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.

Just Another Day at the Office

(a snarky guest post by Autistic Academic, whose work involves generating clickbait content for recruiters)

For Job-Seekers

23 WAYS TO MURDER THE INTERVIEW, THEN RUN SCREAMING FROM THE BUILDING AS IT ALL BURSTS INTO FLAMES BEHIND YOU

USING NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION DURING THE INTERVIEW TO SUMMON THE DARK LORD FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE INFERNO

TAKE YOUR INTERVIEW ANSWERS TO THE NEXT LEVEL USING THESE HOT NECROMANCY TRICKS

112 TOP TIPS FOR AVOIDING THE OMNIPRESENT GAZE OF TODAY’S SENTIENT APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS (NUMBER 78 WILL ASTOUND YOU!)

FEELING EMBARRASSED ABOUT YOUR JOB SEARCH SKILLS? YOU SHOULD BE

For Hiring Managers

IS YOUR INTERVIEW STYLE COSTING YOU THE SOULS OF THE FAITHFUL?

HOW TO VET TALENT IF THEY AREN’T ACTIVE ONLINE OR ARE SPEAKING IN TONGUES

STRATEGIES FOR BOOSTING TEAM MORALE WITHOUT ACCIDENTALLY KILLING STEVE FROM ACCOUNTING (AGAIN)

A QUICK-START GUIDE TO PREPARING YOUR 2017 STRATEGIC STAFFING AND RITUAL SACRIFICE PLAN

ARE YOUR STAR EMPLOYEES BEING POACHED BY YOUR COMPETITION? 5 SEVERED BODY PARTS THAT SAY YES

Feminist Wire's Call Translated

It is an optimistic, still super-wordy but with easier words, version of the call for submissions. Apparently someone actually could do that. Yay!Since this one was neither created nor shared by The Feminist Wire, the social media crisis is still on. Details on that found in earlier post.
Because telling disabled people "If you think accessibility matters you do it" isn't acceptable.
Filling their submissions with essays on why that stuff isn't acceptable and on why making sure the people you're "inviting" to contribute can understand the invitation? Totally a good idea.

This is a guest post by Amanda

We have noticed recently that more people in academia have taken an interest in talking about disability. For instance, at a recent conference on "Cripistemologies," people who study disability talked with people who study gender and sexuality about many topics, including animals, chronic pain and injury, and how transgender people express themselves and are seen, especially focusing on their bodies.

We like to bring together different areas of study and talk about how they can work together, and we think it's important to talk about justice and injustice and how they affect how we think. But we're not sure how to feel about the fact that people from other academic fields suddenly want to talk about disability studies, especially since people who study disabilities have been thinking and talking about important things for a long time before now. How does it affect disabled people when people talk about disability as a way to understand the relationships between humans and animals, for example? We need to talk critically about what it means for disabled people when able people use their lives and experiences to make points that aren't about disability justice.

So that's why we thought we needed this forum. We ask: Why are people who didn't talk about disability before talking about it now? Whom does it affect, and how, to talk about disability as part of discussions about other kinds of injustice? Is it harmful to disabled people when able people use their lives and experiences as a metaphor for other things? How will it affect the field of disability studies that already exists, when people in other fields of study start paying attention to it? Will the academic study of disabilities by people in other fields have an effect on the people in disability studies who focus on real-world experiences and meeting real needs? And how can the academic study of disability learn from activists and people who work to improve the lives of disabled people?

We also thought it would be good to talk about disability itself, and we hope this forum will provide a safe space to do so. Here are some questions and ideas we hope the forum will talk about:

What is it like to be disabled in the 21st century? How are disabled people's experiences different because of where they live, the technology they can use, how much money they have, their race, and the fact that some disabilities are invisible?

What different kinds of identities (race, gender, class) are often forgotten when we talk about disability and disabled people's experiences, and what kind of harm does that do?

We think race, class, and gender are the three big ways that people are classified that affect their lives. What's the best way to talk about those without forgetting about or ignoring disabled people's experiences?

How should feminism address disabilities? What is it like to be a disabled feminist?

When we talk about “disability” like it's just one thing, does that cause us to ignore the many different kinds of disabilities and the many different experiences of disabled people?

What are some good and bad things about crip feminism?

What are good things that people and organizations do now to challenge ableism?

What is disability? What does it mean to be disabled?

Which people and what topics are missing from the conversation about disability?

