously, I tell as well. Like, if something is broken, I will uh definitely tell people about that. But I think there's a misconception out there that um a lot of people feel they can't do certain things, either because they've been told they can, or if they just convince themselves that they're unable to. And I think that's very much false. I think you can really only figure out what you can and cannot do by trying things and trying things by yourself, like maybe you have a particular talent irrespective of disability that allows you to do certain things really well, where others people other people might struggle disability or not. So I show things hope of hoping that other people will either pick them up or bull learn from them in some way. So that's one other interest that I have that I have made into a thing I do.

Taylor 14:48

Awesome. So what are some what are some games that you play in like stream?

Florian 14:53

Um well tonight I'm playing The Last of Us. It's a very popular game in the accessibility sphere. But I've been playing Hades 2, I've been playing some Final Fantasy games, I've been playing um God of War Ragnarok, I've been playing some visual novels um as of late, I'm playing Disco Elysium. There's various games that um with the right tools and with the right, I guess, mentality are very doable. If you uh give it a bit of helbogrease in time, I would say.

Taylor 15:22

So are you playing those on a console or on your PC?

Florian 15:26

Uh both, depending on the game, mostly PC, but there's certainly a couple of games that I really only play on the console.

Taylor 15:32

Gotcha. So do you feel like you run into many like physical accessibility barriers when using whether it be the PC or a console and doing the gaming?

Florian 15:42

Uh I mean, if like every game specifically has to be accessible enough to bother with, and the vast majority of games are not. And then sometimes what happens is some people, some third-party volunteers or just people who like to hack on it will make a modification to the game that makes it accessible. Um, that's what happened to Hades, for example. And a lot of the time, what really what that really shows is if a third party can make a modification to a game and make it playable, then the first party developers could have, they just didn't. And that is a bit of a sour lemon. Like you have to always decide, okay, well, these people apparently did not feel it was important enough or uh to give priority to the fact that like a bunch of people cannot play their games because they were honestly negligent and did not add accessibility where they could have. But fortunately, someone who's not being paid for this and who's apparently uh you know passionate enough about it to fix it has stepped up to the plate and makes this game playable. Then again, they might stop working on it at some point, which is very valuable. Like I said, they're not being paid, they're just doing this out of the goodness of their heart, their interest, something. So if they then decide to not work on it anymore, then essentially you uh really just are uh out of luck, basically.

Taylor 17:00

Yeah, it is unfortunate how that that will happen sometimes, but it is it is very interesting to hear how certain games that that you are able to effectively play and enjoy and and even stream. I think that's that's pretty cool.

Florian 17:15

Yeah, and like look outside of gaming, it's things like cybersecurity, hacking tools, uh music composition, language learning, uh whatever what else have we covered? Coding, programming, uh game development, even. Yeah, we've we've done several things on the channel these at this point.

Taylor 17:33

Nice. And so you said about uh college. So I was I was curious what was especially the college experience like uh disastrous.

Florian 17:44

Um here in the Netherlands, accessibility centers within colleges are not really a thing. Like sometimes you see them in full-on universities. We have a bit of an interesting tiered system of education here where you go from very, very vocational and practical to very scientific and theoretical, and the uh latter, which is also considered the higher of those um levels, as it were, peers. They sometimes have an accessibility department within the school, but a lot of like in-between, and certainly not the lowest levels, will not have those. So you're basically on your own. Like you can get in cahoots with the dean or other people within the school to essentially help you to forming that at front against like difficult teachers that are unwilling or unable to figure out a way to teach you the material in a way that's more accessible in case the default fail default way fails. And um, yeah, that was a school I was on. There was a lot of teachers who uh seemingly were unable to think for themselves and essentially followed the protocol that they were given to the letter. Um, even though there was wiggle room, they would not take that wiggle room. And um that led me to having a half an hour conversation with someone who was unable to believe that Photoshop without being able to look at the screen was a bit of a lost case. But yeah, that's uh that happened several times, so that was not great. I'm actually doing college again. I'm uh enrolled in the South New Hampshire uh university right now, and I'm doing a cybersecurity major, uh bachelor's, so I can uh have a degree that I'm actually a little bit more proud of, as I feel the other one was um um below average in what it taught me and how it was handled.

Taylor 19:26

Gotcha. So when did you start uh that process with the new college and how has that differed?

Florian 19:33

I'd say it's been about a year now. Yeah, about a year. It's been going really well. Um there absolutely have been the same struggles, but because it's only one uh at a time, and generally I have a bit more wiggle room myself in like how I do things, I have bit more time to get my assignments in when things do what they do, and then the teachers have historically been relatively good about listening to feedback and being able to let me do uh labs in a way that that works for me, but it really is the third-party platforms they often work with that are the issue, not really the school itself. So it can be a bit of an interesting situation sometimes.

