Party Giraffe, Hot Spicy Autism, and Small Acts of NO.

By inclination, I'm a bit of an imp. I will say a true thing (I'm nonbinary) in a slightly silly way, messing with people using truth. ("Good man. Wait. Woman." gets responded to with "still no" followed by "nonbinary, good luck".) This is a character trait, not an isolated incident. On National Coming Out Day, I wrote "I draw cool stuff using straight lines, which is funny because I'm not straight." One day when I was pointing out "typos" on the white board while non-speaking, I was told to "be quiet." So I wrote on the side board, "I didn't say anything!" It was technically true. 

I like puns. (Nonbunnary!) I like satire. (Turn it Down Taupe!) And while I wear many metaphorical hats (mathematician, engineer, graduate student, teacher, Autistic person, "person in the lab who can sew", writer, AAC user, Queer person, culturally Jewish person, "that weird person who doesn't get cold", and on and on), I don't necessarily choose to emphasize the set of hats I have in common with the other people in the room. I tend to emphasize the ones that are most effective for messing with my colleagues, even. See again: bit of an imp.

So of course it makes sense that I would have shirts that say things like "Autistic Party Giraffe" (explanation), "Hot Spicy Autism", "We Are Like Your Child", and "I Love Someone Lacking Autism." Recently, I've started wearing those shirts more frequently. And yes, I can trace this back to the election. 

No, I don't think that wearing my identities on my shirt (or my bag, as I've been known to do) will magically make everything OK. That's not the point. Reading Trump Presidency to be Large-Scale Replication Experiments in Destructive Obedience: Here is How to Resist will help the actual points make sense, though. Even though Milgram's experiments were based on a pretty unrepresentative sample in terms of people generally, it's 1) a decent sample in terms of who tends to have power in the USA, and 2) not the only study that's been conducted, though Dr. Alfano's link on the subject loops back to his own post, presumably accidentally. In any case, I'm not after the "most people obey" information. I'm after the "what did the disobedient do?" information.

Point the first: If you want to be able to refuse immoral expectations later, starting earlier helps. There's not been any orders about wearing snarky autism T-shirts, and I don't expect there to be. Why would there be? But I said expectations, not orders, and there's a reason for that. Preemptive obedience (doing what you expect the authority figure would want before there is an order, or on things too small to ever deserve an order" is a thing, and not doing that would logically fall under refusing/resisting early. So instead of hiding or closeting the identities that an incoming administration wouldn't like, I get more open about them. I get (visually) louder. T-shirts. Flapping and rocking in public. Using AAC as a teacher. Throwing myself conspicuously into a wall at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. There can be no compliance ahead of time, because there should be none later. (As opposed to because I think the ahead of time bits are going to fix things on their own. I don't. They just keep me in a "no, you move" sort of mindset for when I'll need it.)

Point the second: Resist noticeably, and you increase the likelihood that those around you who notice will also resist. I don't want to be alone here. 

Point the third: I'm a Queer Disabled Jew. I may not be near the head of the line of people who'll be victimized, because I am also educated, also have class privilege, and am not Muslim. But I've heard the rhetoric about queer people (including trans people, remember that I'm nonbinary?) and about disabled people. I've seen the antisemitism getting more obvious. Let's not pretend I'm not in that line, even if people sometimes forget. (Read: prefer not to think about it?) So when paying attention to the individuality, to the personhood, of (potential) victims is part of how you make it easier to resist, reminding people I'm on that list seems like a good idea. 

I know myself. I know that, impish nature and all, it took me until I was eleven to figure out, even in theory, that intentional defiance was an option. A special education teacher had to tell me, so I'm not sure how much I can claim to have figured it out. There's a heck of a lot planned that I'm going to need to resist. So I'm going to need all the help I can get. (All the help I can give myself.)

Pride and Resistance

I made words on Autistic Pride Day. That's a thing that happened.

When the doctors and the teachers and the parents demand indistinguishability, #AutisticPrideDay is an act of resistance. Stim on!

— (((Alyssa))) (@yes_thattoo) June 18, 2016

And I got quoted for Autistic Pride Day, by the folks who make one of my AAC apps. Also a thing that happened.


It turns out I have more words to type about pride as resistance, about unreasonable expectations of indistinguishability, than I typed that day. (How do you write like tomorrow won't arrive? How do you write like you need it to survive? How do you write every second you're alive, every second you're alive, every second you're alive?)

Indistinguishability from one's peers is a root of a really, really nasty plant. It's fruits are use of "loss of diagnosis" as the optimal outcome, It's fruits are considering that a person losing their autism diagnosis, but having anxiety and depression, means having beaten autism. It's something that Neurodivergent K has written about far better than I ever could, with the Indistinguishability series.

Indistinguishability connects to the perception of autism as something external to us. I'm still working out exactly how, but I know the connection is there. I think it looks something like this:

1. If you can behave in a way that appears "less autistic," then you are, in fact, "less autistic." That's the indistinguishability and behaviorism idea. (Note the assumption that more vs less autistic is a sensible concept. Autism is not a single variable that varies linearly.)
2. If you can choose to be less autistic, then you can also choose to be not autistic, thereby beating autism. (Note the assumption that being less autistic or not autistic at all is better.)
3. Since it's apparently possible for an autistic person to become less or not autistic, it must be external to who we are. (Note that I don't think autistic people becoming non-autistic is actually a thing. I think faking it can be a thing that often leads to burnout, and that there are some similarities between "converted" lefties and "recovered" autistic people.)

Indistinguishability isn't quite the same thing as neurotypicality, to be clear. When you actually are neurotypical, that's still neurotypicality, but it's not "indistinguishability from one's peers" as written about with autism. Because the expectations get raised when people know a disability is part of the picture (neurotypical kids get to have a bad day, but "indistinguishable" kids will have it taken as evidence that they don't really belong in the mainstream classroom,) feigning neurotypicality is a heck of a lot easier when folks don't know that you're really anything else. That's the comparative safety of being passed off as merely weird... or quirky. 

But Autistic Pride as resistance isn't about choosing indistinguishability or neurotypicality or "beating" autism. It's about rejecting the idea that any of those things make good goals. It's about, even and especially as we are told that the best thing we can ever be is "normal," deciding that This is Wrong and that the best thing we can ever be is the version of ourselves that doesn't feel the need to hide. It's about asking:

• Maybe I could stop myself from flapping, but why would I do that?
• Maybe I could push speech to work more consistently rather than typing when speech is wonky, but why would I spend my time and energy there?
• Maybe I could fake eye contact, but why would I do that?
• Maybe I could learn not to jump at the bell, but why would I still my startle?
• Maybe I could make my language less repetitive (Maybe I could... but why?) but why would I do that? 

