Casual Representation Matters

For a long time, I didn't think representation in fiction affected me the same way it affects most people. I intellectually understood that it mattered, and why, but I didn't fully get it. I'd read books with protagonists who were boys and protagonists who were girls (and protagonist teams that had both), and it didn't make much of a difference to me. I admittedly had (and still have) a soft spot for stories where a girl passed herself off as a boy, like Alanna, then of Trebond, from Tamora Pierce's Tortall universe, but there wasn't any great reaction to protagonists who were "like me".

Probably part of this was that most autistic characters written by non-autistic authors are really stereotypical. Definitely part of this was that I'd never actually read a story with a protagonist of my gender. Ever.

By which I mean, I'm non-binary. Reading a story about girls isn't actually representing me, no matter how many people mistake me for a girl.

Then I read Ninefox Gambit, The Raven Strategem, and Revenant Gun.

On top of the plots, which, yes good, these books have casual trans representation. There is an important minor character who uses they/them pronouns, and it's not considered noteworthy that they do. There are plenty of things that are noteworthy about this absolutely terrifying human, but in-universe, their pronouns are just a casual thing.

I actually started crying when I first saw Zehun referred to as a they.

There's also a trans guy in the story whose transness is, again, not a big deal in-world. We know about it because we see him binding (or undoing his binder before bed? I don't totally remember.) That's literally the only reference, but it tells us that yes, there are trans people in this universe. Many (perhaps most?) get surgery, but there are still trans people who bind.

He's a man and I'm not, but again, I cried. Here's a character binding and also being very important to the story for reasons that have nothing to do with his being trans.

When we talk about casual representation, with trans characters in stories that aren't about being trans, this is what we mean. (And yes, I'm aware of some irony in this post being about how they are trans. Representation matters, so I'm going to tell y'all the characters are, in fact, trans. Zehun is like me. I needed that.) There's enough information for me to know these characters are trans. But the story isn't about gender. It's about oppressive interstellar empires and living within (or upending) them. With trans people in it. Their world isn't one I especially want to live in, but it's one that recognizes people like me exist. That means something.

Don't change other people's pronouns!

Pro tip for editors: Don't change the pronouns in contributor bios. Your contributors almost certainly did not accidentally type the "wrong" pronoun for themselves several times and not notice.

— Alyssa (@yes_thattoo) November 25, 2017

I've been sitting on this for a while, waiting until the point where I'm ready to write about this. The tip  applies to more than just editors, and it's more than just editors who've changed my pronouns on me. I don't mean that I've told them my pronouns, and then they've written something about me using incorrect pronouns. That's a problem, and as another tip, don't do that either. I mean I've been asked to write an introduction or bio for myself, I've done so, I've sent the text in, and then the final posted text has been edited specifically to change my pronouns.

Maybe they think I accidentally typed the "wrong" pronouns for myself, with the "wrong" conjugation, throughout? I assure you, I am intentional enough about my word choices to avoid making this error consistently for the whole paragraph. I make typos, and sometimes words will be entirely missing, but I don't accidentally misgender myself in text. Discomfort with doing so is how I figured out that 1) I am nonbinary, and 2) my pronouns are they/them/theirs. (Sie/sier/siers is also acceptable in text, but sounds too much like "she" for my comfort when spoken.)

Maybe they think my pronouns are grammatically incorrect? Whenever someone tells me an introduction or bio I wrote for myself, or really, anything I wrote about myself in the third person, has grammatical issues, my first question is if they mean my pronouns. Never mind that singular "they" is older than they are, it's a common statement. I've heard it from people who don't know my pronouns ... and people who do. (Once, a professor pointed out a grammatical issue that had nothing to do with my pronouns or their conjugation. I fixed it, and I thanked him. He didn't say a word about my pronouns.)

Maybe they don't personally have an issue, but think my pronouns will confuse readers. I've been asked before if the plural might confuse a reader. Here's the thing: you can add a note about my pronouns! I've had people do this. It's OK. You can write Alyssa (they/them/theirs) in a text when you talk about me so readers explicitly know "they" is being used as a singular pronoun to refer to me. You can say "Alyssa uses they/them pronouns" in a footnote after my name. You can do both! I'd love it if this weren't needed. However, it's common for people to read text that just uses my pronouns without a note and then use the wrong pronouns to describe me. This note may both reduce any real confusion (as opposed to transphobia masquerading as confusion) and serve as a reminder for people who don't just don't really notice singular they pronouns in text.

Because here's the thing: When you edit text to change my pronouns, it is misgendering. The excuses people make don't hold up. Singular "they" is grammatically fine. Singular "you" is actually newer than singular "they." (Singular "you" and singular "they" get the same verb/adjective treatments because they have similar histories in terms of starting off plural and becoming singular at a later date. It's just that both these dates are long past.) Expressive difficulties are real, but they don't apply here because you didn't need to edit my already existing text.  Direct explanations are the way to avoid confusion without lying. Changing other people's pronouns is misgendering. Don't do it. This is a case where the no-effort option of not making changes is the correct option.

(If, after reading this, you're wondering if I'm talking about you: only if you've actually done this, and there's enough of you that I neither want nor need to single anyone out. I just want people to be aware of this as a thing to not do.)

Alyssa Reads: Critical Studies of the Sexed Brain -- Communication thoughts

I continue my thoughts from reading Critical Studies of the Sexed Brain. Because I had more and then forgot to put them up here. Go me.  Here's the citation again if you want it:

Kraus, C. (2012). Critical studies of the sexed brain: A critique of what and for whom?. Neuroethics,5(3), pp. 247-259.doi:10.1007/s12152-011-9107-7  

And now the quote that got me thinking:

“Critical neuroscientists frame the question of a science gap between neuro- and social scientists, experts and the public, just as couple's guides conceive of the gender gap in terms of unawareness, misunderstanding, or ignorance, promoting the idea that all matters can be settled through enhanced communication and better knowledge of each other's distinctive language, culture, needs or concerns.”

This needs more attention paid to it. Here is a big issue: there is a power imbalance. Patriarchy is a word for the imbalance in the couple's guide, and it would relate to the sciences one too since hard sciences tend to be thought of as men's fields while social sciences are thought of more as women's fields. (Accuracy of this thinking is another issue, but STEM in general runs man-heavy.)

That contributes to the rhetorical positioning of the fields, where neuroscientific “facts” can't be questioned by social sciences, even if questioning the facts isn't exactly what's going on. Sometimes it's questioning the causes and interpretation of the reported result rather than questioning whether or not the result was correct, or reproducible. Though the fMRI study of a dead fish is relevant, and so is the fMRI of the same person daily for about a year – fMRI is not infallible, no more than any scientific procedure is, and pretending it is will get us into trouble.