Taylor 20:13

Nice. So whenever you're dealing with any issues like what you're doing with like going through schooling or work or wherever it is, do those things affect your mental health?

Florian 20:26

Um I'd say I pretty much have it pretty like well together mentally, as it were, as a as a rule. Like I do tend to be pretty hard to phase, but yes, I can absolutely have a a limit to how much I will take for a given day, and at that point I'll step back and I'll go do something else for a while. I feel that at some point I took the um the choice between getting very depressed about what's uh the accessibility state of things is, or just getting like really like amused and seeing how hilarious it is that just how many things fall over on a daily basis. That I picked the latter option and I can laugh about it now. And I've sort of taken myself out of that equation because if I weren't, everything would be something I would have to take personally, and it's not a good idea.

Taylor 21:14

Yeah, I I understand that. I I certainly do. I I feel like I still go back and forth. Um, but I I certainly try and find the joy in those moments and maybe get a laugh out of the lack of accessibility, as long as it's nothing where it's like causing any danger for anyone else or anything like that.

Florian 21:34

But yeah, it is it is because on the one like if you are an accessibility professional like myself, when you get pushback from people you work with, developers you work with, designers you work with, the tricky bit is that you essentially get a double whammy. For one, you get um told that you know you're not being listened to as a professional, but you're also being told that you don't really matter as a person. So you get both of those at the same time, and you have to sort of find some kind of framework to deal with that honestly that kind of abuse. So it's it's it can be rough. Yeah, it can be interesting. And um I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on it, but there certainly are days that I decide, okay, you guys don't care, then I don't care either. Bye. And I'll go do something else.

Taylor 22:16

Well that's good. Yeah.

Florian 22:17

I think at that point you have to think of your own health, your own um capacity. And if it's over overflowing then you know go do something else. Take care of yourself.

Taylor 22:29

Yeah that's a good piece of advice because I know a lot of people and regardless whether you have a disability or not whenever you face any kind of struggles it can be it can be unfortunately too easy to focus on the negative. So remind yourself that there's still some positive stuff out there you can spend more of your mental effort on.

Florian 22:53

I I do definitely have a good support network um that is very much with me and also understand the struggles I'm going through it like more and more because they're actually interested in how I feel in the old entire situation. So that is definitely like helpful as well and that's certainly not someone something everyone can say like I've seen a lot of people who are very isolated because of their disability and very lonely because of it which can be not so great for for these kinds of things as well can be a bit much.

Taylor 23:19

Yeah I absolutely agree and that that's a really interesting topic. Can you share more about what that network is like and maybe how you found it and any advice for anyone looking to get more information.

Florian 23:31

First and foremost is really just my my my fiance, my partner who's been very much in my corner as it were like they what you see a lot I think people who want to ally and who want to advocate is that they forget to actually include the people they are allying with or advocating for. So they'll they'll think something doesn't work and then you know the person either decides to just go on a high horse and essentially yell at people for doing something that would so and so like that might inconvenience me. What my partner does is they'll ask me like listen this looks like it will be annoying is it actually annoying and then we'll have a conversation about it. I think that's a good mentality to have in the people that are in your corner like have people be curious but don't let them essentially take you out of the equation. You're very much being bought for and that is nice and that's very flattering in a sense but if you're not part of that conversation then it's very sort of hollow and shallow I would say yeah as for where I found them uh I still don't really understand how I got this lucky but um yeah it it can happen. As for how to break that isolation I think it's a lot of I see so many people that when they either acquire disability or when they lived with a disability for a long time they essentially become that disability. That's also why I have a bit of an issue with how much we're essentially juggling with the language around it as opposed to like giving it a place and leaving it be. Yeah. Like you can become a blind person that has interests or you can become a person that has interests that is also blind. And in that sense I think that's what the language is trying to do. I just don't think it's doing a very good job of it. I think really what that it needs to come from the people themselves I think and I think a lot of people who are in that place of isolation don't feel they have the right or the capability or the power to do that. And I think that's false. I think anyone can have a hobby and be really good at something. And I think if they find their crowd, their tribe as it were you can find people that you can have that network with be it locally or over the internet like there's a lot of ways you can unite if you like reading join a book club if you like learning a language there's classes that do that. If you if you like programming there's many communities out there with people all struggling to learn that esoteric discipline like you can you can find your people like it's just not always easy. Like if you are a runner that might be trickier because you have to find someone to run with but it's not going to happen automatically you're going to need to step out of your comfort zone and talk to people and find these people who would like to do that with you. And going back to gaming for a second that's something I struggle with a little well as well as a beginning streamer and gamer I still do sometimes but sometimes you do want to play a game that you cannot play by yourself. And there are ways to play games with other people and these other people can choose to either do that with you or not. You're not forcing them if you ask them to play. And if you are then it's on that other person to essentially have more of a backbone until you know this is not something I want to be doing as opposed to doing something out of pity which unfortunately does happen a lot yeah but that there really is an excellent point.

