When talking about "accessibility" in general, there is a tendency to assume the issue comes about from bigotry.
i.e; ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc- something like "the place is homophobic, which makes it inaccessible to gay people"
and while this can be true and can definitely be the reason something is inaccessible

there is another form of accessibility; a form that comes about not due to any hate or bigoted ideas around some group of people,
but rather from simply *not considering* it at all.

for example something might be categorized by color, and this might work really well for organizing something;
but- it would be inaccessible to someone who is colorblind,

and it probably wasn't made that way "because the creator hated colorblinds" but rather-
they simply just did not consider the experience, that they do not have or share.
 

this is the type of accessibility i would like talk about today- an accessibility created from simply lacking a certain experience; accessibility for Systems;

i wanted to write about this after trying to fill out the 2026 Gender Census; (though not necessarily entirely about them-)
and i don't really have a problem with them though- its a thing ive seen in alot of places already;

the main issue i kept running into was that there wasn't really an answer that would explain things in full context-

for example, it asks what pronouns i prefer, and well i prefer they/them, and fae/faer, and occasionally she/her-
however, some of our alters, might prefer specifically she/her, or specifically they/them, or even he/him (which you should never use for me-)

later it asks what gender identity i align with, with options like demigirl, agender, woman, man, girl, boy, cisgender, transgender, etc;
which again, depends on what alter you are talking about, IM trans, and a demigirl, however, some of our alters, might be women; agender, and even cisgender (the reasoning being 'i was not here when genders were assigned.')

so what are you to do if your part of a system? .. it was not said what i should do,
it never even considers the possibility- the entire thing is based around assuming you have one consistent identity,

so what am i supposed to do when that assumption is wrong? .. it didn't say anywhere what im supposed to do;

i kind of just guessed, all these sections are thankfully multiple choice,
as being to multiple genders is very common amongst gender-diverse people, (bi-gender, polygender)
so is the tendency for gender identity to change over time (genderfluid)

so what i ended up doing is select answers not just that applied to myself-
but that i also knew applies to another alter as well,

trying to answer collectively this isn't a good solution, but its what i did.
i don't like this as it kind of erases individuality from other alters; which is something i generally try to avoid doing.
you could say its a collective answer, but you could also say its just trying to singlet-ify my experiences,

but-- despite that this approach is also flawed in many other ways;

because actually, to be honest; i do not actually know everything about my system,
infact, i would say, i probably do not know most things about my system-

DID typically has memory barriers between alters,

i cannot recall most* of what happens after we switch;
but it's subtle, their not obvious- they only become apparent if you actually try access the missing information;
otherwise your mind tricks you into thinking that you do have access to that,

and its also not perfect, sometimes some stuff does go through anyway;
(honestly i could write a whole page on this, except for the fact that's been done alot already)

basically; most of my information i know about other alters is either;
whats shared in internal or external communications-
or what was shared with me by others;

most of my information is about a few common fronters too, with very little known about some of the others;
 

anyway, got me thinking a bit, what else could i have done in this situation-

i suppose another option could have been;

to fill out the census multiple times* for each specific alter, and let them answer what they feel is correct;
there are a few issues here though;

the obvious issue here; is that you might trigger some spam filter, or something as you are filling out multiple answers-
i could see something like this maybe having attempts to be 'griefed' by transphobes by sending multiple fake answers or something-

but- this also assumes every alter is easy to switch into; if they are not, then they are just left out,

we have a few alters that cannot be easily switched into, in general we cannot actually control when we switch;
rather, its better to say we can influence it -- certain alters come out very rarely, some in very specific circumstance-
with no known way to bring them out;

you could wait around for them to come around naturally, this assumes you have infinite time though;
and also this only works with relatively small alter count, if your alter count is very high; it becomes very impractical xS
 

admittedly though it is the closest to treating each individual alter; as if they are their own independent person-- if your into that sort of thing

anyway, you might think "oh its a gender census, not a plural census" or ... "this seems like a very isolated issue" but its not;
first off, gender and system stuff are very intertwined, as different alters can have different genders; but -- this -- goes beyond the gender census,

i have had this same 'oh i think we would answer this differently' feelings over alot of things, awhile ago; i was doing a thing where you write what things- make you feel what ways; the idea was to be able to create a plan to kinda de-escalate from a certain situation, and (to avoid escalating in the first place)
like if we're angry, or triggered or whatever else-

asking things like e.g what makes you feel calm, what makes you feel more alert, what makes you worried, etc;
effects sound/music, etc has on you and so on- kinda sensory stuff,

and i was just 'uh, yeah i know that differs between us ...', but once again written assuming there is an answer to that,
not multiple answers, depending on who you are in the moment-

this kind of thing forces me to singlet-ify my experiences alot of the time, but that information is wrong; it cannot be used to actually help us-
if you try some of them, in the wrong situation -- it wont work, it might make things worse-

if you want to actually create a plan to de-escalate or otherwise 'pull down' from a 'heightened' place;
you need to consider our entire situation, and entire context of the system; we don't work this way-
 

but it goes beyond that again because someone might ask me what i did over some course of time;
like i dunno, a general 'how was your weekend' or better yet 'what are you planning to do today'

and its often assumed both that i
- i was the only one doing these things;
- know what i was doing
- actually experienced a weekend/have a plan for later

so what might have been, "Eli said this, then we went out and tried to do that, Sophie fronted, did god knows what" .. i have to instead say;
"we thought this, then we went out and tried to do this, and i don't remember the rest." -- the issue is this which kind of erases our alters, our system, from the equation; entirely, a system that is consistently having issues with feeling like their never seen, understood or, recognized, and a host who is constantly frustrated having every single thing they do, credited towards them, even if they had nothing to do with it-

if i start talking about alters their going to get lost, i have to be vulnerable and open up about our system; which might not go well
because we live in a socieity, or i have to pretend my alters dont exist, and pretend to be a single identity, which is wrong too;
 

this is not even considering the fact we have alters who are also conscious about us sharing too much about ourselves, who'd rather remain hidden;
as well as ones who feel they are not seen;

bleh, i don't know, please try to consider systems a bit more if your making something, or heck even just .. interacting with a system?

i am not sure the best way to include systems in things; it probably differs a bit because systems have different needs,
and different ways they (collectively) prefer to be treated, seen, etc, probably requires not treating people as a monolith (impossible)

.. but its also okay to just highlight a problem and not know everything-

the only other things i have seen on this / related topics; is this conference on PPWC; from Serenity Serseción-
which i dont remember alot about, but i simultaneously think is pretty good;