And then it's about answering:

• I won't stop myself from flapping. Flapping is a natural expression, and who I am is not wrong.
• I won't try to reduce my use of typing. I will type when typing works better, rather than waiting until speech is insufficient. Speech is not superior to other methods of communication, and who I am is not wrong.
• I won't fake eye contact. Eye(ball) contact is not natural for me, and who I am is not wrong.
• I won't spend the energy to still my startle. If the bell or the flashing light or whatever else hurts me, people can be aware of this. If it's just a surprise and that's how I react to surprises, that's how I react to surprises, and who I am is not wrong.
• I won't make my language less repetitive. If I'm going to put in the effort to change how my words work, it needs to be for the sake of making my communication more effective, not for the sake of making it seem more neurotypical. Echolalia, palalia, and patterns are part of my natural language, and who I am is not wrong.

Autistic Pride means resisting not only specific demands for neurotypical-passing (neuronormative) performance, but also resisting the ideas behind those demands. Who we are is not wrong.

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Failure

References to cure, death, and instutionalization

Failure

Cure, Death, Institutionalization.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step and it's the institution for us.
Death of our choices (Beware the choice! Beware refusing it!)
Cure for other's discomfort over our existence.
Institutionalization, Death, Cure.

Make us become so numb,
To be less like me, and be more like you.
Beware our choices, beware refusing them,
Instead choose to control and hide them.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step,
Prove we are failures, all, to you.
Then enforce the endings three.

This might seem a strange poem to put up on Autistic Pride Day, to submit to the Autistic Artistic Carnival for Autistic Pride Day, but there are reasons.
This poem is not an expression of my pride. I do that often enough, here and elsewhere. When I stim openly, in public (as I will also do, this Autistic Pride Day,) that is an expression of my pride, that I am proud of who I am. When I assert my right to exist, as I am, in spite of all the messages otherwise, I am asserting my Autistic Pride. This poem is something different. This poem is why we need Autistic Pride. This poem is what we're up against. And this poem is echolalic. I take other's words and turn them around to say what I want to say.

The cure, death, institutionalization pattern: I've used it before in The Ends, and I pulled it from an article written by a disabled person about the representation of disabled characters in fiction. I've since lost the article, but the words stayed, repeating in my mind.

There's some pulled from The Saturday Nights, or from a song they played two name changes ago, Strangers Fate, which I've also written about before. The line's I'm using are: "Waiting for just one wrong move,/ Just one bad step./ I'm a failure to you." Those are from the refrain.

"Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it!" is a Young Wizards reference. (Book of Night with Moon, Tetrastych XIV: “Fire Over Heaven”) It's by Diane Duane, and as long as you're sticking to the New Millennium Editions I really recommend the series. The print editions are mostly OK except book 6, which is terrible in the original version and awesome in the new version.

The last reference is from Linkin Park's Numb, in the refrain. "I've become so numb" is the first line of the refrain, and the last three lines of the refrain are "All I want to do/ Is be more like me/ And be less like you." I changed it around, because while I do, in fact, want to be more like me and be less like expectations of what I should be, I'm not talking about what I want here. I'm writing about what they're pushing, which is for us to be more like the expectations.

Things to Do

I have a lot of things that need doing. I'm hoping that if I write them down I will actually get them done.

First off, I need to caption this Youtube video and write a transcript for it, and soon. Because that's my presentation for Society for Disability Studies, and that means it needs to be accessible and that means captions and transcript. Probably transcript first, then caption. Right now you can't search Youtube to find the video, but I'll make it public (as opposed to unlisted) after it's captioned and SDS is over. So, you know. I totally want it shared all over the place, just not for another day or two.

I also need to write my math final- it's Differential Geometry, it's in Chinese, and it's takehome. It's also due in 9 hours. Erm. Better get writing.

I feel like I should get back into blogging more, so that's kind of what this is. I'm putting a thing on my blog, even if it's not super-relevant to autism or disability. But that's OK, because this is actually my personal blog and not an autism-specific blog or a disability-specific blog. (I have posting privileges on some blogs like that, such as We Are Like Your Child, this just isn't actually a blog like that.)

I'm apparently getting interviewed tomorrow related to activism and Autistic Pride Day. That'll be cool. I'll find a link once that exists, because yay things.

I've got a final paper about nanotechnology and society and China to write. In Chinese. I don't really want to write the paper that I'm supposed to be writing, though there's a paper kind of like it that I totally do want to write. We'll see which one actually comes out, depending on how well I manage to care what my teacher thinks of the paper. (Ehhh... considering that a C and an A transfer back to my home institution the same way, I'm probably not going to be able to make myself care that much. Which isn't great, but I'll live. And pass. And all that other good stuff. I have gotten really tired of this teacher telling me that I always speak and write too informally, especially since I am opposed to the idea that formal speech is inherently better. Technical terms are great because they're useful, big words for the sake of sounding smart annoy me, being told that I should use big words for the sake of sounding smart will just make me angry.)

I'm reading stuff about cross-cultural communication and disability, written by 王莉皓 and 李志远 (Wang Lihao and Li Zhiyuan.) There's two shorter journal articles, about 3 pages each, that are in Chinese, one of which I essentially liveblogged except it's not on my blog yet (if I put it up that goes towards the blogging thing so I probably will. There's also 李志远's masters thesis, which is in English. It's very Chinese-style English (No, I don't mean the accent that people like to make fun of; this is written work anyways. I mean a style of speaking and writing that I don't really know how to describe, but that you'll be familiar with if you spend time in China speaking English, or if you've read a lot of things written by Chinese people who've learned English mostly from other Chinese people. It's about word choice and sentence structure and the ideas that are being communicated and paragraph structure and just the whole thing.) Anyone who wants any of the articles can poke me, I do have PDFs.

In terms of people wanting the things: The title of the thesis (the only English article) is Intercultural Nonverbal Communication Between the Group of Disabled Co-Culture and the Group of Dominant Nondisabled Culture in China. The Chinese title is 中国残疾人共文化群体与主流非残疾人文化群体的跨文化非语言交际 (Zhongguo canjiren gongwenhua qunti yu zhuliu feicanjiren wenhua qunti de kuawenhua feiyuyan jiaoji.)

