Sassy Outwater-Wright: Accessibility Champion and More, Dies at 42

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This is a story about Sassy Outwater-Wright. Sassy died on July 12th of cancer. She was 42 and a passionate advocate for disabled people. She brought her expertise in access and her lived experience as a blind woman and cancer patient to everything she did. Sassy believed that relationships and kindness are strategies for advancing disability inclusion. She used the strategies of Structured Negotiation in her work and was quoted in the second edition of Lainey’s book. This article includes links to an article Sassy wrote and a webinar she organized about advocacy skills. It ends with thoughts from her closest friend, including her belief that “Sassy was a force for good and lasting change.” I agree.

2022 image of a smiling white woman with red hair wearing sunglasses leaning on her fist with tattos showing on both arms .

Sassy Outwater-Wright died on July 12, 2025 of cancer. She was the self-described Tumor Killer Girl in her fierce, honest, and often heart wrenching writing about the disease that ultimately took her life.

As she said during a 2022 public radio interview “My superhero name is Tumor Killer Girl. I just went through my 100th surgery in November.” There were many more in her three remaining years of life. (The image with this article was taken by Beth LaBerge for KQED radio where the story first aired.)

Sassy was not just fierce in her sharp witted, often funny, writing about cancer. She was a fierce advocate for accessibility and disability inclusion. A big thinker looking for workable solutions to entrenched problems of ableism.

In her own words in her Facebook bio, Sassy was a

Fiery redhead blind smartass chronicling adventures in advocacy, dogs, food, cancer, life and love.

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Advocacy could have been Sassy’s middle name

Sassy and I met through the national blind community, connecting through common advocacy interests and strategies for getting things done. She spent her last years in Berkeley where I live and where we became friends.

Sassy believed in collaboration generally, and Structured Negotiation in particular. I interviewed her for the second edition of my book and she explained how Structured Negotiation strategies helped her in her work. (At the time she was Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (MABVI).) After giving some examples of how, she summed it up like this:

“Structured Negotiation helps me project manage my advocacy work.” I loved that.

Sassy and I shared a belief that relationship building and kindness are tools in an advocate’s toolbox. That exploring and eliminating fear are an advocate’s secret weapon. She wrote a beautiful article that captured those beliefs for NFB’s Braille Monitor in 2019 titled “Kindness is Greater than Fear: Changing Access Denials by Finding the Roots of Conflict.” In it she tells the story of a Lyft driver attempting to deny her a ride because she was with her beloved guide dog.

She held firm, asked him if he wanted her to call the police, and then asked him if he spoke Arabic. (She had grown up in an Arabic household.) The story ends with the driver saying to Sassy, in Arabic, “Thank you. You were very kind.”

Grueling years as Tumor Killer Girl did not dampen Sassy’s passion for change and advocacy. She spent a lot (a lot!) of time spent in hospitals and doctors’ offices and grappling with insurance coverage, and we would talk about her many ideas about how to make the healthcare system more accessible and inclusive. She shared her expertise — both as a blind woman and cancer patient and as a professional in the disability and accessibility space — with the public and with health care professionals.

For Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) in 2022 Sassy organized an “Advocacy and Inclusion Discussion” where she talked with Tai Tomasi, an executive leader and strategist, and me. Watching the recording last night reminded me of Sassy’s advocacy skills, her passion, and her commitment to sharing her knowledge.

And it reminded me of how much the world has lost with her untimely death. Watch the captioned video and read the transcript here.

“A force for good and lasting change:” Words from Miriam Cooper, Sassy’s close friend

Miriam Cooper, a disability and accessibility editor and writer for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston, was Sassy’s best friend. I asked her to share a few thoughts about Sassy:

We’ve all heard people say things like, ‘They didn’t let their disability define them,’ as if counting disability among the key components of your personhood were a bad thing. Sassy would have none of that: Survivorship and disability, including her partnerships with guide dogs, informed who she was and how she contributed to the world. Her brilliant leadership, advocacy, and authorship permanently upended attitudes about blindness.

She demanded and fought to ensure that blind and disabled people have access to education, employment, healthcare, transportation tech, fashion, music—and that we have dignity and agency in these things and in our lives above all.

I liked to say that I was best friends with a force—a force of nature, a force to be reckoned with, and a force for good and lasting change. I’ll be proud of Sassy forever.Miriam Cooper

Rest in power Sassy Outwater-Wright. Thank you for your friendship and for the impactful work you did during your too-short time on earth.