Note For Anyone Writing About Me

Guide to Writing About Me

I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.

I don't like Autism Speaks. I'm Disabled, not differently abled, and I am an Autistic activist. Self-advocate is true, but incomplete.

Citing My Posts

MLA: Zisk, Alyssa Hillary. "Post Title." Yes, That Too. Day Month Year of post. Web. Day Month Year of retrieval.

APA: Zisk, A. H. (Year Month Day of post.) Post Title. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/post-specific-URL.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Autistic Person Included is a Headline Because Reasons

Note: This is satire, or something like it. Also, yes, I use sie/sier/sier's as my pronouns when I'm writing about myself in third person. Everything else feels wrong saying it about myself, though other people saying it is usually not an issue. Now that this has been established, we continue!

The local woman's ultimate frisbee team looks and plays much like any other, but looks can be deceiving. You see, one member of the team is autistic, and we're therefore going to cite completely irrelevant and quite possibly deceptive information about the prevalence of autism in children, because of course this team member is actually a child despite sier status as a graduate student and teaching assistant.

Despite sier oh so inspiring struggles living while Autistic in an ableist society, sier teammates say sie is just a regular member of the team. "If sie weren't so open about it, we would never have guessed," one woman said, neglecting to mention just how little she actually knew about the developmental disability.

And yet, something must be different about this team, or the Autistic member, or the teammates treatment of sier. Otherwise, this wouldn't be news. We're pretty sure this is a feel good piece where the team is trying to demonstrate that they don't suck by acting like nothing whatsoever is different about their interactions with a disabled teammate. Because ignoring the reality of a teammate's disability is obviously the best way to make sier feel included.

Now that we are four paragraphs in, we're going to say that despite sier autism (which actually doesn't make it harder for sier to play ultimate,) Alyssa is a typical member of the team, and sier placement has nothing to do with autism. "Alyssa earned sier spot on the team fair and square," the captain noted, neglecting to mention that there aren't actually try-outs.

And now, in the final paragraph, we have some short comment from Alyssa sierself. "How is this news? This is my fourth year on this team, people." Clearly, Alyssa's impairments leave sier unable to understand that a feel-good piece on including a poor disabled person on a team is always news. 

6 comments:

  1. What is your preference with regard to other constructed gender-neutral singular pronouns being used to refer to you? If your stated preference for "sie" pronouns is extremely mild, then chances are that I will end up using "zie/zir" pronouns to refer to you, but if your stated preference is strong, then I will put more effort into remembering the exact gender-neutral pronoun set you prefer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My preference is strong when I am writing/speaking about myself in third person (writing bios and such) but mild when other people are speaking about me. Not sure why that is, but it is.

      As long as you don't switch over to the "it" set to talk about me, you're fine.

      Delete
  2. Good post re frisbee team players. So nice, the way they accept Alyssa just like she isn't autistic. And Alyssa cannot understand those actions of her teammates on a social basis.

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  3. Hey, you don't really know me, but I actually wrote about you for a class (I made sure to cite you throughout the entire thing as best I could, too!) However, I couldn't find anything as to your preferred pronouns, so I used "they/them/their". It's already submitted, so I can't really change it, but I can't help but feel really bad that I messed that up, so I wanted to apologize. I'm really sorry about the pronoun mess-up while writing about you.

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    Replies
    1. SQUEE about me getting written about! I'd be interested in seeing that if you feel comfortable, but also understand if not because anxiety can suck and all that. alyhillary@gmail.com is my publicly available email :)

      I don't think my pronouns were up yet anywhere in time for fall semester things, if that helps you feel better. If you must feel bad anyways, at least try not to feel bad about feeling bad because that is a terrible cycle of yuck.

      Delete
  4. I was in an audition-based symphonic band. No one knew I was autistic. No one wrote a news article. I was just a musician among fellow musicians.

    ReplyDelete

I reserve the right to delete comments for personal attacks, derailing, dangerous comparisons, bigotry, and generally not wanting my blog to be a platform for certain things.