The Chinese articles, neither of which have English titles or abstracts (this is actually kind of unusual, but the fact that this is unusual is a sign of problems I'm not going to talk about right now,) are: 残疾人共文化群体求学过程中的交际障碍及应对策略 (Canjiren gongwenhua qunti qiuxue guochengzhong de jiaoji zhangai jiying dui celue; Disabled people co-cultural group [study results? in study? I'll fix it after I read the article for context] communication barriers and challenges) by 李志远 and 王莉皓 and 中国残疾人问题研究现状及应对策略——基于跨文化交际视角 (Zhongguo canjiren wenti yanjiu xiankuang jiying dui celue——jiyu kuawenhua jiaoji zhijiao; Chinese disability research problems, status, and challenges: The angle of cross-cultural communication) by 栾岚 and王莉皓.

I was able to track down 王莉皓's email address, and since one of the problems she mentioned in her work was that disability research is consistently done from the standpoint of nondisabled people, I figure there's at least a shot that she'd be willing to talk to a disabled disability scholar. Fingers crossed, though I want to read and liveblog-type respond to all three relevant articles (she was 李志远's advisor, so his thesis is relevant to her too) before I talk to her. I do my research!

Oh, and I probably could be convinced to translate the Chinese articles into English, but it'd probably need to be paid. But that's not really likely to happen, is it? /sigh.

This is autism

I've actually talked about this sort of thing before. On Tumblr, I have a "This is what autism looks like" post from about a year and a half ago. I'll be reblogging myself to get it out there again. I've written some poems that are relevant, too. They're copied and pasted at the end of this.

Anyways.

What is autism?
It's always a person or a group of people. There is no autism detached from the person- there's no way to split off "this is the autism and this is the person." Any metaphor that tries is going to be a bad metaphor. So I'm not going to do that.
It's also probably a lot of different things, because seriously this isn't specific. There were a lot of ways to meet criteria in DSM-IV-TR. There were 3129 different ways before getting into single criteria that can be met in different ways and known traits that aren't on the DSM list.
Even when the core bits are the same, presentation isn't always going to be the same. It might not even be all that similar.
Autism is better understood as a foundation everything else gets built on (kind of like a neurotypical makeup is a foundation that a neurotypical person's mind/personality is getting built on) than as... probably most of the things I've seen it understood as. Environment and experiences and such are going to affect what happens from there, just like with neurotypical folks (and with allistic folk who aren't neurotypical.)
So what's autism?
It's all the A/autistic people and the people with autism and the undiagnosed who think they're just broken or wrong and the undiagnosed who've gotten along OK. It's all the people whose minds and thoughts and experiences are built and reacted to using an autistic foundation instead of one that's close enough to "average" or "normal" to get called neurotypical.
Autism is people. It's not an outside force stealing them away. It's people, right around 1% of people.

Now have the poems woot.

Anniversary

I stand in front of you.
I tell you exactly who I am.
I am a college student,
And I am Autistic.

And yet, and yet, and yet you assume,
I must be a parent,
I must be writing about my child,
An anniversary of diagnosis must be for my child.
No, it's for me.
An anniversary of diagnosis must bring back sadness.
No, it is a victory for understanding and hope.
An anniversary of diagnosis is a difficult day.
No, I want a cake. (Or ice cream. Ice cream is good.)
An anniversary of diagnosis is a day to reflect.
That much, at least, is true.
But what to reflect on, what to think?
Autism: 0, You: 1?
This is not zero-sum
Defeating autism?
We're not separate.
Remembering that my child (what child? I have no child yet) is still my child?
How could I forget that?
How could a different neurology cause anyone to forget that?


Autism Is

Autism is a word for the ways I will never, can never be normal.
It is also the word for "why this doesn't bother me."
Autism makes me a foreigner in my own country.
It also protects me from culture shock, as I am accustomed to being "other."
Autism makes it harder for me to find friends.
It also keeps false friends away.
Autism makes it harder to take notes in class.
It also means I don't need to.
Autism makes mint, strobes, sirens painful.
It also allows me to stim.
Autism makes oral speech less natural to me.
It also provides my abundance of words.
Autism means challenges.
It also means solutions, if only I am allowed to use them.

That's Not What It's About

Trigger Warning: ableism, ABA, 

I saw some stuff (was directed to it, really) on Autistic Pride Day that I wish never was. Autistic Pride Day is Autistic pride, not passing pride or ABA pride or pretending to be normal pride. It's definitely not parental pride for a kid who is passing because ABA taught them to pretend to be normal at all costs. It's definitely not sibling pride for that.
That's not what Autistic Pride Day is about.
There probably is someone who would actually say this sort of analog, which is horrible, but for anyone who can actually see how misplaced it would be (please, tell me you can see it, please...) this would be similar. (I'm something non-binary for gender, bi/pan area for romantic attraction, presumably the same for sexual attraction but pretty close to asexual, just so you know: I'm not a cis-het person making an analogy to Queer issues.) So, the analog, written like it was a sibling writing this:

On Pride Day, I just wanted to talk about my sister. She's bi, and she's... androgyne? I think that's the word. But she's made so much progress! She's been working at it, and now you can barely tell that she's bi or androgyne. She'd have to tell you, or you'd never guess. She's been working hard her whole life to get to this point, and I am so proud of her.

Yeah. That sounds pretty horrible, right? (Yes, Lovaas, I know you'd find this totally appropriate too. I know because you tested out your behavioral stuff on feminine boys/possibly transwomen who you thought were "at risk for homosexuality" in addition to autistic people. Heck, I don't even know which group you thought of as your main group and which was the side project, if either. I really don't care, it's horrible for both regardless. I know most ABA people don't like to talk about that, but yeah. Same person, same methods, trying to make people not Queer and not autistic.)
That's what it sounds like, when you write about how proud you are of your kid for seeming less autistic or how if you look past their autism/don't think of them as autistic and that's why you can see the awesomeness on Autistic Pride Day.
Autistic Pride Day is about being proud of who we are as autistic people. It's not about being proud of who we are because we can pass. That's seriously not inclusive, not all of us even can pass. I can only pass when people are really clueless, and I suspect most of you reading this will think of me as the high-functioning goal for your kid or something. (If you want your kid to be like me, stop teaching them not to flap or rock or spin, stop demanding they sit still because guess what I can't do those things and that's OK. Functioning labels aren't great, and I'm not the "high functioning blogger" you might think of.)
It's about "I'm Autistic and awesome!" and "My autism helps my awesome this way!" and "I don't pass and that's fine" and "Ha ha ha stim ALL the stims because stimming is awesome and you should be jealous because I can experience the win of a good stim buahahahaha!" It's not about pretending not to be autistic, it's about celebrating who we are, blatantly and proudly and obviously autistic.