The author then asks about “lay expertise” from patients, relatives, and activists. Since I'm studying neuroscience but came from the Neurodiversity Movement before I got into neuroscience, I wonder where that puts me. As a neuroscience student, I'm one of the science people. As an Autistic person, I'm somewhat a patient. (Not much of one, haven't been in therapy related to autistic traits for a while, but when I write as an Autistic person, I go in that category.) And there is definitely a power difference between the roles. There has to be, for Theory of Mind to have been interpreted to mean autistic people can't understand our own experiences. Not everyone making use of the word thinks that, but it's an interpretation I've seen way too much of.

The author then points to this framework as “preventative politics,” where it keeps the peace by avoiding/assuaging conflict in the name of interdisciplinarity. She argues this could prevent good science that would come from controversy. I'd agree, but also say that it can involve silencing of ideas that aren't status quo as part of the peacekeeping.

Another issue with the focus on communication is that it only works if everyone is acting in good faith. It's the same problem with Nonviolent Communication and similar: if everyone is acting in good faith, it works fine. If anyone involved is actually seeking to maintain control or to do harm, consciously or not, it's not going to work. If one person's goals actively exclude the other person's goals, better communication can lead to figuring this out, but not to solving the problem. Seeking to expand the domain of one's own field without worrying too much about the domain of anyone else's field could lead to a similar failure in interdisciplinary communication ideas.

Alyssa Reads Critical Studies of the Sexed Brain

This is another one I read for neuroethics. I was considering using this article for my presentation on a neuroethics related topics, but that didn't happen because someone else split off my too-large group and it wasn't too big anymore. We actually wound up talking about a medication used to treat addiction ... that can itself be addictive. Fun times. So, here's some of my thoughts from reading Critical studies of the sexed brain. 

Kraus, C. (2012). Critical studies ofthe sexed brain: A critique of what and for whom?. Neuroethics,5(3), pp. 247-259.doi:10.1007/s12152-011-9107-7

“They suggest that we work and talk across disciplines as if neuroscientists were from Mars and social scientists were from Venus, assigning the latter to the traditional feminine role of assuaging conflict” (247). sigh I am not surprised that some scientists think of social sciences that way.

Brain plasticity+ identity formation in intersex people, brains vs. genitals. That's going to be interesting. By which I mean, I have concerns. I have friends who are intersex. I know people who do intersex activism. And I know intersex people who concluded that intersex and/or nonbinary is their gender identity rather than picking one of the two binary genders. Hope the author isn't assuming a gender identity must be one of man/woman. Heck, mine isn't that and as far as I know, I'm not intersex.

Oi at calling autism a disease. It is a neurodevelopmental disability [or a neurotype, that's a good word and also let's remember what I'm saying when I say disability - the social model of disability is a thing.] Also I know the author found neurodiversity stuff because the article comes up when I search the journal for neurodiversity, what the heck? I don't expect to hear it called a neurotype in anything done by neurotypical(-passing) academics but really? Disease?

Ok, gender in the brain as a result of plasticity, that's going to be interesting – “reflect gendered behavior as learned and incorporated in a social context” is a thing, but please, please don't let this turn into “male socialization” for trans women or “female socialization” for trans men, or either of the above for nonbinary folks. The socialization of “consistently mistaken for X while actually Y” is not the same as the socialization of “X.” Ok, individual differences are a thing. That's good. “Plasticity arguments are extremely interesting as they wage war against both biological and social determinism, reductionism, essentialism, and other -isms.” Phew that's not the socialization argument I was worried about, I don't think.

Does she mean “cishet” by “normal people”? (Cishet=cisgender, heterosexual.) I appreciate the quotation marks around “normal people” but there probably is another word for what she means and using it would be nice.

Now we have one of my rage buttons. All caps time!

OH MY GOD STOP CALLING NEURODIVERSITY AN ASPERGERS THING. THE ANI PEOPLE WERE CLASSIC EVEN IF THEY TALK NOW, AND ALSO DIAGNOSED BEFORE ASPERGERS WAS IN THE DSM. MEL BAGGS IS NONSPEAKING. AMY SEQUENZIA IS NONSPEAKING. I'M CLASSIC EVEN THOUGH I USUALLY TALK. STOP. STOP. SERIOUSLY THE ROOTS ARE OLD ENOUGH THAT ASPERGERS WASN'T A DIAGNOSIS YET WHEN A LOT OF OUR FOLKS WERE DIAGNOSED, WHICH MEANS THEY WEREN'T DIAGNOSED ASPERGERS. THEY ARE NOT ASPERGERS, WHICH IS ALSO NOT A DIAGNOSIS ANYMORE. (maybe was when written?)

Intersex activist history! I knew about unwanted surgery, gender role training, and folks wanting their own intersex bodies back. I also know someone who was put on unwanted hormones. What are the results of Diamond getting so lauded while speaking in terms of brain sex, though? It's still the language coming from the people who try to enforce the man/woman dichotomy. What are the results of using the "sexed brain" discourse while not necessarily fitting in the binary? 

1 Walker, N. (September 27, 2014). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and definitions. Neurocosmopolitanism: Nick Walker's notes on neurodiversity, autism, and cognitive liberty. [blog post] Retrieved from http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions/ is a good explanation of the neurodiversity related vocabulary I tend to use when thinking about neuro stuff.

Dear Well-Meaning Autism Mom Looking For A Surrogate Mom For Your Son, Please Don't Assume The Person You Approached Is A Girl Or Straight

Guest post by Elizabeth Rosenzweig. 

So I run an autism meetup. Parents of post-pubescent autistics are not invited. There’s a number of reasons why but one of them in particular has been making the blog rounds: well-meaning but misguided parents who, out of concern for their son’s (and it is always a son, isn’t it?) inability to fend for himself, look to set up a trust fund for him in the shape of a kindly woman savior who will cook and clean and pay his bills for him, forever and ever, amen. The guys themselves can be the problem, too; a person who should be a grown-ass man asks you out and is then shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that you’re just as shit at getting A Job, remembering to pay bills on time, and feeding/picking up after yourself as he is, if not worse. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one.)

But I’ve already had two very smart friends I admire address that aspect in plenty of depth, so, well-meaning but misguided parent, let me address another one that you may not have considered.

That long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person you met, the one you think would look so cute on the arm of your precious manchild (or your precious self), might not actually be a girl. Or straight.

They could be asexual or aromantic - content and whole within themselves. They might be allosexual but gay. They might use she/her pronouns but feel utterly alienated from femininity as a concept. They might be a genderless android. They might be a trans man. You just don’t know!

It’s almost like that long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person is… hear me out for a second… a person. Not your personal insurance policy, or your uncompensated PCA, or your romantic-comedy-prize, or your glorified German Shepherd, but an entire human being unto themselves, with weaknesses and feelings and ambitions beyond saddling themselves to some cisgendered guy who wants things done just like his mom did them. *They* might be the one needing a PCA! They might maybe sometimes need someone to hold them while they cry hysterically because they foolishly expended all their energy for the day on folding three-quarters of the laundry. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one too.)