Taylor 26:39

And I think that's why for so long I was a little hesitant and almost felt like I was offending people by using identity first language although now I know a lot of people prefer it. But for me like it just seemed like like like as I said I have blindness as well but there's so much more to me and so much more to you. Right. And so and nothing wrong with preferring identity first but I just don't want to feel like a disability defines anyone.

Florian 27:12

It can be a part of it can be a part of your identity but I think it should be the entirety of your identity either even if it's something you know if you're uh say an accessibility job position and you want to emphasize that you're blind absolutely put it in your put it in your cover letter but don't just say hey I'm blind I can do the work you can add stuff like what have you done why do you want to do this job? Like there's so much more to a person than just that. Yeah absolutely emphasizing that because honestly the truth is every blind person every disabled person is going to be bombarded as a representative of that disability when someone meets them for the first time. It's just how it works. And society as a whole is going to emphasize it more than enough without you doing it as well. So in that sense I'd almost say de-emphasizing might be a better idea in that sense that you again you don't need to emphasize it because other people are going to do that for you and you control that narrative. You can say okay yes I am blind and you have like questions about that please ask but also realize that I'm also doing all these other things that you could also ask about.

Taylor 28:12

Yeah I I fully agree with that. And as someone who's certainly dealt with like having to apply for jobs I always bounce back and forth like should I check that box or should I let them know beforehand because on the one side I want to make sure if there's like an interview or like onboarding process want to make sure it's accessible to me but also I don't want it to be my identity in that workplace where tailors are on staff one guy. Like I don't want that to be my role.

Florian 28:46

Right so I certainly I honestly tend to not mention it like nine out of 10 times and just bring it up with the interviewee which usually is closer to my what would actually be my colleagues and I do that for a very simple reason. Like if I put a profile in there if I put a job application in I have no many no idea how many people are going to see that application and and draw their judgment just from it. So if I put blindness on there with any make some very specifically trained HR person might see that review might see that and decide I can do the job or they might pass it on to their manager and that manager might decide I can't do the job without ever even getting to the people who know better and might think that I might actually be able to do the job. So at that point I don't mention it unless it's actually relevant. And when I get into an interview room with someone I'll let my story do the talking for itself and then if it needs to be handled in the moment if something is inaccessible being able to sidestep that accessibility issue and work with them to find an accessible alternative is actually a way to show that I can problem solve.

Taylor 29:46

So in that sense I'm essentially making not disclosing that part of my job interview which is not something that's making me very popular with a lot of uh disability crowds I they feel it's deceptive they feel it's something I should bring up right away I just have a different opinion on that um yeah that is an interesting topic and something I don't normally think about because I I don't think in any way that's that's dishonest or anything on your part. Certainly if it comes up in like your blindness is inhibiting you from doing or understanding a certain task or whatever it may be, then bringing it up but it I don't think I don't think it's something you have to be like hey just so you don't feel like I'm scamming you, I'm blind.

Florian 30:36

Like right, right. And and I think the more interviews you do and the more um senior you become in a certain topic in a certain like job type as it were I think you're going to be able to make that judgment call a lot better. Like are there going to be problems if I were to the interview and not tell them like are there going to be tasks I'm going to need help doing? Are there going to be tasks I outright cannot do? What adaptations are I going to need? And it's good to have all that ready to go if they ask about it. But generally that is a lot more of a thing that you know about than that they know about. So if you leave it up to them to decide and just sort of put it out there like hey I'm blind deal with it at that point they are going to deal with it likely by excluding you from the job application pool because it's way too much of a hassle to deal with and if you take that burden onto yourself which isn't fair but is often how it works then you don't have that problem as much it can still happen like I've certainly been told essentially bogus reasons for not for not being accepted into a into a job after the first interview and it was very clear that they were discriminating without discriminating but um it it happened a lot less in my experience.

Taylor 31:50

Yeah and I think that's a really great point too because a big area in accessibility and disability is awareness. And like like I had said around 90% of blind people still have some functional vision but a lot of people don't know that and there are many other examples like that in disability and so if you are telling people way ahead of time you're giving them an opportunity for their unconscious bias to make an assumption but if you wait till later and you can talk to them directly maybe advocate for yourself and explain your your special circumstances because we're all different whether you have a disability or not can be very mutually beneficial as well. I think so yeah yeah so I'm curious what is your social life like and honestly you don't have to be or you can be as specific as you want but gonna be honest I'm a bit of a hermit like I like being by myself.