Autistic Pride Day

Trigger Warning: References to murder of autistic people

I could have sworn that it was June 19, but apparently Autistic Pride Day is June 18. That means I write my post to close they day rather than to start it.
I am Autistic.
My brain is different, the way I move is different. I don't pretend to be the same. I just insist that it's OK to be different. We don't need to be the same. I don't even want to be the same. If we were all the same, it'd be kind of boring.
We have a community. Actually, we have many communities.
We come together for the hard things, like reminding the world that your kid being autistic doesn't justify murdering them. Reminding the world that we hear them, and that we know what they're saying, and that their reactions encourage copycat crimes, so just stop it already.
We find time to come together to mourn while we fight. (I wish we could just mourn. But the fight to be seen as human doesn't wait.)
We come together for the happy things, like the Autistic Artistic Carnival (I'm in it again) and Autism Positivity.
We come together to speak on whatever it is we think needs saying. Loud Hands, Autistics Speaking Day.
We make physical communities, ever so briefly. Autreat. Autism Campus Inclusion Leadership Academy.
We plan longer-term physical communities. Autistic House. Not a group home of service providers taking care of (and controlling) us. A pile of us who want to live together figuring out ways to combine the skills we have so that we can choose if we want any neurotypical able-bodied service providers and who they are if we do. Because we have different sets of things we can do. Some of us can cook to keep ourselves fed. Some of us can keep our spaces clean. Some of us can hold paying jobs, but can't really do either of the first two things. It's all OK.
Some of us get married and have kids. Some of us don't. Some of us are prevented from realizing that we can if we want to or are prevented from doing so. Some of us just don't want to. We're people, and we're Autistic, and those two things are perfectly compatible.
I know it's still revolutionary to be OK with who we are. That's one of the things that needs changing. But it's Autistic Pride Day, and I am proud. I am proud of who we are, and I am proud of what we do.

To You, the Children

You're not wrong. You're not bad. You're different, and you're disabled, but you are not broken or wrong or less and you don't have to be indistinguishable from your peers. You can flap. You can rock. You can write or type instead of speaking, even if you can (usually, sometimes, with more effort than you ever dared admit) speak. You can even admit to how much effort it takes, to how slow speaking really is. And that's OK. Impairments are much less disabling when you accommodate for them, and you can't accommodate for something you can't admit you have. You can admit it. You can bring a pen and paper out with your friends, just in case. You can bring an iPad out with your friends, just in case. If they are really your friends, they will be fine with it. Curious, perhaps, maybe confused, but they won't make a fuss. Because you're just doing what you need to do in order to enjoy your time with them. 

There may be people who bully you, who make fun of you, who beat you up. They might call you horrible things (or things they think are horrible but really aren't if you think about it.) They might tell you it's because of the ways you are different. They are either confused or lying. The bullies who tell you that's why are probably lying. The adults who tell you that it's your fault and that it would stop if you just stopped acting so autistic are probably confused. That doesn't mean you need to be confused. It also doesn't mean that you have to act less autistic. Or that you can't act less autistic, if you think it is worth trying. It might even work, if you can stick out less. (I was never able to- I could get rid of a lot of the more obvious things, but I always stuck out as somehow different.) It might even be worth it, as long as you recognize it for what it is. (It's not you being weak, by the way. It's staying safe in whatever way you can. It's also doing something that you shouldn't have to do, because the way you are is not wrong.) 

The bullying isn't about the specific ways that you are different. It's about people going after anyone who doesn't fit and trying to make them fit, and it's about power, and it's about people who want to hurt others choosing victims they think they can blame for their own victimization. It's about patterns in society that need to be changed, but that doesn't mean you have to change them in elementary school or middle school or high school. (No arguments if you think you can, but you should know that the bullying will get worse before it gets better if you do it that way, and your teachers might well join the bullies rather than simply ignoring them if you try. I had teachers among my bullies.)

No. The important thing is that you know what it is really about. Biding your time until you have a chance to make the changes you want by being the wonderful person you are reasonably safely (never perfectly safe, but worth the risk) might not look much different than hiding because you think they're right and because you agree that you are broken, but it is different. It's very different.

This post has been added to the Down Wit Dat October 2014 Blog Hop.

Yes, That Too Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

AutismPositivity is back!
I was pretty new to the blogging thing when it came around last time, but I did find out about it and write a thing. And some of the stuff I talked about then still fits now!
So in list format, cause I like lists, have ten of my Ausome things:

1. As long as speech is working and I know the topic, I can do some serious damage in a debate. Like there was that time that I showed up to a debate in my Honors communication class not having done any of the research, not having any evidence to cite, nothing. I won that debate. I did so by explaining why every piece of evidence my opponent brought actually supported my opinion. I am not even joking, this is a thing that happened. When I got the rubric back, my opponent had more evidence, better evidence, was better prepared, but I still won the debate. That's what the teacher's grading said.
2. Stimming is THE BEST THING EVER. It can just be made of awesome (ausome) or it can be a coping mechanism so I can manage even when everything else is made of bad. Either way, useful. Silky blankets are a really good example of this, since they can do both of these at the same time. Same goes for olives. The sensory processing differences that make certain sensations horrible are frustrating, but I wouldn't get rid of them if it meant losing the differences that let me stim. Sorry, no, stimming is too awesome (ausome.)
3. Special interest, Autistic Obsession, whatever you want to call it. It's a hug for my brain. So math spent a long time as a hug for my brain, and I was able to get really good at it, too. Like, I'm twenty and I've already got a bachelors in math, I'm a first semester masters student in that major now. (Still an undergrad in mechanical engineering and Chinese, my other two majors. I didn't quite break eCampus, I just have two records in it both connecting to one account and confusing my advisers.)
4. Pattern recognition! I find all the four leaf clovers, all the five leaf clovers, and some of the six leaf clovers. I also found a seven leaf and an eight leaf, but only one of each. It's quite awesome (ausome.) I actually think in patterns, but through language. If that makes sense? I don't know, it's how my brain works, which is kind of weird and kind of awesome (ausome.) Which finds me four leaf clovers, which is probably responsible for a good bit of my math ability, which is probably also relevant to my sewing ability. (I can't read a sewing pattern, but I can make clothes that fit me and look good.)
5. Pattern making! That's where Because Patterns came from, after all! (BTW, ONE LAST PLUG FOR THE GIVEAWAY. Today is the last day you can enter and vote on entries. It's on Facebook, it's for an artist proof of my Autism Acceptance design, entry requires liking Because Patterns on Facebook and answering what Autism Acceptance means to you. Yes, you can hang a proof up. It's like a print in almost every way- same size, still signed. Coloration could be a little different, it says proof where the number would be. That's it.) Anyways, have a pattern! Because patterns are one of many Ausome things about my autism, and they are a pretty cool looking one too. I think that this pattern would totally be modifiable to make an infinite tessellation, too, which is a thing I've been getting into making mode of. Those ones work for fabric, after all.
   