How do I even address the sexual side of things with you? You, hypothetical mom, have almost certainly had experience with shutting up and taking it while a male partner got his rocks off inside you. Is that how you want your son treating his life companion? Is that how you would want to be treated? I’m certainly sick of it, or worse, being treated as deranged for exploding in frustration after having my own needs go unacknowledged and unmet for years at a time. I got so sick of it that I quit men and went monogamous with an assigned-female-at-birth genderless android. So far, so good. But how would you know that from looking, unless you saw me and my wife together? 

The point is, you don’t consider those things. You think about your own fears, which are visceral and immediate. What will become of my child after I’m gone? When will I have a chance to feel like a person and not a 24/7 PCA - won’t anyone please help me? And those questions resonate so loudly inside your own head that you don’t stop to ask yourself the ones I’ve posed here. That’s not my problem, though, nor is it the problem of any long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind autistic. It’s not fair of you to put your anxieties on us, when we have so many of our own to contend with.

One of the side benefits of running an autism meetup is that you have the opportunity to meet a lot of people of all ages and genders and walks of life. I have quite a few lovely gentlemen who are regular attendees. Let me reassure you, dear, hypothetical mom, that almost all of them have turned out just fine, with the support of agents and agencies who are meant to do the work that you are looking for from that nice autistic at the meetup. It’s actually the ones whose parents have done the most coddling and interfering who are struggling the most.

So please. Stop putting your cissexist, heteronormative expectations on people you barely know, in the name of providing for your own offspring. You’ll start working on real solutions much faster once you do.

RPG/Nonbinary

Heads up that gender binary stuff is going to be discussed, largely in terms of my reactions to it playing Runescape, an online role playing game. So is dysphoria, both with my actual body and with a digital avatar for the game.

I've played Runescape for quite a while. Long enough that I've watched the graphics change quite a bit. Some of these changes are nice (Priffinidas looks pretty cool. Also, I gave my avatar purple hair and purple wings.) Some are ... not great for me. (The female avatar's chest is quite a bit more noticable than it used to be. Also, armor designs look different based on male vs. female avatars in a way the graphics didn't used to be good enough to support properly.)

In the ideal world, there would be an androgynous option. I don't live in that world. There's male avatars and female avatars. If you use a male avatar, you have shorter hair options (darn), a flat chest (yay), armor graphics that would actually protect your torso (yay), usually facial hair (whatever), and he pronouns (whatever.) If you use a female avatar, you have both short and long hair options (yay), a chest that is definitely not flat (dysphoric), armor graphics that show off said chest (dysphoric), only the new "pirate" beards from a recent event as facial hair options (whatever), and she pronouns (whatever.) "They" pronouns aren't an option, no matter what avatar you're using (darn.)

When I first made my account (and I do still use my original account from middle school), I didn't know I was nonbinary yet. So, of course, I used my assigned gender and made a female avatar. Over time, I started having issues with this. (Hi, dysphoria is a thing.) My original avatar looked a bit like I physically do -- long brown hair, skin that's on the dark side for a white person but still a white person, and a tendency to wear purple. It even had a long braid for a while. As graphics advanced and I became more aware that my problems with the avatar were dysphoria, I made my avatar look less like me. Purple hair not in a braid, purple skin, wings.

But I was still having trouble. Some of the armor options I liked were dysphoric to look at on my character. (Thank blob for cosmetic overrides. I used those heavily, and still do, so the "look" of my character doesn't change when I change the armor I'm wearing. This got me around that problem, at least.) It took me a while to think of "switch the avatar gender" because I'm nonbinary, and that means that a male avatar is still incorrect. However, in terms of the characteristics that show up in Runescape, it's closer. Flat chest for the win. (That's my primary dysphoria issue in meatspace, and it remains so with digital representations.) The pronouns are a question of the usual wrong answer (she) vs. the unusual wrong answer (he) and it's easier for me to be amused by the unusual wrong answer. (They/them/their is a right answer.) And with actual items + keepsake keys, I retain the ability to put my avatar in a skirt. This works so much better.

"Locker room talk", "vulgarity", and sexual assault.

Heads up that I'll be talking about sexual assault. Most of the thoughts I'm expressing are things I've heard elsewhere, but not necessarily combined in the way I'm doing and I unfortunately don't remember my sources. Also note that my position on the Trumpster fire, though not stated on this blog before now as far as I know, has been "As a queer disabled Jew descended from Holocaust survivors, I am concerned by these patterns" for some time. Also part of my position is: "Knocking down one figurehead of these patterns doesn't undo them, but letting one such figurehead become the most visible figure of a country makes the patterns get much worse, very quickly."


I've seen quite a few articles floating around that talk about the Trumpster fire's latest comments as "vulgar," rather than as "bragging about sexual assault." Let's start off with thing the first: he's bragging about sexual assault. I've also heard about it getting defended as locker room talk, and typical of men. (Also something men will sometimes try to include queer women in, because apparently the fact that someone likes women means that they would go in for their objectification and the glorification of their assault?)

And I am, in fact, well aware that not all men would commit any sort of sexual assault. (I'm also aware that quite a few will admit to having done so as long as you only describe the act and don't call it what it is.) Want to know who doesn't realize that? The men who assault think that all men actually do so, and just avoid getting caught/in trouble for it. So when someone tells me that these sorts of statements are normal locker room talk, I have to come to one of two conclusions:

1. They're one of the ones who would (or has) assaulted.
2. They can't tell the difference between speaking about consensual acts in a vulgar way and speaking about assault in a vulgar way.
1. Or they don't care about that difference? That's not better though.

Similarly, when someone tells me that all men are like this in private, that all men will "take advantage" if they get you alone, or anything similar ... if it's not about the vulgarity, option 2 (or 2.1) isn't really there. I have to conclude that they have, or would, assault. They're telling me something about themselves -- if you claim every member of a group does X, and you're a member of that group, you claim to do X. That logic doesn't depend on what X is.

And if someone tells me this is normal, that all men speak like this in private, they don't get to turn around and claim that not all men are like this should I take precautions. They also get to cope if I take those precautions specifically about and around them -- see the logic in the last paragraph.

On another note, I've heard the idea that groping is "less serious," "not really assault," or "not a big deal." I can't speak personally to less vs. more serious, because groping is the only kind of assault I've experienced, and only once. ("Lucky" me. And the fact that this really is lucky is seriously messed up.) From a more general perspective, though, I'm fairly sure it's a bad idea to compare which kinds of assault are more or less traumatizing. It definitely is really assault. Our judicial system is similarly terrible about caring, and similarly tends to blame the victim if a report even happens, and it's really assault. It's a person touching or grabbing you in a sexual way, without consent. (I never reported mine. The study abroad program I was on at the time had been attempting to have me sent home related to my disability, and I sure as heck wasn't about to give them a safety issue as ammunition.) 