How do other kinds of discrimination and injustice interact with ableism?

We welcome you to submit things you have written or created on the topic of disability. We want all kinds of submissions, even visual art! Our guidelines and submission form are here (link to accessible guidelines incorporating all the requirements for this specific forum AND the general ones, and if possible, make these less annoying). If you have questions about something you'd like to submit, email us at feministwire@gmail.com.

If you'd like to send us a submission, please send it by October 10, 2013. The forum will be in late October and early November.
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And have a link pile of all the posts relevant. Including this post. 
https://twitter.com/yes_thattoo/status/372905836009373696
https://twitter.com/yes_thattoo/status/373047824268554240
http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/2013/08/see-you-and-social-media-crisis.html
https://www.facebook.com/yesthattooaut/posts/385772201549948
https://www.facebook.com/TheFeministWire/posts/639654089385812
http://yesthattoo.tumblr.com/post/59647010589/yes-that-too-see-you-and-a-social-media-crisis
http://timetolisten.blogspot.com/2013/08/feminist-wire-you-may-not-colonize-my.html
http://timetolisten.blogspot.com/2013/08/more-on-trending-and-monoliths.html
http://thatautisticthatnewtownforgot.blogspot.com/2013/08/inaccessible-language-and-tfws-call-for.html
http://neuroqueer.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-feminist-wire-id-like-word_7551.html
http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/2013/08/so-much-for-interpretation.html
http://chavisory.tumblr.com/post/59874700134/yes-that-too-so-much-for-interpretation
https://twitter.com/mamabegood/status/373060889269637120

http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/2013/09/feminist-wires-call-translated.html

Saving My Sensory Hide

I wrote this. It was originally a guest post on Lost and Tired. (The intro suggested it was a bit more specifically aimed at parents than it is, it's really aimed at "anyone who can make any of these things happen" and I was imagining writing to an Autistic adult who had always been told to act less autistic rather than helped to navigate a world not designed for us, possibly with Autistic kids when I did it. I get why, though- parents are his target audience. Picture at the bottom isn't mine either, I think it's a standard stock one.)
I know he and I haven't got the same set of readers (that's why I did the guest post, I'd bet most of my usual readers have seen at least some of these before and his mostly hadn't) but now I'm making sure that my folks have a shot at seeing it too.

Clothing:

1. Certain fabrics can be problems. Which ones will vary from person to person, but don't try to make someone wear a fabric that is a sensory issue. Finding different clothes is worth it. Learning how to make them yourself and then doing so is worth it if it comes to that.
2. Tight clothing may be a problem. If so, do not force your kid to wear stockings, leggings, or other tight clothing. Comfort is a prerequisite to being able to function, and it's still more important than looks.
3. Footwear can also be interesting. Many people do best with crocs, some with sandals, some barefoot. Try different things if shoes are a problem.
4. Some people just can't wear socks. If this is you or your kid, choose shoes accordingly so that you don't get blisters.
5. Short of legal regulations such as requiring shirt and shoes to be served and the issue of indecent exposure, all dress codes can be modified for disability. It's no different from the person who has a doctors note saying that they have to wear sneakers instead of dress shoes.
6. Puberty doesn't make SPD go away. Whatever the requirements for clothing may have been, expect it to continue, and expect either the same requirements or stricter ones to apply to any new undergarments.

Hygiene:

1. Mint is actually a pretty common issue. It's a strong sensation, and people either love it or hate it, and a lot of people with SPD fall into the "hate it" camp. Toothpastes that are not mint flavored may be harder to find, but if mint is an issue, this is more than worth the time. Flosses that are not minty may also be a good idea. If this is an issue, be prepared to argue with the dentist about it, because they will have trouble with this one, especially with older Autistic people.
2. Try all different kinds of toothbrushes. Electric ones are actually worse than manual ones for me, something about the vibration. 
3. If brushing hair is an issue, get a haircut. Comfort is more important than looks, and anyone who tells you different is to be laughed out the door.
4. Unscented soaps and deodorants are your friend.

