6 Ways to Strengthen Gender Inclusion in Disability Rights & Advocacy Spaces

Practical steps to ensure gender inclusion is embedded in disability advocacy work.

March 17, 2026
DEIA, March

Disability rights spaces are rooted in equity — or at least, they’re meant to be.

Even within these spaces, women and gender-diverse people with disabilities are often underrepresented in leadership and over relied on for unpaid labor.

In its report Strengthening Gender Inclusion in Disability Rights Spaces, Women Enabled International found that gender inclusion in disability advocacy is often informal, personality-driven, or dependent on a few committed individuals.

With that in mind, Women’s History Month is a natural moment to ask: How are we promoting gender inclusion — not just in our values, but in our advocacy efforts, policy positions, and leadership?

Based on the findings and recommendations from the report, here are six meaningful ways to strengthen gender inclusion within your advocacy efforts.

1. Look at who represents your organization publicly

When your organization meets with legislators, gives testimony at a hearing, or sits on a panel, who goes? The same few people? The most comfortable public speakers?

The report from Women Enabled International noted that cisgender men (and some cisgender women) usually lead advocacy efforts in the U.S. Even if it’s unintentional, that pattern shapes whose perspectives influence policy conversations.

This month, take a look at your upcoming advocacy engagements. If the same few names keep popping up, consider who else you could invite — not just to share personal stories, but to speak on policy and systems issues. It’s a concrete way to shift whose voices are shaping your advocacy efforts.

2. Build capacity and confidence

Of course, increasing representation is just the first step. As the Women Enabled International report notes, women and gender-diverse people who get involved in advocacy may not always feel equipped to actually navigate these spaces.

Training and skill-building can be the difference between sitting in the audience and taking the mic. Resources like the New Jersey Self-Advocacy Project’s Know Your Rights! can help self-advocates understand their rights and protections. Likewise, opportunities to practice public speaking or mock testimony can make stepping into a legislative hearing less intimidating.

3. Fix the “unpaid expert” problem

From policy review meetings to strategy calls, women and women with disabilities are often relied on to shape advocacy behind the scenes. But when that expertise doesn’t come with a paycheck, it adds extra labor to the people who are already most affected by policy decisions.

If you don’t budget for expert advice the same way you’d budget for guest speakers or consultants, that’s a gap you can fix this quarter. Consider adding a line item to your budget for lived-experience consultants, or offering dedicated scholarships or stipends for participation in advisory groups.

4. Review your policy positions through a gender lens

Women’s History Month is also the perfect time to take a closer look at your advocacy priorities and make sure your efforts reflect your full community — including women and gender-diverse people with disabilities.

“A lot of disability rights spaces can focus on a very singular disabled subject. Usually white, usually a wheelchair user, usually only has one disability,” said one focus group respondent in the Women Enabled International report.

One solution is to include more women and gender-diverse people in leadership roles within advocacy groups. When leadership reflects a wider range of lived experience, your advocacy is far less likely to default to a narrow version of disability.

5. Tap into cross-movement partnerships

Issues like equitable wages, inclusive employment, caregiving, and reproductive healthcare cut across gender, ethnicity, and disability. This is why building cross-movement partnerships is so powerful.

Instead of just signing joint statements, look for concrete ways to work together with organizations that promote gender inclusion. Co-authoring policy briefs, hosting shared leadership retreats and strategy sessions, and sharing data or research on gender and disability can turn parallel efforts into shared strategy.

6. Use data to highlight gender issues

When it comes to advocacy, data drives everything from funding to policy decisions. But without breaking that data down by gender and disability, it’s easy for women and gender-diverse people to be overlooked.

As the Women Enabled International report explains, “Collecting data disaggregated by gender and disability can help demonstrate the importance of gender inclusion in disability rights work, as such data helps mainstream actors to understand the disproportionate impact on women and gender-diverse people with disabilities.”

Start by reviewing the data you already collect — for example, community participation, employment, wages, or outcomes — and break it down by gender. This helps identify gaps and make the case for inclusion in broader policy conversations.

Final thoughts

Like disability inclusion, gender inclusion doesn’t happen just because we believe in it. It happens when we build it into who represents us, which issues we support, what data we collect, and whose voices we elevate.

For more tools and guidance to put this into practice, explore our advocacy resources.