And then there's "not a big deal." It is, or it should be, but sometimes it doesn't get to be. People who've been through a lot of trauma sometimes ... adjust ... their ideas of what counts, or of how bad the things they've been through really are. It's not usually conscious, or intentional, but it's a thing that happens. I think it's part of our tendency to "norm" on our own experiences. (Another example of this sort of norming would be my reaction to being unable to speak. I pretty much don't care, it's just another day ending in -y. This is apparently unusual.) Growing accustomed to something in this way doesn't make it OK, if it's something that wasn't OK before. But it definitely means that things which are, in fact, a big deal don't always get to register as such. 

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Transgender day of visibility

Apparently today is transgender day of visibility. I have a few thoughts.

1. Visibility, much like "awareness" is never enough and not necessarily positive depending on how we do it. Knowing a group exists and hating/stigmatizing that group isn't strictly better than being unaware, and you could argue that it's worse.
   
2. For people who can SAFELY be visible (or who CHOOSE any risks for themselves), being known/out can help with acceptance type stuff. Don't out people though, it's very much not your call if someone else can safely be out or if any risks are worth it for them.
   
3. That said, I'm nonbinary (not a lady!) and so either everything is drag or nothing is. I'm going with everything. Thanks to a random and slightly silly conversation with a classmate for this one.

And yes, 1) and 2) apply just as well to the upcoming Autism Hullabaloo month. 

Some Gender(ed) Experiences

Last post I mentioned that yes, I use sie/sier/siers pronouns talking about myself in third person. Depending on how familiar people are with queer stuff, you might have wondered if I'm nonbinary. The answer is yes.

Some folks might ask if autism is making me confused about my gender... that answer is also yes, in a sense- I'm pretty sure "I'm Autistic" occupies about the same area that "I am whatever gender" occupies in most people's minds, and I'm not sure if that means I don't have a gender or if that means autism is my gender or what. It definitely means "not binary." Since autism isn't detachable, autism leaving me a bit confused about the specifics of my gender doesn't change the fact that I'm nonbinary!

(Also, it might be neuronormativity confusing me- if autism taking up the gender slot were a possibility more people talked about as a real and legit thing rather than it being part of "failure to conform to gender expectations" and therefore something needing to be fixed, I might have an answer as to what gender that means I have or don't have, and then I wouldn't be confused!)

But this post isn't meant to be about exactly what kind of nonbinary I am. It's about how this has affected my experience with gendered stuff.

I've been told that when I was very little, preschool age approximately, I quit my ballet class because it was a girls only class. I definitely didn't have the words to explain it at the time, and I don't have the memory to tell you now, but my guess is that my discomfort with women-only spaces due to not actually being a woman goes back that far.

You see, I'm nonbinary. I am not a woman, and I am not a man. I am Autistic. (See also: autism as gender.) And this was really confusing before I knew I was autistic, because how the heck am I supposed to explain why "You're not really a girl" isn't a dire insult if I don't know what I actually am?

In middle school, I was the only not-boy at my lunch table. Many of the tables were all boys or all girls, and I've generally been more comfortable as the only person in a group to be read as a woman than in a group where everyone is read as a woman. It took a while to figure out why this was,  but I do think I have a handle on it now.

When everyone in a group, including me, is being read as women, the assumption is that I am the same gender as everyone else in the group. This is false! This is really, really false! I am not a woman. When everyone in the group except for me is being read as a man, the assumption is that I am the only person of my gender in the group. This is usually true! There could be nonbinary folk being assumed men in the group, but since as far as I know, I've yet to meet anyone of my particular flavor of nonbinary in person, I think it's always been true to date.

Because when I am in a group that is all men except for me, including doing so in direct defiance of prerequisites (so the course catalog at my old high school still says tenor bass choir male members of chorus in good standing, and I am not a man,) everyone realizes that I'm not the same gender as the others in the space. Not so when everyone's presumed to be a woman.

This isn't actually the same thing as "not like other girls," by the way. Not like other girls implies that I am one too, and, well, I'm not. I get mistaken for one a lot, which is different from actually being one.

It's also not the same as not liking to be around women. Women are great! I'm just not one of them.

(Oh, and to Dan's parents: This is why I was totally fine with Dan saying I wasn't really a girl. It's because he was right.)

My Diversity Week Speech

I'm pretty sure that this is what's getting read for me for Diversity Week. My professor from Gender and Women's Studies wanted me on the "From Diversity, We Speak" panel, but being in China is a thing.

I edited it down to about half the original length- I'll stick the original up tomorrow. 

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of ableist bullying, r-slur (censored), tokenization, invalidation

Hi. My name is Alyssa, and I'm studying in China. I don't know how to teleport, so I'm writing from diversity instead of talking. I'm white: I an average-looking Russian Jew, but most people don't know what that looks like: I've been misread as Latina, Mongolian, half Han Chinese, Indian, and Xinjiang. I'm read as a woman. I'm genderfluid and androgyne. I'm asexual. I'm biromantic- I have romantic attraction to people of my gender and people of other genders. I just don't want sex. And... I'm Autistic.

Does anyone want to tell me that surely I mean I have autism, or that I'm a person with autism? Because no, I definitely do not mean that. I'm also not a person with Jewishness. Telling me what I should call myself is rude. Believe me, if a Disabled person is saying Disabled and Autistic, not “with disabilities” or “with autism,” they've heard all the reasons in favor of person-first language. Many times. Each. But I'm not here to tell you why I want to be called Autistic. I'm writing from diversity. I have stories.

When I was in third grade, there was a separate language arts class. I was in it. I didn't know that it was more advanced because no one told me. There was a slanted roof. I hit my head on the ceiling every day. My classmates stopped after about a week. I didn't. No one ever thought to move me to a different seat, where I wouldn't hit my head. They just made fun of me. My teacher even hit me with a book.

Also in third grade, we memorized our times tables. I was the last person to memorize my times tables to the teachers satisfaction. She made fun of the way I jumped and flapped when I took my test (it was an oral exam,) just like my classmates did. They called me a r****d. Yes, r****d is a slur.

When I was in fourth grade, they sent me in for testing for two days. No one told me why until years later. I was sent back with no diagnosis, but with the doctor having wanted to discuss some “findings” that were not being sent to the school. I was sent back with what amounted to “gifted kids are weird.”

In sixth grade, “r****d” came back. I don't remember why. Being the only one who was still jumping at the bell more than a week after school started may have been relevant. It might have been the way I jumped and flapped when we played “Around the World.” Maybe it was my complete inability to get organized. My locker was always a mess, and I couldn't open it. I stuck a pencil in the lock so I could open my own locker, which got me in trouble. Since I was smart, my inability to work the lock properly was my fault. Clearly I just didn't care. I couldn't keep my locker organized. They said that was because I didn't care too. The idea that I couldn't keep something organized without help wouldn't occur to them, because I was smart and that meant I didn't need help. I should be able to figure it out.

That's what indistinguishability from peers means for us, and that's what being smart enough that no one figures out you're disabled (hence indistinguishable!) means. No one ever gives you the help you need because you're smart and you can figure it out. It's also the goal of most autism therapy. It's a bad goal.