Florian 32:52

I mean there's obviously the parasocialism of of being a streamer so you know people come to my chat as I stream and they'll talk at me and I'll talk back at them but it's not really a wouldn't call them friends or anything of that's of that nature until I've seen them like several times. Like they might come back over and over and I might learn about these people and they might learn about me in turn and that creates a community of some so some of some sort but um yeah I have a pretty small group of friends um and and I'm honestly fine with that. Like I I like being on my own for um extended like lengths of time. There's very few people I tolerate in my space for uh a long time um like I've I've certainly had people move into my house that as we say in Dutch drove the blood from under my nails which basically means that they drove me insane. And I've had people like in my house that are completely cool and that I can that I can potentially just gel with and have a good time with. So it I'm very particular about the company I keep I think particularly these days like as I've grown older I'm in my 30s now as I've grown older I've gotten more particular about that and you know some people might think that I'm uh lonely or don't have enough friends parents are very much of that generation that the more friends the better and you should always keep your people like that will live close to you like close not really my thing.

Taylor 34:13

Yeah I I I understand that and and for me like it's like quality over quantity right if you have good people around you it doesn't matter how many friends you have and how big your network is if you have a supportive network where you feel comfortable and cared for there then that's wonderful.

Florian 34:36

Right.

Taylor 34:37

So whenever you're interacting whether it's with existing friends or new people that you're meeting is there anything that you wish more people knew about interacting with you or how to make those interactions more accessible?

Florian 34:51

It's really the offensive thing like a lot of people are super super scared of offending me the first time they meet me essentially I make blind jokes to offset that fear a lot of the time because it's just you know if I show that I don't care much about it and they can in turn also not care much about it. Again is that the emphasizing that I mentioned earlier like people are going to be and recurred is just in a in an I think an era where these things are turned up to the max from like second one of beating one another. That's a shame but that's currently how it is so defusing that and breaking the ice ever I think is is something that really shouldn't be as necessary as it is but it really is currently necessary I think.

Taylor 35:34

Yeah I think that's a a great strategy to have like just making it known right away that you're comfortable like you're very self-aware and that you're no one has to walk around eggshells around you. So I I think that that's a good strategy to have and that's something I I like to do as well. I I've always had a bit of a dark humor and so I like dark humor is itself a blind joke. Oh and uh what's what's funny is my my family obviously knows I have a dark humor and and especially about my blindness and so we'll when we're people then make a joke about my blindness and I can feel the the uncomfortable the other person has and I'm like and then they'll see me laugh and then they're like oh okay they're not like bullshit.

Florian 36:25

It is sad. I mean um there's obviously people who it's very sensitive for and I think those people should be catered to but we have I think only like landed in a place where it's almost offensive if a person is joking about their own circumstances which I don't think that was ever the I don't think that was ever the intent of of being more inclusive like if I can't laugh about being blind because I find it funny specifically about myself like I I laugh about crashing into a lamppost why can I not laugh about that? Why can anybody laugh about that when they do it to themselves but I can't like it it's it's a bit of a strange like it's that emphasis people put on it.

Taylor 37:05

And that that brings me to a great point and I always love to talk about like what are some like situations that you find yourself in or things that happen throughout the day that bring you joy because of your blindness like you said about walking into door frames I do that quite a bit I have very bad periphery on my left side so I'm always clipping doorways on my left shoulder. And I I at this point I'm like oh gosh.

Florian 37:34

So what are some stuff like that very specific things like a cam I I once poured uh grape juice into someone's coffee instead of creamer because the bottles seem similar almost I caught it in time but only just I sometimes do stuff during streaming where my camera is completely pointed the wrong way and it's filming the ceiling and that's funny. There's all sorts of things that can happen that that give you that quick laugh. Like sometimes you know people appreciate you for the blankness that can be a thing that can be very interesting as well that that's a group of people that have that going on as well which is really cool. And sometimes it's just really normal strange things that you don't even really think about until it happens.

Taylor 38:18

Yeah and that's a great mindset to have because it it's very easy to feel beaten down in those moments and yeah think oh I wish I could do that better why why can't I do that? And so it's it's very refreshing to meet someone else who embraces those moments and it's again anyone has those thoughts I think like if you you know anyone who makes an omelet and completely completely balls it.

Florian 38:45

Like it's yeah that's that's sad. Like your omelette's now not an omelet but that's not a blind thing. That's uh anyone who cooks sometimes flips it wrong and now you have a scramble instead of an omelet that's just that's just the thing that happens like you can attribute that to being blind that sometimes it is attributable to that but you can also just not and take that out of the equation and decide that you're a human that does things wrong sometimes and that's an okay thing to do.

Taylor 39:10

Yeah absolutely and uh one interesting then thing that happened to me a while back was I have two pairs of shoes that are identical but they're black and one's white oh so you did the two shoes like different shoes thing yeah yeah my my right shoe was black and my left one was white I do that all the time with socks it's a bit of a it's a bit of a fashion statement at this point I rarely have matching socks on I was getting compliments so they were asking me where I got my shoes because they thought they were made like that because they were complete inverses of each other.