6. I can listen to the same song on repeat for weeks and not get sick of it. Talk about patience! Recently, it was Knights of Bostonia.That one started about a week before Patriot's Day, and I only switched to Amy MacDonald songs this past Saturday.
7. I can eat the same food for years and not get sick of it. No, really, I brought the same lunch to school from fifth grade through tenth grade every day except Passover and some field trips and it was fine. I took a bagel with lox (lots of lox, it was almost like a roast beef sandwich amount of lox I am not even joking,) an apple or two, and a big thermos of milk to school for lunch basically every day. The thermos was 16.9 oz, and my cross country coach was annoyed that I still drank milk on meet days instead of switching to water, but switching my diet would mess with me more than milk that I am used to having in my system possibly could. Also, this was the same coach who thought that you shouldn't drink too much right before the meet because then you would get cramps. Which can be caused by dehydration... Anyways, I can eat the same food for a long time and it's fine. Which is useful when on a budget, since buying in bulk is cheaper. It's also useful because it means I don't need to remember as many recipes.
8. My brain works really fast sometimes. That's what covered me for all my years of executive dysfunction, which is the same as all my years. Sure, I might not remember I had homework due first period until I was on the bus, but I could still get it done by then. I think my record was having something due in all five of my academic classes and drama (seven period day that day,) starting on the bus to school, and turning in everything on time. I can be that fast. I was close to that fast on a regular basis throughout middle and high school. I wrote a paper on 1984 in about 4 hours once, including the research for it. It's on my blog, somewhere, and it gets me hits from people looking for essays about 1984 every so often. 
9. My writing is proof of "You can totally write good poetry without much of any metaphor." Because I don't metaphor much, but people still like my poetry. I won't claim all of it is good, but certainly some of it is. One of my poem-ish things is actually published in the Loud Hands anthology, which I'd say is a sign of some sort of good. I'd say making (one of many) proofs of this concept is pretty awesome (ausome.)
10. I'm immune to culture shock. See, so far as I can tell, culture shock is "Everyone is doing stuff that doesn't make sense!" combined with "I feel like a foreigner!" and possibly a dose of homesick. I'm not sure why I don't really get homesick, but when the first two things are just a part of every day life, they can't really cause a shock. So I get to China, or I get to India. Sure, people are doing a different set of things that don't make sense, but it's not like it makes less sense or anything. I just need to learn this set of rules. It's nothing special, nothing particularly scary, nothing shocking. So I am immune so culture shock, and autism totally gets the credit for that. It's pretty awesome (ausome.)

And Yet Three More Poems

April 13-15


Rebellion

Rebellion opens with a single flap.
A refusal to look you in the eye.
An iPad used for AAC,
Rather than pretending I am just quiet today.
It says that I am what I am.
Asserts that I'm a who, if I'm lucky.
That I am not ashamed.
I reject your ideals and substitute my own.


Do you see what I see?

Do you see things others do not see?
What do you mean by that?
I see things others do not see.
But if I point them out, others see.
What I see is there.
They look.
Their eyes take in the same things mine do.
And yet.
Do you see what I see?
No.
I'm not sure I want to.


Rainbows

One Ausome Thing.
AutismPositivity.
AutismUpside.
Autism Acceptance.
Loud Hands.
Do you hear my Loud Hands?
Do you hear me tell you I'm fine?
Will you listen?
Because I am.
I'm fine.
Different, certainly.
Not better, not worse,
Not more, not less.
Not all sunshine and rainbows,
Not all doom and gloom.
But today?
Today I speak of sunshine,
Today I speak of rainbows.
You can't forget the rainbows are there.
I won't let you forget.

Nothing So Passive

Trigger Warning: Silencing, possibly erasure

"You shouldn't let it define you :)"
"You shouldn't let it define you :)"
Let it define me? Is that really what you think this is? My decision to call myself Autistic, to tell you that I am Autistic and that's who I am and that's fine, in fact, that's awesome and I'm awesome is nothing as passive as letting my autism define me. I am more than just autism, of course, just as I am more than just an engineering student and I am more than just a blogger and I am more than just Jewish and I am more than just a singer. I could go on. When I call myself any of those things, you don't tell me how I shouldn't let those define me. Maybe with those things, you realize that this kind of statement is nothing so passive?
Because it's not passive. It's not even something like passivity. In fact, it is even less passive to identify myself with I am Autistic than it is to identify myself with I am a student or whatever else I can and do identify myself with. Or should I say, it is even more assertive?
It's more assertive because it is an identity that I am stating with an I am in the face of people telling me how I shouldn't, how it's something to be embarrassed of, how it's something that I shouldn't let be a defining characteristic, how it's something that I have and that doesn't have me or however you want to separate me from my neurology today. It's more assertive because there is something to assert against. The more you tell me how I shouldn't let my autism define me, the less it is a matter of letting anything define me and more a matter of asserting my own identity.
I am not letting the fact that I am Autistic define me. I am asserting that I am Autistic, and I am demanding that you recognize one of my major defining characteristics for what it is. That's not passive. That's active. That's not letting. That's insisting.
You tell me I shouldn't let my autism define me.
I tell you that it's not possible to simply let it define me. If I were to be passive enough for it to be a matter of letting, I would be letting you separate me from my own brain.
I tell you that of all my defining characteristics, this is the one people try hardest not to recognize as one, and thus it is the one that I am insisting on. You don't want me to let it define me? You've already succeeded, then, as this is nothing so passive.

Flash Blogging Alert!