In high school, I was all kinds of visibly weird. I was the only person read as a girl at my lunch table. I was absent more times than I wore pants. (Yes, I know, androgyne and skirts sounds like a strange combination. I also bound my breasts. It might not be typical, but I did mix masculine-coded things with feminine-coded things.) I joined tenor bass choir. I was the only theoretical girl there, too. I actually made a joke about my gender, not that anyone picked up on it. “For the purpose of this group, what gender will I be at 7:30pm tomorrow?” I wanted to know if I should wear the men's uniform or the women's uniform for the concert. They said it was up to me. I wore the men's uniform. I was also the only theoretical girl on the Ultimate Frisbee team. I say theoretical girl because I wasn't out as nonbinary, and I'd still have had to choose one for legal stuff.

And yet... when I talk about my life? Even though No one ever tells me how I'm overcoming my gender, or how I must be recovered from femaleness. Sometimes they say I'm overcoming sexism, which is different. No one says I overcame Jewishness or recovered from Jewishness when I eat bacon. I've not even heard it as a joke, though it's one I might make as a Jewish Autistic person who eats pork and likes to poke fun at the stuff I hear about disability. If I do a thing while openly Autistic? Suddenly it's all about having recovered or all about having overcome or being inspiring. It's not about having overcome a whole lot of ableism- discrimination based on disability. It's about having overcome disability. Not cool. It's quite thoroughly not cool. Like, it's not cool to the point that I have a pre-written speech that I will spring on any organization that wants to bring me in as a Token Autistic (should I say Token Person With Autism?) and talk about how I overcame my autism to do cool things that I do.

I thank them for inviting me to speak as their Token Autistic. I tell them I'm going to talk about how much I'm a success, and that this is to give them hope that their children may be successes too. If they're lucky, their children may even be the Token Autistic at a conference some day, where they will talk about how they couldn't do anything independently as children and now they're successful and it's great. They won't say they still dig their fingernails into their hands hard enough to leave marks, and they won't let you see them rocking. That would make the Parents and Experts uncomfortable, since it would mean the Token Autistic has achieved success while still acting Autistic. That would be scary because autism is scary. It's really not, but they think it is.

I tell stories of succeeding because of autistic traits, because stories are important. I know stories are important because they are a reflection. What does it mean when the stories with people like me are told by people like me. Does the rest of the world think I don't exist? Or do they just wish I didn't exist?

When I ask, they say I am not like those people I don't see. They don't see me as Autistic. Nonsense. If they don't see me as Autistic, how do they know I'm Autistic to say they don't see me as Autistic?

Ableism is scary to fight, because when you say you're disabled, people often decide that either you 're Making It Up or you're Not A Real Person. If you're Making It Up, you're still a person, but you don't get help. If you're Not A Real Person, you get help, but also abuse in the name of therapy. You can't possibly understand how hard it is to deal with people like you, or you'd know. They have to abuse you.

That's why it was scary to lend my roommate my copy of Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. She studies English, and she wanted a book with simple words. Loud Hands has simple words and is meant for adults, and it was terrifying because handing it over meant admitting that I am one of Those People.

I didn't get where I am by overcoming my neurology any more than I did by overcoming my asexuality or my androgyny or my Jewishness. I think you'd laugh if I started talking about overcoming my whiteness, that or throw something at me. But I'm not allowed to be Disabled and a Real Person, so I must have overcome it. Right?

The Little Things

Sometimes, activism means talking to the people and groups that have power now. Sometimes. Not always.

Sometimes, the day-to-day can make a huge difference. Maybe not in terms of systems, but in terms of something important clicking for one person. That's how change starts.

I want to talk about some of those things that happened.

My tutor and I were talking about computers. That's because the unit we're working on in Chinese is one about international business (whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.) He asked a bunch of good questions, getting me to think about stuff and answer in Chinese. That included things like what you would do for a computer getting used where it's really cold (the case should probably not be metal,) where it's hot (you need a better cooling fan,) and things like that. Then he asked a question that confused me. I remember hearing how when someone tells a sexist joke, one of the things you can do is to feign confusion and try to get them to eventually come out and say that it's funny because girls are *insert insult here.* Yeah, no. I was actually confused. He asked what changes might be needed to market a computer to girls. So I was confused. I said I didn't know what gender had to do with it, because I don't. He asked me what I use my computer for. I use it to do homework, surf the web, write stuff, and play games. I also use it to store documents. He said, "Oh," because that's pretty much the same stuff he does with his computer. 

And rather than get annoyed at me for thinking that trying to market a computer to a gender wasn't the best idea and it'd be smarter to market it based on what people are going to do with it, he agreed that marketing based on use was smarter. Then he asked a different question. He asked what a person using their computer for art would want (my guess is a touch screen and high resolution.) He asked what someone using their computer for games would want (I don't need to guess- a good graphics/video card and a lot of memory!)

Little things: my tutor may well have one stereotype less. [He also now knows that the same computer can get used by the same person for both art and gaming.]

My roommate studies English. It's not her major (teaching Chinese as a second language is her major,) but it's a class she takes. She'd been looking for a book that's in English and uses fairly simple language. I handed her my contributor copy of Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. I told her I had a piece in it. 

She's reading it. And the first person she associates with "autism"? An adult. Specifically, me. I'm no more representative of the entire population of autistic people than any one person ever is, but she's actually going to know, first-hand, that autistic adults exist. 

Little things: my roommate is reading Loud Hands to practice her English.

Sir Alanna and Lady Knight Keladry

 Time to talk about a thing Tamora Pierce said!

“Sir and Lady Knight are titles granted to individuals by the crown and aren’t passed on. Alanna prefers “Sir” because she was making a point. Kel prefers “Lady Knight” because she’s making a different point. Jon just throws up his hands and tells the Master of Ceremonies to ask the ladies for their preference.”

Can I talk about how much I love this? 

Can I talk about a parallel I think it has with the Autistic community and how we seem to have handled language and a lot of other things?

Alanna makes a point with being "Sir Alanna." I think her point is "I can be just like you." And she can. She is King's Champion. She's also probably 5'2", maybe 5'3". There's no way that she's the 5'4" a lot of the fandom seems to think she is, because it was a while after Daine found Alanna at least 2 inches shorter than her that Daine was even described as 5'5". So I'm not entirely sure how she had people convinced she was a boy up through when she was 18, but that was a thing that happened. She's not trans, by the way. She just knew that they wouldn't let a girl do what she wanted to do, so she spent 8 years pretending to be a boy.

Kel (full name Keladry) makes a different point with being "Lady Knight Keladry." I think she says "I don't have to be just like you," as part of it, at least. The other part is "I'm going to choose not to even try to be just like you, and I'm going to remind you of it all the time." She was the first girl to get to train for knighthood openly in at least a hundred years, and she spends a good bit of her time reminding everyone she's a girl. She's not required to change for dinner any more than the boys are, so she could stay in her page's uniform, but she's also not required to be in uniform for dinner. So she wears a dress to dinner. Every night. Just to remind them that yes, you have a girl among you deal with it.
She uses a distaff border on her shield. Alanna doesn't.