Florian 39:45

So I was like I think that is kind of somewhat a pun ending fashion trend so what does a typical day look like for you a typical day um I mean I'll get up obviously I'll make some breakfast or get some breakfast if I either don't have the stuff to cook or don't want to cook or anything of the sort there's plenty of people that plenty of places that deliver food here from like greasy this is really not good for you to salads and and okay so like you can get whatever you want. And sometimes that's a little bit too attractive like you don't want to cook because they do it so much better faster and it doesn't cost you time and money uh to do it. So sometimes that's just the thing you do. Um I work I work on whatever accessibility thing I'm doing at the time it might either be like a a project that I've come up with by myself or it's something I'm doing for a client. I might play some games or do some hacking. Cybersecurity is something I'm training in so that is something I'd like to get better at there's other things I might do. I might play some music or I might go for a bit of a uh bike or a jog. I have a couple of uh like home gym things in my attic that I um would like to use more than now it's not warm in the house anymore. We don't really do AC in the houses here usually so in summer it's a bit of a non-starter because you'll just get sweaty even walking up to the attic let alone actually being on the uh on the equipment but unfortunately it's getting colder again so that's something I'd like to do more of again. And yeah sometimes I do uh streams either about tech or games or whatever interests me that week and uh yeah in between I talk to friends I talk to partner I talk to a bunch of different like folks sometimes colleagues and at some point usually in the middle of the night I go to sleep nice so are there any daily tasks that are affected and like like for me like picking up clothes can be a little bit longer process some days like just figuring out what my options are and like those kinds of things. I have very um fittable clothes I would say like you can I have most of my clothes just matched with them with others in my cupboard. Like I have a lot of hoodies I have a lot of jeans so it's very easy to usually find an outfit and I don't really do the suit and tie thing most days so it's not usually a huge issue to wear nothing if I want to do that. I work from home so I can do whatever I want um but yeah no usually I do put like pretty pretty like easy sort of basic outfits together. It's not generally a problem. Really the one thing I think that is tricky is anything involving paperwork. Like a lot of the times you have to sign forms by hand you have to put like a print signature or you have to pay a bill that's only being um this this like disseminated with snail mail regular postal mail which still happens here a lot of the time there's been a law for like a decade now that they're trying to essentially make that more digital if people want that but it's been stuck in in government for 10 years. So um it still happens that I get essentially letters I can't read and then the argument is usually you can use apps to read those and that's true but there can be mistakes in those apps and particularly if you have things like invoice numbers or very specific like amounts that you have to pay. I don't think I trust apps quite enough to tell me if it's 2200 or 2000 I'm owing. Those are a bit of a difference. Yeah so and then people you know over here it's still very much like there is again there's not really an accessibility mindset in most of the public sector so really when you bring these kinds of things up the first thing people are going to ask is do you have someone in your environment who can help you with that which obviously is a privacy matter but they don't think of that. So that's really the the the last frontier I think the final frontier of of not being able to do things rapidly by myself I mean yes I can do all those things and I generally do eventually it's just a huge headache to do yeah yeah that makes sense sometimes trans for like transporting things like sometimes I have to go get a package or something. I don't have a car obviously so um I used to have to do that with paratransit which is impossible to plan anything with these days here but Um as of like early this year, like last year, we have Uber here now, which is a lot um, I mean, obviously it's a bit more expensive than paratransit would be, but it helps a lot in just being able to, you know, decide five minutes before you leave that you want to leave now. You want to go to this specific uh spot, you want to do this specific task and go back home and not take hours doing it, which really wasn't something I had the luxury of being able to do for a long time. So that's still a bit of a new thing for me.

Taylor 44:29

So are you like involved in any like communities where you can interact? Like for me, like it's mostly virtually, but interact with other people with different disabilities, whether it be blindness or others.

Florian 44:43

I mean I keep an eye on r slash blind on Reddit. That's about it. I'd say I don't really like vibe with the blind community as a whole, I feel like I generally have very specific different interests that um they do not share, and they have very specific interests that I do not share. So I tend to not be a huge comp uh component of such a community, but I keep an eye from the sidelines on things, on developments. And the people I do talk with, talk to for the most part, I would say are um what do you call that, able-bodied now, like non-disabled, or I'm not sure what the current phrase is, but people who generally do not have a self-professed disability.

Taylor 45:26

Yeah, it's uh like you run into stuff that's called ableist, and it's like some of it's changed. I think they're moving away from saying able body, because it I feel like people are saying then it implies if you have a disability or not able.

Florian 45:43

Well, so that's essentially what disabled means. It's one of those interesting rings where like words it becomes such a soup of different terminology that even I, as a disabled person, don't know what to call myself anymore because people keep changing it. Um I tend to just go with blind, but even in the US that can mean like 10 different things, so it's it's hard. Fully blind is what I've landed on, or without sight. Sometimes I call myself a gamer without sight.

Taylor 46:10

Yeah, and with with blindness, you I'm not sure if it's as uh popular over in the Netherlands, maybe so, but uh I'll often deal with like I'll say I'm blind, and people think I'm saying it as like a metaphor, and like I'm not really blind, or I just I don't have my content.