Autistic people are...
Autistic people should...
I would say to type these into Google and look for the autocomplete suggestions, but it's pretty bad. It's triggering, looking at what people search starting with those strings. Âû  gave the heads up about that issue, thanks to them. They're awesome, btw. 
That's where this idea comes from. The idea? Flash blogs, of course. AutismPositivity went well. Autistics Speaking Day (ASDay) got international coverage last year. Having lots of people blogging about things together seems to do things, and maybe it will change what searches come up. We want to do this now, though, so that if we're changing the search strings and the search results by way of putting good things out there, it can hopefully be changed by April.
It needs to be changed by then because it's Autism Awareness month, Autism Acceptance month. Awareness is the term that most organizations use, unless they are trying to co-opt acceptance, the thing we truly need, and something that is incompatible with their brands of awareness.
So I know it's short notice, but Autistic People Should is going to be February 23, and Autistic People Are is March 2. Yes, that's a week from today and two weeks from today. Thumbnail graphics are still to be determined, and you can submit ideas if you want. Anyone who wants to send us a link to their flash blog for either topic, the Autistic People Should blog is here, and the Autistic People Are blog is here. You can put links in the comments, message Yes, That Too on Facebook, tweet at us, whatever. A Google Doc for submission will be up as well, once we get the executive functioning together. And yes, we could still go for another moderator.

Refusing to Pay

I'm not sure if this needs a trigger warning or not...

What is the price of success?

For you, it is merely the work and the time involved, with the loss of whatever else you might have done with that time. If you can find the time and the starting resources (these will come back many times over, so while they are required, they are not truly part of the price, not one of the things that you will spend and not see return in order to get your success,) you can have have it.

For me?

When I succeed, there are many who will say I have no right to claim my own neurology.

When I succeed, I will either have to hide away the brain that got me there, accept the "no excuses!" inspiration that will be made of it if anyone knows, or be told that I am an exception no one with my sort of brain could hope to match. Maybe I will get all three at once.

And if I refuse to pay?

If I'm lucky, I can keep my success anyways, but the other costs will get steeper and steeper the more I refuse to pay the price of disavowing my own neurology.

Hate letters?

I'm expecting it.

Being told that I can't understand what it's really like to live in my brain because I can do things?

I've already gotten that one. I've already had people telling me how excited they are that Asperger's is not a thing anymore, forgetting many important details.

Like the fact that, I'm not actually Aspergers. Nice try, still here.

Like the fact that you who told me I would no longer exist doesn't know nearly as much about autism as you think you do, and I know far more than you realize. You think Asperger's isn't a thing, with your justification being the (likely mistaken) belief that you meet the criteria for it. You think that it is simply being smart and awkward, ignoring the echolalia and the obvious sensory issues that are sitting in front of you to make that claim.

Like the fact that you don't know what difficulties, what disabilities I might have, no matter how much you want to believe you know me better than I know myself.

No.

I know what it is to live in my brain.

I know what it is to be Autistic, and I won't be forgetting just because my label now includes the word "Autistic." That doesn't even make sense.

Being told that I am not like their child?

Already happens, sometimes with people whose children are, in fact, almost exactly how I was at their age. I am more like their child than they are.

Articles that attack neurodiversity questioning my diagnosis and my character both?

If they manage to do that to non-speaking Autistics, I'm sure they'll do it to me if I won't disavow my neurology or claim exceptionhood first.

And I won't.

The only way I am truly an exception is that my abilities were presumed and built upon instead of ignored to work on deficits and differences. The rest, while perhaps not the median (can we have a median on a nearly infinite-dimensional spectrum?) or mode (does anyone know what that one would mean either?) is not unusual, is not a shocking outlier no one can hope to match. It's the right person in the right place at the right time, that's all.

And part of "right person" is the right person's brain, you know, that Autistic brain?

Hiding my brain might be the price they will try to make me pay, that they will try to deduct from my account if I will not pay it on my own, but they will find me a difficult one to push into hiding.

My brain is mine, my brain is Autistic, and that means that I am Autistic.

You're just going to have to deal with it.

Echo, echo, echo

I can speak in my own words, or close enough to them that people do not notice.
Echo, echo, echo.
Somewhere in there, there is an echo.
You can see it, if you listen.
When you ask, "Would you like some ice cream?" and I answer "ICE CREAM!" you can see it.
Even if I say "冰淇淋!" instead, it's just an echo across languages.
Echo, echo, echo.
I pull your words and make them my own.
I am the echo of your words, rearranging them to suit my needs.

You think nothing of my echo.
It's there, just not an issue, unless and until you know.
Then, and only then, does it become a symptom to eliminate,
Something that prevents the ultimate goal:
Indistinguishable From One's Peers.
Not my goal, one forced upon me.
I echo their terms in their tones, then add a "except not."
I echo their terms in their tones, then add a battle cry.
I echo their terms in their tones, and that is, in itself, a rebellion.
My echo, you see, is something they wish to squash.
It's mere use becomes a radical act.
So I echo, I echo, I echo.
In one language.
Across two languages.
Echo, echo, echo.

《大声手：自闭人，谈话》

正體字在下面

《大声手：自闭人，谈话》

《大声手：自闭人，谈话》(Loud Hands: autistic people, speaking)是自闭症自我提倡网络提出的第二本书，世界第一次有自闭的人一起写书谈神经多样性，自我提倡，及我们被别人做的事。在这本书，你能看到二十九个自闭的人，都写他们自己的看法，他们自己的故事，他们自己的诗等。在290叶的书，每一词都是自闭的人自己说的，写的，或打的。作者包括大学生，教授，自闭的自我提倡网络的主席, 索引,自闭儿自闭的父母,及不能说话，必须靠别人住自闭的人。我们面临的问题有时候完全不一样，有时候没有什么差别。在这本书里有一篇文章：我看了，不知道这篇的作者能不能说话。看了后，我还不清除－作者是什么样的人？他肯定是自闭的，但是我不知道：能不能说话？能不能一个人住？能不能工作？

只能看他写的，不会说他一定能说，也不会说话他一定不能说话。

《大声手：自闭人，谈话》分为几部分：最上面是一篇介绍，然后几篇谈神经多样性，自闭症权利，及自闭症自我提倡的历史。历史后，另外一些自闭人谈这方面现时的情况，然后自闭人被别人做的事情。这一部分包括Julia Bascom的《静手》(Quiet Hands)。《静手》的题目是应用行为分析－她的治疗师让她别皮瓣手，别躁动。

他写：“在语言障学生的教室，最常用的短语是一个比喻：“静手！””治疗师做他们做的，说“静手！”就是因为他们（很多人）认为自闭症肯定是坏的。因为自闭人自然用我们自己的身体就是自闭症，所以这是不行的。他们认为看像正常人一样是最重要的。如果自闭症是自闭人最大的问题，那么让他们看像正常人，做正常人做的就好了，对吗？