Food:

1. Bring snacks with you, so you can still eat even if all the food you are provided with is a sensory issue.
2. Mint again: If this is an issue, smell chocolates and other offered desert items before biting. People won’t always tell you that these contain mint because it doesn't register as an important thing to tell people.
3. Carbonated beverages can be painful. If they are for you or for your kid, bring something you can drink. You have no idea how many times I have gone to social events only to find that every beverage they offer is carbonated, and I can't drink them. Even shaking and stirring to try to make them go "flat" isn't enough.
4. Similarly, don’t tell someone that “flat” sodas are OK if carbonation is an issue. They aren't.
5. If water is OK (some people can’t swallow tasteless things,) don’t be afraid to ask for an empty cup and find a sink or water fountain. You don’t even need to disclose a disability for that.
6. There may be a lot of healthy foods that you or your child can’t eat. That’s OK, find the ones you can eat. Yogurt, puddings, and scrambled eggs are all problems for me because of the texture, and re-fried beans aren't great either. But there are other things I can eat. And I concentrate on those instead. Worst case, you need some supplements.
7. As far as the focusing on things you or your child can eat goes: If you don’t have a medical reason that you need to avoid gluten, casein, or any other specific group of foods, don’t try. It’s just going to reduce further the space of things you can eat, and then you will be sad. If you have a medical reason, you obviously need to do it, just be aware and allow extra time for finding things you or your kid can eat.
8. This might lead to eating foods at “strange” or “inappropriate” times. It might also lead to some “strange” snacks. Just go with it. I can’t remember the last time I ate a “typical” breakfast, and I’m fine. It’s just a result of sensory issues.
9. A “try one bite, and if it’s that bad you can spit it out” rule for trying new foods is about the most you can realistically try for with Autistic people, and demanding re-tries of bad foods is not a good idea. If the scent alone is a sensory issue, don’t even push for the bite. It’s not worth it.

Other At Home:

1. People talk about “brushing” as an occupational therapy thing. If you or your kid are or may be seeking for that, go ahead and try it, but if it is uncomfortable, stop immediately. That one specifically is often painful.
2. When people are in sensory overload, they often stim more. Don’t quiet hands them (never quiet hands anyone!) look for what is causing the overload. While some stimming is fun, stimming that is induced by sensory overload is a coping mechanism to avoid insta-meltdown, and it is often just a delaying tactic.
3. Having a sensory room in the house that has a bunch of things with good textures, is at a good level of light (probably adjustable,) is quiet, and has enough space for things like rocking or spinning is a good idea. Exactly what goes in it will depend on specific sensory needs. Even if it is just a corner of a room with a curtain around it, this is hugely useful.
4. Also, if there are multiple people in the household with different sensory needs, they might need separate rooms for this. Plan like every person in the household will all need their sensory space at the same time, and then you’ll be OK even if that happens.
5. Taking a break to calm down and recover after sensory overload is better than pushing it and a meltdown.

Other School/Work/Going Out:

1. Sometimes knowing that a sensation that triggers sensory issues is coming ahead of time can help. If so, having "gets advanced notice of fire drills" or "is seated facing the clock" as accommodations can help.
2. Strobe lights can be extremely disorienting, even for those of us who are not officially considered photosensitive. It's not the same level of dangerous for us as for a person with photosensitive epilepsy unless we actually have photosensitive epilepsy, but it's still good to avoid. Turn flash off if this is an issue.
3. Carry a stim toy, always. By stim toy I mean something you can use to get a sensation for which you are sensory seeking. Maybe carry multiple. Certainly have one that can be used discretely.
4. Noise-cancelling headphones are your friend.
5. Distracting yourself or your kid with a cell-phone, iPad, whatever kind of electronic game ASAP when entering a potentially overloading environment can be a lifesaver. If this is what’s going on, don’t take the device away.
6. Even when you're out, still don't stop a person from using their "sensory overload coping" stims. No matter how embarrassing you think they are, a those plus a meltdown is even more embarrassing for you and your kid, plus painful for your kid. Exiting the situation is a better choice.

Many of the tips in this post were adapted from these prior posts of mine:

Aitports, Airplanes

Sensory Friendly Diets, Or Why I Eat Weird

Sensory Processing Disorder-Autism Parenting (I reviewed their article of the same title and added my own tips.)

The Anxiety of Publishing (Guest Post)

Guest post by Andrew Edward Collins, also found on the Autistics Speaking Day blog here.

So, it’s been brought to my attention that “Autistics Speaking Day” is coming up. Of course, as usual, I’d like to contribute something. But it occurred to me that I’ve already done quite a lot of “speaking” about disabilities through my previous publications. This would seem to be a good thing, but now, I can’t help but feel as though there’s a certain anxiety attached to every bit of writing I make public. 