Florian 46:30

Yeah.

Taylor 46:30

Yeah, so I'm like, no, no, I'm actually like legally blind.

Florian 46:35

I I did an AMA on Reddit a couple of days ago on r slash AMA, like ask me anything, and I was like, I'm a blind person who plays video games, ask me anything, and I put without sight, like no sight at all in brackets, but just make that clearer. Because otherwise, yeah, you might just get people thinking you're trolling or people who think you're not being literal for as yes, I'm very much blind, and it's very much of okay to talk about. It's not a problem. That's that's interesting.

Taylor 47:01

Yeah, it's it's uh something that uh uh like again, I always look for the the joy and the humor and things, like people will feel bad because they're like they'll say something that they think might be offensive once they find out I actually am blind. Because I'll have times where I'll say, um, I'm sorry, I can't read that. Could you read it to me I'm blind? And they're like, Yeah, me too. I'm like, no, no, no, yeah, that happens as well.

Florian 47:29

Yeah, absolutely. Um I do support, I have to tell support that something isn't working, and I'll tell them that I'm blind, then they'll tell me to use a zoom feature and it's fine. Like, yeah, that's exactly why I don't like people who are not blind calling themselves blind. This is the kind of thing you get. Yeah, it's uh it's an interesting situation for sure.

Taylor 47:51

I think that's one of those ableist terms, like people misappropriating disabilities, that kind of stuff. Like, I'm not taking offense to it, but I do think it can cause some confusion and make some interactions a bit more complex. Yeah. Um, but I mean that again depends on who you talk to, and that's why I usually start these by asking the interviewer if they have a preference, because last thing I want to do is be using person first if someone prefers identity or vice versa.

Florian 48:24

But that, like I said, it's just really never really took off here. So I almost have to think which one is which all of the time.

Taylor 48:31

Yeah, so like person, like person with blindness or blind person identity. Yeah, so yeah, I always just think identity first, the blind, the blindness being your identity before the person. Yeah, so it really can vary depending on who you're talking to. And I learned from you, it's not as popular for where you are.

Florian 48:55

So I mean, if it was, I never got the memo.

Taylor 48:58

So yeah, and it can be a bit challenging. And even as a disability advocate, I'll still miss mess up here and there, but I have learned through doing more and more of these interviews, it tends to be a bit more inclusive to use a blend of both if you don't know your audience. So I usually by default I use a little bit of both, which I think most people do anyway. So I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Which which is is is good if that's quote unquote the more inclusive way to go about doing it. So do you feel like blindness is well represented in media?

Florian 49:38

No.

Taylor 49:40

Yeah, I I don't think.

Florian 49:41

I don't think it's pretty much at all represented in media, and if it is, it's terribly done. No.

Taylor 49:47

And this is a topic I always uh covered depending no matter the disability, but now that I'm talking about blindness, but the first time I was excited about this one because I know blindness is not represented well at all in the media. So I'm curious to know what your thoughts on that. Like, what do you see being misrepresented?

Florian 50:07

Everything that better. It's it's it's really just like again, it's that emphasis. You see that when a blind character in media shows up, they're usually very, very, very, very blind. And I am again putting air quotes around blind, so they're they have all the blind gadgets, they do all the blindisms, they rock, they like rub their eyes, they click to do echolocation, they have 15 white canes, it's a whole thing, and and have just all white eyes, because apparently exactly what people like need to see to give this person like the visual um okay of being blind, like it's a very specific like look that they're looking like they're usually looking for, and it's generally very clear that they either haven't spoken to a blind person or they spoke to a very particular one that may not have been as and just assuming we're all the same, yeah. They may not have been very integrated into society as a whole. Like, absolutely that's fine if that's who you are. But I think a lot of people who are in that place where they do, you know, perfectly normal, um, in quotes again, normal lives, mainstream lives that essentially, you know, they go, they have jobs, they go out, they do stuff that they want to do, and they're not just sort of sitting there doing nothing, which some people unfortunately are relegated to being uh in that position. And and those are usually the people who get interviewed because those are more interesting. But I feel the people who aren't doing that, like people who do essentially have all those things going on and get in, get out there and do their thing, feel they're not being represented because that would be a very boring blind person in a sense that they just do what everybody else does just slightly differently. Which um yeah, that I think I would like to see more blind peoples just going on the train and going to work and having an office job. I think that would be doing a lot of good for representation um out there, because that really isn't covered ever at all. Yeah, and uh now that you say it I had speakers the other week with my partner, and it was like of course he's good at listening for sounds, and of course he has a brille display, which again I have too, but it's one of those things that has to be in there to make this person be properly blind. And it's like, yeah.

