Jordi was writing about turning bigots and mentioned that he had been one in the past.
I think what made me aware of all these issues over the years was simple exposure from friends and family. Homophobia only started to register once cousins of mine came out. Sexism only started to be a serious problem once my wife started telling stories. Racism only got real for me once my stepmom joined the family. And I also see the other side: ableism is harder to see for me because I don’t know anybody affected.
Then again, years ago I was working on an #Emacs based IRC client called ERC with Mario Lang. After a while I realized he was blind. He told us how angry bicycles make him when people leave them on the sidewalk. I was confused but for him, walking along the sidewalk at a brisk pace, they were traps. His super light stick would get caught in their spokes and break off! Then he was suddenly blind for real!
Mario taught me to make sure my websites must work in text browsers: w3m, lynx, edbrowse.
#Accessability