Advocacy in 2026, Change Was Never Supposed to Be Comfortable

There is a saying I have used for years, "I would rather be hated than not known at all". I do not mean that I want people to dislike me. I mean that if speaking up makes people uncomfortable, I would rather accept that discomfort than remain silent while something that needs to change continues unchanged.

That philosophy has followed me throughout my career. Years ago, I worked in sexual-health education, distributed condoms through Planned Parenthood outreach, promoted STD testing, supported The Vagina Monologues, and developed education directed specifically toward men around consent, responsibility, alcohol, sexual assault prevention, and protecting everyone involved. Some of those efforts were controversial at the time. Some created enormous resistance. Today, many conversations that once generated outrage are considered normal parts of public-health education and prevention.

That experience taught me something I have never forgotten, progress frequently looks unreasonable before it looks obvious. Many of the changes we now consider common sense began because somebody was willing to challenge what everyone else had simply accepted.

That lesson matters even more in 2026 because the world is changing faster than many of the institutions responsible for adapting to it. Artificial intelligence is changing employment and communication. Digital services increasingly determine whether people can access government, healthcare, education, banking, transportation, employment, and information. Climate and extreme weather continue placing pressure on communities. Humanitarian crises unfold on our phones in real time. At the same time, social media gives us access to more information than any generation before us while somehow making meaningful disagreement increasingly difficult.

Disability advocacy is a perfect example of why change cannot wait until everyone becomes comfortable. Accessibility today is no longer simply about ramps, parking spaces, elevators, bathrooms, and doorways. Our lives increasingly take place online, which means accessibility must also include websites, mobile applications, artificial intelligence, digital communication, employment systems, education platforms, healthcare portals, and emerging technologies.

Artificial intelligence makes this conversation even more important. Technology is increasingly being used to determine who gets interviewed, who gets hired, what information someone receives, how services are delivered, and whose voice is heard. If accessibility and inclusion are treated as something developers can add later, we risk building a new generation of barriers into technology that was supposed to make life easier.

This is why I sometimes describe the disability community as the ambassadors of your future. I say it with humor, but there is a serious truth behind it. Disability is one of the few communities almost anyone can become part of without warning. An accident, stroke, illness, neurological condition, injury, aging, or simply time can completely change the way someone experiences the world.

The accessibility feature someone complains about today may become the feature that allows that same person to enter a restaurant, remain employed, communicate with government, attend school, travel independently, or participate in society tomorrow. Accessibility is not special treatment. It is infrastructure designed around the reality that human beings have different bodies, different abilities, and different needs throughout their lives.

That is not pessimism. That is planning.

Advocacy also cannot exist in separate little boxes anymore. Disability policy connects to healthcare. Healthcare connects to housing. Housing connects to poverty. Transportation connects to employment. Technology connects to accessibility. Education connects to opportunity. Climate and emergency planning connect directly to people who may have mobility, medical, sensory, cognitive, or communication needs.

Human rights are interconnected in the same way. That is why I speak about civilian suffering in places such as Gaza. People can disagree strongly about governments, military decisions, history, borders, political movements, terminology, and possible solutions. Those debates are going to continue. What should never disappear inside those arguments is the humanity of the people living through them, especially children and civilians who did not create the conflict surrounding them.

For me, advocacy means refusing to allow human beings to become abstract numbers simply because acknowledging their suffering has become politically inconvenient. It also means recognizing that advocacy is strongest when it is grounded in facts, when advocates are willing to correct themselves, and when we can defend our principles without losing our own humanity in the process.

That last part has become particularly important during the social-media era. Platforms often reward outrage because outrage creates engagement. People increasingly talk past one another instead of talking to one another. A disagreement becomes a personal attack, a rebuttal becomes harassment, and difficult subjects can become reporting contests instead of conversations.

That is not healthy advocacy.

Advocacy should challenge people. Sometimes it should make people uncomfortable. But it should also leave enough space for somebody to listen, think, reconsider, learn, and possibly change their position. If every disagreement immediately becomes an attempt to destroy the person on the other side, nobody actually learns anything.

Change rarely happens because everybody suddenly agrees. Change happens because somebody identifies a problem, somebody refuses to ignore it, other people begin paying attention, evidence accumulates, institutions are pressured to respond, and eventually something that once seemed radical becomes normal.

I have watched that cycle throughout my life.

The causes have evolved. Sexual-health education became broader community advocacy. Disability became personal. Physical accessibility expanded into digital accessibility. Community outreach expanded into conversations about technology, artificial intelligence, human rights, public health, children, education, and what kind of society we are creating for the generation coming behind us.

The philosophy, however, has remained remarkably consistent.

When something is broken, somebody has to be willing to say it is broken. When people are being ignored, somebody has to make them visible. When technology advances, somebody has to ask who is being left behind. When government creates policy, somebody has to ask who cannot access it. When civilians suffer, somebody has to remember that politics does not erase humanity. When society becomes comfortable living with a problem, somebody has to make that comfort uncomfortable again.

That is advocacy in 2026.

It is not about being the loudest person in the room. It is not about being permanently angry, winning every argument, or forcing everyone to agree with you. Professional advocacy requires evidence, persistence, diplomacy, courage, accountability, communication, and sometimes the willingness to stand almost alone long enough for other people to understand why you were standing there in the first place.

The world is changing quickly. Artificial intelligence will continue changing employment and society. Accessibility will increasingly become digital. Public-health and environmental challenges will require different infrastructure and planning. Humanitarian crises will continue forcing us to decide whether our principles extend beyond our own neighborhoods and borders. Social media will continue testing whether we are capable of disagreeing without dehumanizing one another.

We can resist every change, pretend these issues belong to somebody else, or participate in shaping what comes next. Advocacy is about choosing to participate.

I would still rather be hated for addressing something that matters than universally liked because I never challenged anything at all. Twenty years from now, I do not want to explain why I stayed quiet when I knew something needed attention and had an opportunity to help move the conversation forward.

I would rather be able to say I tried to change it, because that is what advocacy has always meant to me. In 2026, with the speed at which our technology, communities, politics, environment, and world are changing, I believe we need thoughtful, informed, persistent advocates more than ever.