Taylor 52:21

I mean, it was from the 90s, so I guess I can give them a bit of flack there, but and yeah, I've actually now that you say all this, it makes me think like I feel like, and especially since we both share the idea that blindness can bring some humor in certain situations.

Florian 52:36

I I think uh Yeah, I forget what his name is. One of the Grand Theft Auto games, GTA, I want to say five or maybe four, and there is a blind character, and then it's a bit of a caricature of a blind person, and one thing they do at some point, everyone has gathered, and the blind person isn't there. And uh someone says, Yeah, he was coming, but he insisted on driving here himself, which I can appreciate that kind of humor.

Taylor 53:07

Uh yeah, that that is for the get. But yeah, I I uh speaking in media, I saw a very interesting like I I don't know how popular it is in your area. Do you all watch the Super Bowl for American football?

Florian 53:23

Um not really, but I know what it is.

Taylor 53:25

I've been in the US when it was on a few times, so uh, but in this last one, there was a commercial, I believe it was for the Google Pixel.

Florian 53:35

Okay. It was uh like it was showing kind of what it's like for someone with a visual impairment to be capturing less moments and like it had their camera taking a picture, but all the pictures are blurry, and then it would show like the crisp image after, and so it's just like an interesting moment to see blindness being advocated for on such a public platform. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't think I saw that in the commercial, but yeah, that that is an interesting thing.

Taylor 54:09

Yeah, maybe you look uh watch it at some point. I think it was Google Pixel, but yeah, it's it was a pretty interesting. It made me tear up a little bit to see it. I'm not gonna lie.

Florian 54:18

Yeah, there's some cool things happening in that space. I can now on my I have a Google Pixel actually, the latest one, and one thing it lets you do is you can swipe down on a screen a certain way in the camera app, and it'll not make a picture. It'll not take a picture, but it'll tell you what the camera is currently looking at, and if you were to take a picture, what will be on it, which is kind of cool because that also sort of allows you to, if a little haphazardly and a little clumsily, line up what you actually want in your picture and then take it. Like we really isn't a thing we used to be able to do. We had to essentially take the picture and then check what was in it after the fact. And this is sort of flipping that upside down, which is not helpful for moving things, but if you're just trying to get like a good shot of a statue or something, it can actually be really helpful.

Taylor 55:01

So that brings us to an interesting topic. I know you had said about using a brilliant display and about using your your camera on your phone for identifying objects, or it's like so. What are some other accessibility tools and technology do you that you use that helps you in day-to-day life, work, school, all that kind of stuff?

Florian 55:23

Really just the screen readers on my various devices and um and my braille display. Like my braille display is also a keyboard, it has a keyboard built in. So I can, with also wireless headphones, be anywhere in the house and do work and do play and pretty much do whatever I want, unless I have to be something like this where I have to be near a good microphone in order to be heard. But if I'm just doing my own thing, I can literally work in bed, I can work on a toilet, I can play games in the garden, I can do whatever I want. Which that's pretty cool. Um apart from that, I don't really use that many gadgets. I don't think I don't have super many blind, like specific gadgets that I use commonly. Like I have a little music player called a sense player that I use on planes to be able to listen to things like podcasts and books, sometimes recordings of TV shows. But generally that's about it. Yeah, it's really just my phone with a screen reader and my computer with a screen reader and a burrito play. I do have a white cane. I used to have a guide dog, but he retired last year. I still have him, but he's not doing his work anymore. He's just a pet dog now. Um and that was definitely a big difference, both positively and negatively. But right now I I I don't really have to leave the house that much because I work from home and you know, since the pandemic hit, so many things have gotten so much easier without having to leave your house. So I just haven't had a strong need to get another guide dog as of yet. It might change in the future. I do hear back to the office, things are becoming more common, so that's uh a thing to keep in mind. But yeah, I've been doing a lot of staying at home, and if and if I do go out, I usually go with people who have working eyeballs. So it's not been super useful, like super needed to have another guide dog. And when I go out myself, I have my cane, I have my phone for navigation. Um, I can call upon things like IRA if I get really lost. I need someone to look through my camera, or I can call upon people who would like to do that over WhatsApp that I just have in my friend circle that can help me out in a pinch. They can localize me in Google Maps, tell me where to go. So there's always ways of outsourcing disability uh situational help to a bunch of different apps, technologies, and sometimes people.

Taylor 57:54

Nice. Yeah, and I've uh saw I think it was the meta-ray bands. You can have have you used the app Be My Eyes?

Florian 58:04

Yes, I have used Be My Eyes. I also have those glasses that you're talking about.

Taylor 58:08

Yeah, so have you used it where you uh have the video coming from your glasses?

Florian 58:14

So they can Yeah, I do that same time if I'm taking a walk with my partner. Um they look for my eyes when they're not here. And uh yeah, they'll tell me essentially where to go, and well, we can comment on what they're seeing. It can be quite fun to have uh a walk like that where essentially we have the WhatsApp link and they can see what I cannot see, and then we can sort of have that conversation. So that's that's pretty fun.