Julia说：“不对”。E, Jim, Amanda, April, Ari, 我，等， 我们都说：“不对！”Amy说功能标签没用，及April说尊重自闭人重要而让自闭人跟正常人就是害得自闭的人。Jim说自闭人还在，自闭人的父母不应该悼他们。如果他们想要悼没来的正常孩子，不是跟我们在一起的时候要做。无论你做什么，找我们里面的“正常”人就找不到。我们没有“正常”的自己，只有自闭的自己。

我们被别人做的后，有人谈修辞。在这一部分，自闭再说功能标签没用，甚至给自闭人害。我们写叫一些人“正常，”说自闭人等是异常的，混乱的为什么害得我们。因此，我们就交他们是“神经典型的”(neurotypical)。这样，什么样的人都有标签。说话的时候，这个区别很小，而在修辞里语言的小区别非常重要。如果你要换到别的模式（从病理的模式换到神经多样性的模式，）你不许找新的语言谈新的假设和想法。在一次模式的转变，新词包括“神经典型的”和“神经分岔的”(neurodivergent。)

修辞后，作者谈“表达能力”及从这里，提议神经多样性者要做的事。这一本书是大声手的开始。大声手也有机会写别的书及写信给刚才诊断的自闭人和他们的父母。

《大聲手：自閉人，談話》

《大聲手：自閉人，談話》(Loud Hands: autistic people, speaking)是自閉症自我提倡網絡提出的第二本書，世界第一次有自閉的人一起寫書談神經多樣性，自我提倡，及我們被別人做的事。在這本書，你能看到二十九個自閉的人，都寫他們自己的看法，他們自己的故事，他們自己的詩等。在290葉的書，每一詞都是自閉的人自己說的，寫的，或打的。作者包括大學生，教授，自閉的自我提倡網絡的主席, 索引,自閉兒自閉的父母,及不能說話，必須靠別人住自閉的人。我們面臨的問題有時候完全不一樣，有時候沒有什麼差別。在這本書裡有一篇文章：我看了，不知道這篇的作者能不能說話。看了後，我還不清除－作者是什麼樣的人？他肯定是自閉的，但是我不知道：能不能說話？能不能一個人住？能不能工作？
只能看他寫的，不會說他一定能說，也不會說話他一定不能說話。
《大聲手：自閉人，談話》分為幾部分：最上面是一篇介紹，然後幾篇談神經多樣性，自閉症權利，及自閉症自我提倡的歷史。歷史後，另外一些自閉人談這方面現時的情況，然後自閉人被別人做的事情。這一部分包括Julia Bascom的《靜手》(Quiet Hands)。 《靜手》的題目是應用行為分析－她的治療師讓她別皮瓣手，別躁動。
他寫：“在語言障學生的教室，最常用的短語是一個比喻：“靜手！ ””治療師做他們做的，說“靜手！”就是因為他們（很多人）認為自閉症肯定是壞的。因為自閉人自然用我們自己的身體就是自閉症，所以這是不行的。他們認為看像正常人一樣是最重要的。如果自閉症是自閉人最大的問題，那麼讓他們看像正常人，做正常人做的就好了，對嗎？
Julia說：“不對”。 E, Jim, Amanda, April, Ari, 我，等， 我們都說：“不對！”Amy說功能標籤沒用，及April說尊重自閉人重要而讓自閉人跟正常人就是害得自閉的人。 Jim說自閉人還在，自閉人的父母不應該悼他們。如果他們想要悼沒來的正常孩子，不是跟我們在一起的時候要做。無論你做什麼，找我們裡面的“正常”人就找不到。我們沒有“正常”的自己，只有自閉的自己。
我們被別人做的後，有人談修辭。在這一部分，自閉再說功能標籤沒用，甚至給自閉人害。我們寫叫一些人“正常，”說自閉人等是異常的，混亂的為什麼害得我們。因此，我們就交他們是“神經典型的”(neurotypical)。這樣，什麼樣的人都有標籤。說話的時候，這個區別很小，而在修辭里語言的小區別非常重要。如果你要換到別的模式（從病理的模式換到神經多樣性的模式，）你不許找新的語言談新的假設和想法。在一次模式的轉變，新詞包括“神經典型的”和“神經岔開的”(neurodivergent。)
修辭後，作者談“表達能力”及從這裡，提議神經多樣性者要做的事。這一本書是大聲手的開始。大聲手也有機會寫別的書及寫信給剛才診斷的自閉人和他們的父母。

Responding to Person-First Crusaders

I have no issue with person-first language for people who want to be described using it. I have lots of issues, however, with anyone who thinks that it's acceptable to tell me what to call myself or to presume to know what someone else really wants to be called after they have stated otherwise.
That's what a person-first crusader is. A person-first crusader tells me that I am a person with autism after I call myself an Autistic person, or possibly simply an Autistic. I do use Autistic as a noun, sometimes.
And so I, like many other people who prefer to be called Autistic, have a few comebacks up our sleeves for when we run into a person-first crusader. Before I gave my presentation and paper on Autism in China, I prepared a few, just in case. Here they are, meant to be served with a healthy heaping of sarcasm.

• "If y'all devoted half the energy to helping me that you do to telling me what to call myself, we'd not be in anywhere near the dire straits we're in as a community."- Neurodivergent K
• "You seem like a person with rudeness when you tell me what to call myself."-Landon Bryce in I Love Being My Own Autistic Self
• Basically the entirety of "A Person With."
• Especially "You are a person with neurotypicality."
• "I am an Autistic who happens to be experiencing life with personhood!" (Laughing)
• Can I cure your neurotypical?
• Why do you care what I call me?
• Just like I'm a person with femaleness, right?
• What else could I be if I'm Autistic? Are there Autistic cats now?
• No, I think I'm an Autistic Martian. Nice try, though.
• You mean we can detach my brain and I'm still me? I didn't know that!
• Yes, and tomorrow I think I'll be a person without autism. No, wait, it doesn't work that way, does it?
• Only sometimes. Sometimes my autism goes and shaves the dog while I'm still sitting here, and I don't have autism when that happens. It keeps coming back, though.

Responding

The ignorance is rampant. The ignorance has been rampant. 

We have been responding. We will continue responding.

And we are becoming more proactive.

Rather than simply trying to refute, we are putting our own statements out.

Correcting misconceptions only sometimes works, but stating something new makes a new association.

That's what we're doing.

Paula's This is Aspergers. This is Autism. does this.

Autism Shines does this.

Autistics, Not Monsters does this.

The Autistic Adults Picture Project has been doing this for years.

People are sharing responses at thAutcast.

