The first thing that comes into mind when thinking about stigmatization is the social constructs that causes stigma among the people who are considered to be minorities in society, for example normative design and prejudice. A society designed for the general public is often taken for granted, and prejudice exists not only among people considered as normal. To minimize stigmatization and broaden the area of normality, one of the first steps should be to overthrow self-stigmatization among the people belonging to certain minorities. Normative societies are very inviting to citizens who hold the appropriate set of attributes, but may be excluding for those who do not. And the exclusion is partially an active response by the minority itself to the society they live in, due to sharing the same prejudice that may or may not exist within the society.
Assuming that is how the matter stands, one way of overthrowing self-stigma among minorities is to inform about the certain condition (whatever it may be), and doing so, first and foremost, to people who are sharing the same attributes. I believe it is important to normalize attributes that are generally and wrongfully perceived as abnormal, in an attempt to increase the self-esteem among the people sharing these attributes. Once that is done, the task of informing the general public will be a much easier task. It is not a matter of convincing – rather it is a matter of including the excluded. If the minority is agreeing to exclude themselves and become outsiders per definition, how should the majority ever be able to perceive them as belonging to the same group as themselves, or as ‘insiders’? This matter has been raised many times before. The only difference is that those discussions focused on sexuality, religious beliefs, and ethnicity, among other things.
Finally, yes, this is a matter of design. It is a matter of interaction design. More specifically, the interaction between humans – the one attribute that is shared by us all.
Non-excluding Design 