When I sit at a bus stop in Chicago, I can rest assured that the next public transit bus that arrives will be able to accommodate me in my motorized wheelchair. When the driver pulls up and opens the door, they can then flip a switch that deploys a ramp, which enables me to roll right into the bus.
It used to be that just the opposite was true. Back before the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990—which mandated that all new public transportation buses put into service had to be wheelchair accessible—there were zero accessible buses on the streets of Chicago.
But today I take complete accessibility for granted, just as I took complete inaccessibility as a given back then. This brings me great satisfaction, because I feel like there’s no turning back. I feel confident that the inaccessible buses that were once commonplace will never be seen again. My right to access an essential public service is no longer up for debate.
I never would have thought child labor would be up for debate anymore, either. Boy was I wrong.
But lately I’m starting to wonder if I’m being naive about that. I never would have thought child labor would be up for debate anymore, either. Boy was I wrong. Last month, Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Donald Trump’s former White House mouthpiece, signed a bill into law that makes it easier for businesses to hire people who are fourteen and fifteen years old. The legislation rolled back a requirement that the state’s Department of Labor verify the ages of, and issue work permits to, people under age sixteen before they could start jobs.
In Iowa, a proposed bill would allow teens as young as fourteen to work in meatpacking and other industries. This comes after a Wisconsin-based company named Packer Sanitation Services paid $1.5 million in February following a U.S Department of Labor charge that the company employed more than 100 people between ages thirteen and seventeen to handle hazardous chemicals and clean meat processing equipment, including saws.
And I’d really thought we’d matured beyond the point where cheap political points could be scored by demonizing people who dress in drag. I mean, RuPaul’s Drag Race just aired its fifteenth season finale. But we all know there is now a law in Tennessee that classifies drag as the type of “adult cabaret entertainment” that cannot take place on public property or in a place where it could be seen by minors. Minors in Tennessee, however, can still watch football games and see gyrating cheerleaders, as long as those cheerleaders are dressed in a manner considered to be appropriate for someone of the gender they were divinely assigned at birth.
I also thought we had long ago settled the question of whether a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions without involving a judge was debatable. Wrong again!
So maybe I shouldn’t feel so cocky about my ability to get around. Maybe big, regressive political and cultural shifts aren’t unthinkable after all. Maybe there is no point of no return.