Lydia of Autistic Hoya is making a video using pictures along these same lines.

I made one, using an old picture of mine.

Image description:

At the left side, there is a young girl sitting for a picture. She has long brown hair, is wearing a purple turtleneck, and is smiling with her teeth not quite together. At the right is the following text, blue on a purple background:

This is Alyssa.

She's probably five in this picture.

She will grow up to be called horrible things by people who have never met her, simply because of her neurology. None of these things are true.

She will be afraid to put up a recent picture in which she claims her own neurology. She knows Google exists, and she knows Google Images exists too.

But most of all, she knows what so many still think of people like her, and she is afraid.

You see, she is Autistic.

She doesn't like loud noises.

Sometimes she doesn't understand why people act the way they do.

She has trouble putting things into words, sometimes, though it's easier when she types. Handwriting would work... if she could read her own writing. She mostly can't, though.

She might not look you in the eye. She might take you very literally. She is Autistic.

She isn't scary. She is Autistic.

I Love Being My Own Autistic Self

Trigger Warning: Discussions of presuming incompetence, preventing autistics

That's Landon Bryce of thAutcast's new book. I got it for Hanukkah, and it was even better than I expected it to be. That's saying a lot, since I like thAutcast, I liked what Autoons I'd seen before I got the book, and I read a lot of very good reviews before I got it. And no, he's not paying me to write this review or anything. It's just that good.
First things first: If you have ever, will ever, or may ever interact with someone autistic ever, go get the book:
E-book/Kindle
Paperback
Done that? Good.
So, this is why I thought it was really, really good- there were three autistic main characters, all different. One was non-speaking. None considered themselves tragedies. There was a friend, a sibling, and a doctor as well- the sibling "love[s] her brother, but hate[s] his autism," and the brother "love[s] his sister, but she hates a part of him." The autistic brother knew the kind of things his sister and the doctor talked about, and he was aware (and disapproving) of the fact that they didn't like it when he disagreed with them.
I had to try (and fail) not to cry as I read. I saw people assuming Marko (Marko is the sound that means me-me being the one who does not speak) could not understand because he could not speak, Marko thinking that he is still worth getting to know, and most people not understanding. The other autistic- I think it was Vector, though facial recognition=not so good, was still friends with him, and understood that friendship is important. Pang was sorry that about Vector being autistic, but Vector was not sorry. It's a common theme- people are sorry that we are autistic rather than taking the time to understand us. People assume we can not understand rather than taking the time to understand our communication. People assume they know better than we do what we want to be called. And the comeback when that came up! I swear, "You seem like a person with rudeness when you tell me what to call myself" is my new comeback to people who want me to use person-first. It was great. Things happened in this short book that reminded me of what really happens. It's a book that a child can read and that an adult can still learn from.
The characters were well-developed too, I thought. All the Autoons had feelings. All were capable of friendship. All felt like three-dimensional characters, meaning that in thirty-eight pages of mostly pictures, Landon Bryce managed to paint three better autistic characters than many books do in over a hundred.

Finding Home at the Gala

The other of two things I wrote for the ASAN November Newsletter. 

On November 14, I also went to the ASAN second annual gala. I was almost an hour late, having gotten stuck in traffic on the way from the Disability and Inclusion in the Humanities panel to the gala with the organizer of the panel and a few of the panelists who were also attending the gala, but what I arrived to was more than worth the wait. When I arrived, it was to…Autistic space!
Autistic space is not like neurotypical space. In Autistic space, stim toys are readily available, such as the blue ASAN Tangles at every seat, and carrying them with us to fidget with when talking to other attendees was completely normal. Instead of the loud clapping applause normally used, we use jazz hands or flapping at the end of speeches or anywhere that clapping would normally be appropriate. That the inability to use spoken language and having nothing to say are two completely different things is accepted as a fact, and is not an issue that leads to continuously needing to prove and re-prove competence. If and when a topic is difficult or triggering, it’s considered acceptable to step outside. There is no need to apologize for acting visibly autistic or for the “forgetting” of faces that can come from face-blindness or from simply not looking at people. Sure, this was a gala at the National Press Conference, but that didn’t mean that we suddenly needed to act like neurotypical adults at their most formal–the social rules common to the outside world need significant modification for use in Autistic space, including a requirement of being as direct and clear in communication as possible given current language abilities and a complete suspension of asking for eye contact. That’s what I found at the gala. I found people talking about important things in language I could understand and being OK with the people fidgeting and flapping and looking off in a completely different direction than the speaker, knowing that this was simply our natural way of being, not some attempt at disrespect.
I heard about self-advocacy and including people in communities, about the importance of Alternative and Augmentative Communication, and about needing to stand together. I heard about not letting the world isolate and mistreat any group that they were somehow convinced was really the group to isolate, no matter how much “but this time we’re sure!” we might hear. They’re never as sure as they think they are, not with Autistic people and not with anyone else. I heard more about the Loud Hands Project, which I submitted a semi-poem to, and finally got to see the video used for fundraising for it. All things affirming the acceptance of autism as a difference that is a disability not in need of elimination or cure, but simply support for a different way of being, were to be found at the gala–it was one of few spaces where I felt completely safe.
Kassiane wrote after Autreat that she had found her family, that it was the Autistic community, and after traveling to Washington, DC for the annual gala, I have to say the same. The Autistic community is another family for me, one that makes sense and that understands both the advantages I have and the difficulties I face. The Autistic community understands that this is who we are, for better or for worse. The gala itself may have only been two hours out of a busy day, but in a world that is not yet designed for people with brains like ours, it meant family and it meant home.

A Person With...

I am Autistic.

Don't insult yourself like that!

I'm... not?
I'm stating a fact.
I am Autistic.

But it is!
Person-first isn't, though.

Fine.
I'm a person with whiteness.
I'm a person with femaleness.
I'm a person with the ability to speak Chinese.
I'm a person with an interest in art.
I'm a person with math skills.
I'm a person with three younger siblings.
And I am Autistic.

I think you missed my point.
You are a person with autism.

And you are a person with neurotypicality.
And you are a person with the ability to get on my nerves.
And you are a person with a lack of respect for self determination when you tell me what to call myself.
And I am Autistic.




Note: There are two "speakers" here, alternating by stanza. The first speaker is an Autistic person who cares about language, and the second is someone who thinks everyone needs to use person-first always. I don't actually care which you use for yourself because self-determination is important; I just expect the same level of respect for my choosing to call myself an Autistic (person is optional since Autistic only applies to people last I checked) and not wanting to be called a person with autism.