Alanna had to hide, and she wants to make the point that she can be just like the men, do everything they can, now that she's unhidden. Keladry never hid, and she wants to make the point that she doesn't need to be the same.

Now look at autism.
"Person with autism." I am a person, just like you. I just... also have autism. I am a knight, just like you. I just... happen to be a girl. Sir Alanna.
Autistic person. I am Autistic. This is important, and it is part of me not an appendage, and I am not hiding it and you do not get to ignore it not even in what you call me. I am a woman, and this is important, and it is part of me not an appendage, and I am not hiding it, and you do not get to ignore it not even in what you call me. Lady Knight Keladry.
I'm Autistic and applying for a job. Sir Alanna discloses after, if ever. Lady Knight Keladry? She probably shows up at the interview with a stim toy and doesn't look at the interviewer. She'll remind you exactly how she's different.
Sir Alanna was normalized, or at least people tried. Sir Alanna probably thinks that was the thing to do, because I can be just like you. Sir Alanna might (or might not) advocate the same for the next generation- she might rejoice in how the younger generation doesn't necessarily need to do it the way she did, as the actual Sir Alanna does in the books. Lady Knight Keladry was not normalized. She learned functional skills, like how to be a knight or how to cook or read or write, but she was still openly a woman. The court manners she learned were those of a lady, approximately. She'd have learned how to match up Autistic and neurotypical social stuff as a meet people where they are, not as a pretend to be neurotypical. (Not as a pretend to be a man- Alanna learned men's court manners.)
Interestingly enough, Sir Alanna didn't have to hide her autistic traits the same way she had to hide her gender. She didn't believe her friends when they said they liked her because she was different, but she also didn't hide those traits the same way she hid her gender. She was practically famous for hating social events, and everyone knew she didn't talk much. (Unless she was angry. Anger seemed to involve either losing all words or using all the words to explain exactly why everything is horrible.)
There are times and places for both Sir Alanna and Lady Knight Keladry, of course. The first person in the door anywhere probably has to be a Sir Alanna, just for practicality's sake. Those who follow have the option of being a Lady Knight Keladry.

Sources. So Many Sources

I finished writing my paper: "The Erasure of Queer Autistic People."
These are a list of all the sources I either cited in the final paper or made notecards for while doing research. [Some things I did both, and some things I only did one or the other. Yes, I cited a couple things I didn't make notecards for.]
Have fun. [No, the swears are not censored in the actual blog titles. Or in the actual paper!]
The source list should be fine, but assume trigger warning for any sources you track down.

Ali. "Addendum to Latest SBC Rant." Web log post. The Polite Yeti. 2 May 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Ali. "So Glad You're Writing These." Web log comment. B*tch Media. 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013. 

Ali/Eliot. "The Very next Day Was My Birthday." Web log post. The Alternate Lexicon. 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Amialone. Web log post. This Is Not a F*cking Thinspo Site. July 2013. Web. 24 Aug. 2013. <http://amialone.tumblr.com/post/56116672621/throwing-in-one-or-two-female-pronouns-when>.

"Any Other AS Transwomen Scared That You’ll Be Socially Forever Male?" Web log post. Queering Autism. Apr. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. "La Prieta." This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. By Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. New York: Kitchen Table, Women of Color, 1983. Print.

"Autism and Transsexualism." Transsexual Roadmap. 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Autism Survival Manual - Autism and Sexuality. By Craig (weaveintothewin2). The Autism Survival Manual. Youtube, 12 Aug. 2010. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Baggs, Amanda. "Please Violate Only One Stereotype at a Time." Web log post. Ballastexistenz. 16 Dec. 2007. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Baggs, Amanda. "This Is Not the Post I Started out Writing." Web log post. Ballastexistenz. 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Bascom, Julia. "Whose Stories Get Told: Regarding Feeling Unsafe In The Glee Fandom." Web log post. Just Stimming. 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Becker, Corina. "The Beginnings of Autistic Speaking Day." 2011. Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. Ed. Julia Bascom. 1st Ed. Washington, DC: The Autistic Press, 2012. 70-74. Print.

Bedard, Cheryl, Hui Lan Zhang, and Kenneth J. Zucker. "Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in People with Developmental Disabilities." Sexuality and Disability 28.3 (2010): 165-75. Springer Link. Springer, 20 Mar. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.

Bev. "The Ever-expanding List of Neurotypical Privilege." Weblog post. Square 8. 29 July 2009. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Brown, Lydia M. "How They Hate Us." Web log post. Autistic Hoya. 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Bryce, Landon. "John Elder Robison on Autism and Sexual Orientation." Web log post. ThAutcast. 20 May 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

"Call for Submissions: TFW Forum on Disabilities, Ableism, and Disability Studies." The Feminist Wire. 26 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Cat. "Meet Your Moderator: Cat." Web log post. Nonbinary Autistics. 10 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

"Database of Sexuality and Disability Resources." Ed. Grace Kelly, Lorraine Hone, Zoe Hughes, and Adrianne Pullen. Connect People Network, 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Ditz, Liz. "Vigil for George Hodgins and Other Disabled People Murdered by Their Families." Web log post. I Speak of Dreams. TypePad, 16 Mar. 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Doetsch-Kidder, Sharon. Social Change and Intersectional Activism: The Spirit of Social Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print.

DYMPHNA. "A Perspective on Queerness, Transgenderness, and Ableism from a Queer, Nonbinary Autistic with Severe Clinical Depression [1]." Web log post. NeuroQueer. 24 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

E. "Dear Younger Self." Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. Ed. Julia Bascom. 1st Ed. Washington, DC: The Autistic Press, 2012. 87-90. Print.

E (The Third Glance). "On (A)sexuality." Web log post. The Third Glance. 3 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Edelson, Meredyth G. "Sexual Abuse of Children with Autism: Factors That Increase Risk and Interfere with Recognition of Abuse." Disability Studies Quarterly 30.1 (2010). 2010. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Elmindreda. "The Difference Slot." リザード. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Erwin, Marja. "So I’ve Been Wondering…." Web log post. Ananiujiþa. 26 June 2013. Web. 30 Aug. 2013. <http://ananiujitha.tumblr.com/post/53960445503/yesthattoo-ananiujitha-so-ive-been>.

Fine, Cordelia. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.

Gabriels, Robin L., and Dina E. Hill. Growing up with Autism: Working with School-age Children and Adolescents. New York: Guilford, 2007. Print.

"Gender and Sexuality." AWN Radio. BlogTalkRadio. 6 Dec. 2010. Autism Women's Network. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Girljanitor. "A Conversation the Autistic Community Needs to Have, Desperately." Web log post. Patient Presents as Academic and Upset. 25 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Grace, Elizabeth J. "Autistic Community and Culture: Silent Hands No More." Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking. Ed. Julia Bascom. Washington, DC: Autistic, 2012. 95-99. Print.