Taylor 58:38

Nice. And so when uh going back to the guide dog, do you think you'll you'll eventually get another one?

Florian 58:46

Pretty hard to say, not currently, maybe in like five, ten years.

Taylor 58:51

Gotcha. And so for me personally, I I don't have one, but I've considered getting one. And so for people like me who are considering it, do you have any advice on whether or not they should get one, any criteria that may help them decide?

Florian 59:06

It's a good idea to talk to your local venues before you do it. Um, particularly in the US, it's not technically allowed to refuse a guide dog owner, but it definitely does happen more than you think. If you want to use Uber in particular, you have a problem because that is a particular like sore spot um that I hear. Apparently, a lot of Uber drivers refuse guide dogs and they have reasons for that. Sometimes they're good reasons, sometimes they're not so good reasons, but it can certainly be uh a blocker on your day if you can't take your guide dog with you. Um so yeah, having that conversation is a good idea. Guide dogs make you a lot faster in a sense that they take a lot of the processing that you have to do of your environment away from you, and they allow you to walk a lot faster than you probably would with your cane in most cases. Some people walk really fast with a cane, but generally a lot of people who use a cane are a lot slower than they probably could be, me included. They make you go a lot faster, but you know, you are also two hu two creatures, two living creatures that are walking around now. So you have to account for that with things like space, uh, food, water. You have to make sure that the dog is cared for wherever you go. You have to make sure you don't stress the dog out. My dog, for example, has a serious aversion to cars and planes, so I cannot actually take him if I go far away. If it's like a half-an hour car trip, I'll do that in an hour if I have to, but he really doesn't like it very much. So I try to avoid that as much as I possibly can. You can only leave him alone at the house for so long because he might need to go, which is also something you're gonna have to get used to cleaning up. Because here in the Netherlands, amusingly, you're not mandated to pick it up. You're not supposed to like pick it up because the the logic is you're blind, you're not able to tell which which dog dropped something, and you're supposed to not pick up somebody else's dog droppings, but um pretty much everywhere else that logic doesn't fly, and you just have to pick it up yourself anyway, which honestly I feel is better because particularly in a residential neighborhood where no one else picks it up, it's gonna add, it's gonna it's gonna add up and it's gonna be there, and no one's gonna deal with it. So you're gonna have to learn how to how to deal with that yourself. And particularly in the US, they'll teach you that. But yeah, these are all things that a lot of people I don't think realize when you get a dog. You have a living creature that you're taking care of now, it's not just a bull. And there's all sorts of reasons why that might not be ideal. So my dog is a is a gigantic drooler, he'll drool everywhere he goes, like he leaves his trails, he's also very much a shatter. So if I take him to a hotel, um, they don't love me very much when I leave there. It's just a it's just a thing. Like they have a lot of cleanup to do, which that's something to keep in mind. That's also something when you get matched with a dog, those are questions to ask. Like, are you going to run into that? Do you have to deal with that? So yeah, they help a lot, they can certainly take a lot of the drudgery out of walking, and it's certainly gotten me to get out of my house a lot more often than I used to when I didn't have a guide dog, but they do certainly also have their downsides, and that's good to keep in mind. Not because you know dogs are bad, but because you have essentially a living companion with you for 10 years that you can't just decide to get rid of when it gets difficult.

Taylor 1:02:16

Very interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think that's very valuable information, not only just for other blind individuals, but for anyone to truly understand what having a service animal can mean, both good and the more challenging. Yeah, a very helpful perspective. So I appreciate that. So before we finish up here, um, are there any closing remarks you anything you want to touch on or any advice you want to share with anyone else in a similar situation?

Florian 1:02:51

Um, we've already really said it, but I think that the best bit of advice I can give is don't let other people tell you what you can and cannot do. Find that out yourself. Even if you think you can't do it, try it. See if you see if you're right. Because you may very well not be, or you may very well not be yet. Like there might be something you have to practice at before you can do it. And I think a lot of people get stuck there. Like if you are scared of leaving the house, leave the house and only take a few steps out. Then do it again and take a few more steps out. Like realize that you're not getting hurt, you're not getting lost. And if you get lost, you'll get unlost. It's fine. Do try and just be your best you. And if that means you do things that you're not supposed to be able to do, do them anyway. Prove them wrong.

Taylor 1:03:33

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for all this. It's been great talking to you and great content for other people to learn from. So thank you again so much for for participating, and thank you all so much for watching. And uh yeah, wonderful having you. Uh yeah, so we'll see you all next time. We're gonna be covering blindness a little bit more, and then we'll see what we move on to next. So thank you again for joining Day in the Life and see you next time. Thank you all for joining us while we explore accessibility and disability. If you enjoyed this podcast, check out more episodes and show notes at accessible community.org slash podcasts. Remember, be accessible, be inclusive.