Space has long been a cornerstone of speculative narratives. While space travel is possible in the now, it is often imagined as a substantial and publicly accessible element of imagined futurescapes. It can be a tool for colonization, or liberation, or late-stage capitalism. Sometimes there are aliens and magic involved, sometimes it is just plain old humans dancing around in the stars. Either way, space allows for and encourages exploration. In their article, “Why Are Spaces in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?” Ace Ratcliff reminds us: 

Space, as we all know, is the final frontier. It’s the star-spangled playground in which our imaginations run amok, and the setting for stories that made us fall in love with sci-fi...The characters that roam space have built homes in our hearts that allowed those of us who are trapped in Earth’s gravity-well to fulfill some of our wildest fantasies. Space remains a vast, untamed place, penned in only by the limits of our imaginations. So why the hell are there so many staircases in space? (Ratcliff "Why Are Spaces" 2)

Ratcliff points out the possibilities of space imaginings, before asking why these narratives don’t imagine space to be accessible. Ratcliff is quick to acknowledge that, before they became disabled, they “never once wondered why I so rarely saw disabled humans out and about” ("Why Are Spaces" 4). In our reality, so much of our world is inaccessible to disabled people. As Ratcliff frames it, “When you don’t need wheels to get around, the world is literally built for you” ("Why Are Spaces" 4). The issue with imagining futures in space is that those futures are informed by and created for abled bodies, just as our reality is. And yet, for disabled people, this often feels like a huge disappointment. Even in “our wildest fantasies,” we still cannot physically traverse these fantasies. When disabled people are not imagined as part of the future, and we could not move through that future even if we wanted to, it signals that “disabled representation isn’t just a low priority, it rarely exists at all” ("Why Are Spaces" 5). 

Ratcliff’s article, “(Un)safe Refuge: The Built-In Ableism in Queer Spaces,” takes these critiques out of the speculative, pointing toward the inaccessibility of queer spaces in the now. Ratcliff’s critique is an important one, highlighting the lack of accessibility in spaces that claim to be “safe.” In their critique, we glimpse the difficulty of existing at the intersection of queerness and disability. Even when queer futures are imagined, they rarely make room for disability, or if disability is featured, it rarely features queerness as well. Ratcliff asks, “Is it really surprising that our fantasy worlds are reflective of the inaccessibility that occurs in our real world society?” ("(Un)safe Refuge" 5). 

The pieces in this section explore and challenge the (in)accessibility and intersectional experience of queer disabled people in space. In TJ Berry’s Space Unicorn Blues, Jenny, a lesbian wheelchair-user who is paralyzed from the waist down, must constantly navigate the difficulties of inaccessibility in space. For her, zero gravity proves a great accessibility tool, as it allows her to move through spaces that are otherwise not wheelchair accessible. Throughout the novel, she mentions the difficulty of being disabled and a wheelchair user in space, and how the designs of space are completely inaccessible to most disabled people. Berry’s novel provides a nuanced critique of queer disabled experience in space. In Jenny, Berry gives us a character who demands accommodation, who is resilient but also honest about the difficulties of navigating space as a disabled person. In The Labyrinth’s Archivist by Day Al-Mohamed, Azulea, a queer, blind woman of color, is training to be an archivist. Her family runs the Archive on a waystation between worlds. The novella is a murder mystery as well as fantasy, and much of the plot consists of Azulea solving the case while the able-bodied people bumble around not believing her because she is blind.