Guin, Kristin. "My Perspective: Autism, Sexual Orientation (or Gender Identity) and the Intersection of the Two." Web log post. Queerability. Tumblr, 3 Apr. 2013. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Halberstam, Judith. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York UP, 2005. Print.

Henny. "Asexual on the Spectrum." Web log post. Procrastination Embodied. 22 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.
Hillary, Alyssa. "Queer Autistic Voice." Web log post. Yes, That Too. 26 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Ingudomnukul, E., S. Baroncohen, S. Wheelwright, and R. Knickmeyer. "Elevated Rates of Testosterone-related Disorders in Women with Autism Spectrum Conditions." Hormones and Behavior 51.5 (2007): 597-604. Print.

Jack, Jordynn. "Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender." Women's Studies in Communication 35.1 (2012): 1-37. Taylor & Francis Online. Taylor & Francis Group, 16 May 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Java Junkie. "Re: Double Rainbow: Parent Guides, Part 1." Web log comment. B*tch Media. 17 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

JJ. "Re: "On Ableism within Queer Spaces, Or, Queering the "Normal"" PrettyQueer." Web Log Comment. PrettyQueer. 11 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Kaz. "Disability and Asexuality." Web log post. Http://disabledfeminists.com/. FWD/Forward, 6 Nov. 2009. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Knoepfler, Peter T. "Sexuality and Psychiatric Disability." Sexuality and Disability 5.1 (1982): 14-27. Springer Link. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Koller, Rebecca. "Sexuality and Adolescents with Autism." Sexuality and Disability 18.2 (200): 125-35. Springer Link. Springer. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Kris. "Re: "On Ableism within Queer Spaces, Or, Queering the "Normal"" PrettyQueer." Web Log Comment. PrettyQueer. 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Lawson, Wendy. Sex, Sexuality and the Autism Spectrum. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2005. Print.

Löfgren-Mårtenson, Lotta. "The Invisibility of Young Homosexual Women and Men with Intellectual Disabilities." Sexuality and Disability 27.1 (2009): 21-26. Springer Link. Springer, 9 Oct. 2008. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Lindsay. "Doubly Deviant: On Being Queer and Autistic." Web log post. Autist's Corner. 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

McRuer, Robert. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: New York UP, 2006. Print.

Mingus, Mia. "Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability." Speech. Femmes Of Color Symposium. Oakland, CA. 21 Aug. 2011. Leaving Evidence. 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 7 May 2013.

"Monochrome Logic, Greyscale Sexuality, and Finding My Identity." Web log post. The Shiny Lair of Quirks the Magpie. 30 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Montgomery, Cal. "Critic of the Dawn." 2001. Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. Ed. Julia Bascom. 1st Ed. Washington, DC: The Autistic Press, 2012. 49-59. Print.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: A Peek at Autism Speaks." B*tch Media. 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 25 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Asperger's and Girls." B*tch Media. 7 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Autism and Masculinity." B*tch Media. 16 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Erasure and Asexuality." B*tch Media. 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Navigating Autism, Gender, and Sexuality." B*tch Media. 3 Jan. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: On Lisbeth Salander." B*tch Media. 5 Jan. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Parent Guides, Part 1." B*tch Media. 17 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Parent Guides, Part 2." B*tch Media. 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

Narby, Caroline. "Double Rainbow: Tony Attwood Tells Us to "make Lemonade."" B*tch Media. 3 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Aug. 2013.

Natalie. Web log post. F*ck Yeah, GSM Autistics! 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Ndopu, Edward, and Darnell L. Moore. "On Ableism within Queer Spaces, Or, Queering the "Normal"" PrettyQueer. 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

Nebeker, Lindsey. "9 Things You Must Include in Sexuality Education for Individuals with ASD." Naked Brain Ink. 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 07 May 2013.

Omagdi. "Being A Transman With Autism." Experience Project. 19 Feb. 2011. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 1977. Print.

Queering Autism. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Richter, Zach. "Campbell and the Markedness of Autism: Interrogating the Reproduction of the Neurotypical Subject." Proc. of INSPIRe Virtual Symposium. 22 Sept. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

Richter, Zachary. "Intersectionality and Cynicism: Why We Will Never Arrive "home" and Why It Is Important to Have This Realization." Web log post. That Autistic That Newtown Forgot. 8 Aug. 2013. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Richter, Zachary. "On the Erasure of Queer Autistics: What It Feels like to Be Erased and Haunted." Web log post. That Autistic That Newtown Forgot. 1 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

Sinclair, Jim. "Don't Mourn For Us." 1993. Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking. Ed. Julia Bascom. 1st Ed. Washington, DC: The Autistic Press, 2012. 13-16. Print.

Sinclair, Jim. "Personal Definitions of Sexuality." Jim Sinclair's Web Site. Syracuse. Web. 1 Sept. 2013.

Soraya, Lynne. "Dating and Romantic Relationships." Living Independently on the Autism Spectrum. Avon, MA, USA: Adams Media, 2013. 245-60. Print.

Soraya, Lynne. Living Independently on the Autism Spectrum. Avon, MA, USA: Adams Media, 2013. Print.

Stevenson, Michael R., and Jeanine C. Cogan. Everyday Activism: A Handbook for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People and Their Allies. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

Tager-Flusberg, Helen, and Simon Baron-Cohen. "The Extreme-male-brain Theory of Autism." Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1999. Print.

Tal9000. "Any Other AS Transwomen Scared That You’ll Be Socially Forever Male?" Web log post. TAL9000. 4 Apr. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

Thompson, S. Anthony, Mary Bryson, and Suzanne De Castell. "Prospects for Identity Formation for Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual Persons with Developmental Disabilities." International Journal of Disability, Development and Education 48.1 (2001): 53-65. Ilga-europe.org. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.

"Twenty Hallmarks of Fake Trans Personae." Transsexual Roadmap. 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 21 Aug. 2013.

University of Cambridge. Office of Communications. Female-to-male Transsexual People Have More Autistic Traits. EurekAlert! AAAS, 5 Mar. 2011. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Vivian, Amanda F. Web log post. I'M SOMEWHERE ELSE. 13 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Aug. 2013. <http://adeepercountry.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-was-thinking-about-identifying-as-gay.html>.

Vivian, Amanda Forest. "The Ultimate (ridiculous) Showdown." Weblog post. I'M SOMEWHERE ELSE. 23 Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2013.

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Yergeau, Melanie. Facebook Message. 26 Mar. 2013.

So Much For Interpretation

Trigger warning: Ableism. Uh. If being told that if you want access you need to do it yourself is triggering, that. 

So, the editors at The Feminist Wire invited me to share my interpretation of their call. I don't think this is quite what they meant, but what they meant is a thing that's not possible: If I could understand their call well enough to really interpret it, we wouldn't be having this problem. Or, in terms of access needs, if it were written so that I could understand it, we wouldn't be having this problem.

