Trigger Warning: Violence, discussions of abuse/murder of autistic people
It's 3:15 am. I woke up about 15 minutes ago. I have a couple posts I wrote on the plane, which I'm going to schedule so that this thing gets some updates while I'm in India. (I'll be writing while I'm here too, but I'll probably be scheduling everything because I'll be on at weird hours.
And that was all I was really planning to day. Until I saw this:
And then I got even more pissed. I wish I could say that I doubt Autism Speaks would make that, but honestly? I wouldn't be shocked if this was them. It's definitely their puzzle piece, at the least. And it's using similar tactics to the ad I wrote about in the JFK International Airport (which will be posted later today, my time.) And no, I'm not scared of autism being 1 in 88. I'm really not. But I am TERRIFIED of how people who see this message as their introduction to autistic spectrum disorders will react if they ever hear that I'm on the spectrum. And I'm TERRIFIED that people who get their idea of autism from images like this will think our lives are not worth living, then kill us and call it mercy. Because... that happens. And images like this spread the message that we are tragedies, which would make it more OK. We're not tragedies, and portraying us as tragedies hurts us rather directly. So you should stop doing that now.
It's 3:15 am. I woke up about 15 minutes ago. I have a couple posts I wrote on the plane, which I'm going to schedule so that this thing gets some updates while I'm in India. (I'll be writing while I'm here too, but I'll probably be scheduling everything because I'll be on at weird hours.
And that was all I was really planning to day. Until I saw this:
And then I got even more pissed. I wish I could say that I doubt Autism Speaks would make that, but honestly? I wouldn't be shocked if this was them. It's definitely their puzzle piece, at the least. And it's using similar tactics to the ad I wrote about in the JFK International Airport (which will be posted later today, my time.) And no, I'm not scared of autism being 1 in 88. I'm really not. But I am TERRIFIED of how people who see this message as their introduction to autistic spectrum disorders will react if they ever hear that I'm on the spectrum. And I'm TERRIFIED that people who get their idea of autism from images like this will think our lives are not worth living, then kill us and call it mercy. Because... that happens. And images like this spread the message that we are tragedies, which would make it more OK. We're not tragedies, and portraying us as tragedies hurts us rather directly. So you should stop doing that now. 
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