A Call-out for Orycon

When I saw what was going on between Neurodivergent K and Orycon (here and here and here if you're interested,) I was surprised. Not because of the "we don't need autistic people on an autism panel" or the ablesplaining (someone without the disability in question explaining the disability to someone who does have it, and in this case knows a ton about it beyond the personal experience too.) I was surprised because why does a sci-fi convention have an autism panel anyways? I don't know. It doesn't really make sense.
That doesn't make using the fact that people don't go to sci-fi conventions for autism panels a reason to not care about the quality of the panel, though, and there is no such thing as a quality autism panel without actual autistic people. You want to talk about AAC? Get an autistic who uses it. You want to talk about inclusion? Get an autistic who has fought for it. You want to talk about supports? Get an autistic who uses them, and maybe an autistic who is involved in researching better ones and one who helps provide them, since these are all things where you can find autistic people like that. You want to talk about social interactions? Any autistic person whose had a social interaction ever is a decent fit there. And sure, some autistic people don't like getting up in front of crowds. Some only care if it's a crowd of people they know (that's me.) Some are willing to do it anyways for a cause they think is important enough (also me.) Some don't mind public speaking. Some actively enjoy it. The fact that some are uncomfortable in front of crowds is no reason to exclude the ones who either aren't uncomfortable or are willing to do it anyways.
So Orycon, I don't even need to get into what you said specifically or the fact that reading your correspondence apparently leads to blacking out the ableism and derailing bingo cards to tell you that you messed up. To make the point that you messed up, all I need to do it point out this course of events:

1. You set up an autism panel that didn't have anyone autistic on it.
2. You avoided the question when asked if this was what you did.
3. You explained why you didn't need autistic people on it.
4. You did so in ableist, derailing, and blatantly false ways.

I mean, any one of those things is actually enough to say "you messed up." I don't think people who care about "nothing about us, without us" should be at Orycon this year, since, you know, they avoided it on a panel that probably doesn't even really belong at their convention anyways.