But.

They inspired my abstract for a text chapter, so I at least get something out of this mess. [Social media crisis still on because they still haven't actually done anything that makes their call understandable/accessible. Also they said in this Twitter conversation that they weren't being exclusive of disability because one of the writers is deaf.]

At the feminist wire, they want to make feminist stuff. And also they want to ?????? relating to feminism in how they edit. They say this means talking to the writers and helping people revise. Which is cool, but I'm not sure how it relates to feminism? Also they say they take reader ideas and criticisms seriously [I do know that critique is a fancy word for criticism.] Since I already had a ?????? moment in this paragraph, I'm not sure I believe it, but maybe it gets better.

The call went online yesterday. [Well, not yesterday anymore, but yesterday when they wrote this thing.] A bunch of people said stuff about how they're doing the exact stuff they wanted to stop from happening. #irony. That sentence is written in academicese, and it took me a while to parse, so I'm going to go with not accessible. Sad.

Some people said that focusing on the body instead of the mental or the cognitive was excluding certain disabled people. [I didn't understand enough of the original call to tell you if they did that, which excludes cognitive disability anyways. So...] We didn't mean to do the thing? I think the thing is specifying kinds of disability to talk about? They say that people telling them this reveals a problem. Therefore they word salad broadly. What they word salad about is unclear, but it has the word broadly so I assume it's broadly.

We also got emails on how the call was inaccessible. WORD SALAD about people with disabilities, therefore the language is excluding. Pity the language is still excluding enough that a disabled academic can't parse it! Ok, I know what “reduced access to higher education works to perpetuate a cycle of ableism” means because it's a thing I say in different words. It means “Disabled people have a hard time getting to college and then....” ok scratch that no I don't know. Then this does something that makes discrimination against people with disabilities worse. I think what it does is interact with classism, except they don't say classism here, just ableism. So I don't know. There's a disjuncture... is that like divide? Ok, got a dictionary, it's like divide. Or close enough. There's a divide between academics and activists. [Well, not always, I'm both. And quite a few of my friends who are complaining are kind of both too. I present at conferences! Disability Studies conferences! And they're accessible to me!] So... are they maybe trying to say that they just continued a thing that's already there? /annoyed because this is worse than anything I've seen in disability studies, so no you're not. They “get” that lots of... actual marginalized groups? I think that's what communities on the front lines of oppression means. They “get” that actual marginalized people often find academia to be the oppressor/help the oppressor. Yup. Like with this call, actually. That's exactly what happened, and given how much of this is me going ????? or WORD SALAD or needing a dictionary or not getting what you're saying? Yeah still being the oppressor. I think the word gatekeeper applies? The feminist wire wants to stick stuff in the middle of academia and activism, but academic-ish means... word salad? Word salad that I've been told is just bad writing. They want to make the forum accessible, but what I assume to be other thing they want is written in a way that's totally not accessible so this clearly didn't happen.

There's a revision below this! We revised it! We added things! Also, thanks for calling us out and asking us to do better. But also thanks for a thing that you didn't actually do but we'd like to think you did while we say we did a thing we probably still did wrong. Because this apology really feels like it's about them, not the people who are getting excluded. Mainly because it's written so that the excluded folk still don't know what's being said. Also, we need to do hard work and look at how we make stuff work, and respond fast with thanks and doing stuff. [Except that this thing is totally not actually fixing it and shouldn't count.]

Disability is coming up a lot, name a conference, say it talks about disability, gender, sexuality, and focuses on animals [why] chronic pain/injury [makes sense] and trans* ???????? thing. Also folks in insert words here are criticizing disability stuff?

We like interdisciplinary stuff. Also we're confused/wanting to know what's up with suddenly DISABILITY. We want to know what it means for disabled people when disability is used as ?????? with human-animal relationships. Do they mean when it's a metaphor? I hope not, that's a bad metaphor. Don't make comparisons you don't understand and all that. The ??use?? of disability and ???????? bodies that aren't typical?????????? in stuff that's not disability is ick? Needs people explaining why it's ick? Needs to be looked at through ickyness?

So we thought ????????? about rediscovery of disability stuff??????[as opposed to why it got ignored in the first place]????? and it getting used badly in other stuff. And we ask bad “why” questions. And we ask stuff about mixing things I don't know. Something about disability studies, that's a thing I do. And word salad about exploring? Something about learning from activists.

We want to challenge ick, so we want to have people write stuff? And we ask a bunch of questions?

• What does disability mean? I think. Also maybe intersections. And me wanting to know why disabled is in quotes.
• Intersections list other oppressions want to know a thing?
• Talk about ??????? with race, class, gender. And norms. And other words.
• Feminst disability thing? Words. I dunno.
• Disability and monolith are both in this sentence. I really hope it's about how disability isn't a monolith, but word salad.
• … isn't that the same as feminist disability? I don't think you've got the right to the word "crip" though. I'm not sure I do, though if not than the choice of it to represent disability is part of excluding my kinds of disability.
• What are activisty people doing?
• Who isn't here? Maybe “what stuff would they be saying?” But we can't know that because they aren't being heard. So maybe we should get them in instead of talking about what we think they would want?
• INTERSECTIONS.
• What is disability?

We want academics, writers, and activists to talk about the things. Pile of formats OK. Not sure what all the formats really mean, but OK. Submissions due by October 10, 2013, and can be submitted through a thing with a link. Email feministwire@gmail.com if questions. Look at the guidelines first, and give a title. Label the submission Disability Forum. Not sure if I'm supposed to make my own title or title it disability forum.

Except activists might not know what you're asking. And I don't know if anyone outside your little block of academia will either. So you might have trouble getting disabled people talking about the things. Is that maybe what the cycle of ableism is about?

See why this doesn't actually fix the access problem? Yeah, having me share my interpretation or attempt at it really just reveals how fail your “solution” is. Because it being written so that I can't actually interpret it is the exact problem.

Now for anyone who wants to help make this issue hard to ignore, good stuff to share (beyond this post, I mean):

Tweets in this conversation, this conversation, this conversation 

That Autistic ThatNewtown Forgot wrote a post.

Neurodivergent K: Feminist Wire, you may not colonize my community.

Neurodivergent K: More on "trending" and monoliths

Neuroqueer: The Feminist Wire, I'd Like A Word

My original post.

Facebook status.

Tumblr post.

I think sending submissions about how their call excludes disabled people fits under the who is missing thing, so you can also do that.

And I made a standard-ish intro to go with the link to my original post, if you want to put it wherever else:

"The Feminist Wire shared a call for submissions about disability, saying it wanted to include activists. It's not a call that a disabled activist could reasonably be expected to understand, and the revision is, if anything, worse. Please, contact them/share however possible. [ More details+methods in the post.] http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/2013/08/see-you-and-social-media-crisis.html"