Because what else is there to say? How many murders can I point out, how many times can I say I don’t want a cure, how many times can I read that you see your children as burdens? How many times can I be told that my feelings as an autistic person matter less when it comes to this ‘debate’ than an allistic parent because I’m ‘high functioning’ before I give up?
I am written off as ‘not autistic enough’ by so many of you Autism Speaks supporting folk because I can type online, because I am married, because I have sex and friends. My meltdowns matter for nothing, my sensory issues, my long term unemployment… None of it matters. Because I don’t fit your idea of what an autistic person should be. You don’t believe anyone would willingly be around your childre, your siblings, etc, so how on earth can I be autistic and married and with friends? How on each could I be living my life as I do with autism?
And I so almost wrote ‘suffering’ in there but I’m not suffering. I’m not. I hate the meltdowns, I hate being unemployed, I hate that I’m shitting myself before my first job interview in two years in case I actually GET the job. I hate that I have to live above a bar and the vibrations make me snap. I hate that I can’t go to live gigs, I hate that I get bullied. Jesus, I hate a hell of a lot of my autistic existence. But god da,n it, I am autistic and I am proud and I do not want a cure! And the more I read about people looking for prenatal tests and cures and all the rest of it, the more I see from the absolute fuckwits who still buy into that vaccine conspiracy theory, I get more and more terrified because I live in a world where people don’t want me to exist. I live in a world where the biggest charity ‘for’ my disability is promoting eugenics against me.
You know what that’s like? You understand what it’s like reading you people saying you understand when parents ‘snap’ and kill their kids or beat them or whatever when they’re like me? You understand what it’s like to mention this in passing to your own mother and having her say she understand too?
You don’t, you couldn’t possibly. So please stop supporting Autism Speaks. Please start seeing your kids as awesome people, not irritations that don’t fit into your selfish, cookie cutter idea of what your kid was meant to be. Please stop talking about how a diagnosis makes you grieve as though we we dead. Because your kid will grow up. Your kid will read this shit from other people and your kid will feel how I feel right now. And I care about autistic kids, more than Autism Speaks does. Most autistic adults do. And your kid should never feel worthless.
*this whole post is an uber mess but I am very emotional about this kinda stuff right now and it just kinda came out. Presenting as is.
Hey, so, if you follow me, I have three really simple requests for you this month.
Please, please, please:
-DON’T “light it up blue”
-DON’T buy anything with a fucking puzzle piece on it
-DON’T donate to Autism Speaks.
April, as you might know, is Autism Awareness month. If you want to help, I’d urge you to follow Autism Acceptance Day, check out & donate to ASAN, and educate yourself on what the Autistic community is and looks like. Hint: we’re people, not puzzles.
Firstly, the idea of functioning levels is based on how well we pass as allistic which is all kinds of fucked up. Seriously.
Anyway, just because I type, doesn’t mean I talk. I am actually (mostly) verbal if I’m not being overstimulated. Stuck on a train full of loud school kids? You bet your ass I’m gonna look more like a stereotypical hand flapping, rocking, grunting special needs kid. If I am alone all day or don’t have any reason to speak to anyone it will take me quite a while to communicate in anything more than one word answers when I actually do have to speak. I actually often communicate in weird animal noises to people I feel safe not ‘holding in’ the autism stuff around.
So, yes, please stop acting as though we’re all the high functioning Sherlock style autistic folk. Stop acting as though none of us have ever experienced real institutional ableism. Stop acting as you know our autism, that you know autism at all, better than we do. I don’t care whether you’ve worked with autistic kids or you have an autistic relative or you studied autism or whatever else, if you’re not autistic, you don’t know autism.
The trailer for the documentary “Scarlet Road” about a sex worker who focuses on men who are mentally/physically/developmentally disabled. As a guardian/student teacher of people with disabilities, this brings tears to my eyes. I wish that my 20 year-old kid (actually sister, but I largely raised her) had this opportunity to experience sex in a safe and comfortable environment like the men in this vid. So many people think that mentally and physically disabled people don’t experience any sexual desire (even involved parents who are otherwise educated about said conditions). I try and combat this stereotype whenever I encounter it (resulting in lots of awkward impassioned speeches). This DOESN’T MEAN REPRODUCTION. I don’t want my sister to reproduce, as she neither likes children nor is capable of caring for them (plus odds are any offspring would have major developmental problems). I still want her to happily experience this major facet of the human experience though. (Plus I’d like to limit the number of times I walk in on her masturbating as it is mortifying). Individuals with disabilities fantasize about the same things the rest of us do, and shouldn’t have to live without the sex they desire simply because of the way they were born. I know of at least one disabled man who has a relationship with a female sex worker and he is one of the happiest disabled adults I know (which is at least 40 individuals). We all deserve to have that chance. Sorry for the meandering ruminations, but this is a subject I have felt passionate about for many years/I have had a few cocktails. If this raises problems for you, please respond, as I would love to have an honest, polite, conversation (made possible by the superficial anonymity of the internet) about this subject.
Recently watched this and it is fantastic, thought-provoking, and educational all rolled into one. I highly recommend anyone interested in sex positivism, sex work activism and/or disability watch for themselves.
THIS IS AMAZING
When Sandra Baker was called to pick up her 9-year-old autistic son, Chris, from his Mercer County, Kentucky school, she was stunned by what she found: She says that Chris’s teacher had stuffed him in a bag and left him in the hallway as punishment.
“When I walked in,” Sandra told CBS News, “I went down his hallway, and I saw this big green bag laying in the floor beside the [teacher’s] aide, and I saw it moving.”
Then Sandra heard a voice come from inside the bag:“Momma, is that you?”
Sandra demanded her son be released immediately, but allegedly the bag was tied so tightly the teacher’s aide struggled to open it. When Chris finally got out, his mom says he was sweaty and uncommunicative.
Lydia Brown, a freshman at Georgetown University, is autistic, too. When she heard about Chris’s ordeal at school, she started a petition on Change.org demanding the Mercer County school district discipline the teacher who put Chris in the bag and require its teachers to complete training on interacting with autistic children. Click here to sign Lydia’s petition now.
At a meeting with school officials last week, Sandra learned this wasn’t the first time Chis had been stuffed in the bag as punishment. The teachers allegedly referred to the bag as a “therapy bag,” but lacking even basic training for working with autistic children, were unable to explain how confining Chris to a drawstring bag constituted “therapy” of any kind.
Here’s the worst part: after her meeting, Sandra says she received no guarantee that this kind of abuse wouldn’t happen again — either to Chris or to other students in Mercer County schools.
That’s just not acceptable to Sandra, or to the 12,000 people who’ve already signed Lydia’s petition on Change.org. The school board won’t be able to ignore this issue when they see the thousands of people angry about Chris’s treatment and calling for changes.
Followers, sign and reblog the shit out of this, please.