I’ve always had high aspirations. Currently, I want to do work for the United States Department of Education in some sort of administrative position—as high up as I can get.  Everything I want to really accomplish in my life depends on how well people are going to listen to my ideas—so, what do I do if someone finds something I’ve written in my teenage years, and tries to use it to invalidate something I’m working for later on in my life? In almost every bit of non-fiction I’ve ever published, I’ve identified myself as being disabled. Literally tens of thousands of copies of my articles have been circulated to people all over the country in various magazines.  

Tens of thousands of people know that I’m disabled. I’ve gotten emails from complete strangers. While most (if not all) of the periodicals I’ve been printed in will be recycled by the time I’m out of grad school, everything I’ve gotten put up on the internet will never go away. So, what’s to stop some naïve employer or opponent of my ideas from judging me or using it all against me? What’s stopping anyone from assuming that  just because I’m disabled that something I’m saying is invalid?

In short, I have cast my weaknesses and struggles into the limelight, and thus, I have left myself in a very vulnerable position.  I worry every day that a classmate of mine is going to Google my name and learn about  all my personal battles. I’m not ashamed of who I am,  but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with having so much personal information available to people who are predisposed to judge me. Disabilities are not well understood by those who do not have them, so I want people to know I’m disabled only when I think they’re ready to hear it and when I’m ready to tell them.

I don’t know for sure where I’ll be in the future, but at least I know that, for now, I’m doing the right thing by publishing. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever written yet. I know my work has been of use to many people and is important in furthering many of the causes in which I partake. I’d like to think people know better than to use the things I’ve written against me, but I know that’s not true. I’m sure in a few years from now many of my opinions and ideas on what I’ve published will have changed as I continue to mature, and I can only hope anyone who happens to find something I wrote as a teenager will be decent enough to understand this. 

But how knows? Maybe it could all end up helping me out somehow. Or maybe I’ll just never rise to any status or situation in which it will even matter if people know of my personal disabilities and challenges. But for now, I’m eighteen, I’ve got two new articles coming out soon, and I’m going to continue doing what I know is right, even if it means leaving myself vulnerable to the judgment of friends and strangers.

-Andrew Edward Collins

Nonverbal Learning Disability- One Person's Perspective

 This is a guest post by Katie C. talking about her experiences with nonverbal communication issues and what she's learned from them. I'll be talking about my experiences tomorrow, plus what I think of the whole issue.

Trigger Warning: Bullying, Ableist slur, Suicidal ideation

As a young child I had a very large vocabulary for my age. My mother always says I was the most polite 2-year-old ever, who said "please" and "thank you" when it was appropriate, pretty much without fail. I learned to read before I started school (age 4), and by the time I was in second-grade I was reading lots of novels and multi-book sagas.

My parents had absolutely no clue up until this point that I was "different." If any difference was noticed, it was that I was smarter, more polite, and generally kinder to other people than many kids my age. However, as I grew older, it became pretty apparent that I was not quite on the same page as everyone else when one day I asked my happily married mother, "Mom, are you and dad going to get a divorce?"

There was a major miscommunication here because of my inability to read nonverbal cues. When my mother and father would playfully argue with each other, they would often jokingly say "I'm callin' my lawyer!" By the tone of their voice and the context of the conversation, most people would have been able to tell this was just part of their "schtick," but I was horrified that they were going to split up because they kept threatening to call their lawyer.

It was around 3rd grade that my grades started slipping and there was obviously something making me stand out from the other kids (at least from my mom's perspective). I asked my mother many times if I had ADD or something, because while I was doing fairly well academically, I knew I was missing some crucial part of what was going on around me.

I had an incident in 3rd grade where one of my classmates took advantage of me. Some might even call what she did to me a form of molestation. But when she did that, my reaction was one of turning my anger towards myself. I thought my parents would hate me if I told them what we did. I stayed silent about what she did to me for almost a year. Like a good parent would be, my mom was disgusted at what my classmate did to me when she finally learned of it, and was very supportive (much to my surprise at the time). But the roots of self-hatred had been planted.

Fast-forwarding to 6th grade. I had just started at a new school, and had landed myself at the bottom of the social food chain. I had no idea why the kids hated me as much as they did (or at least as I perceived they did), but at one point, some kids literally created a "popularity list" with me and my few friends right at the bottom. The teachers were informed of this list, but it was crumpled and written in a horrid neon green pen making it nearly impossible for them to read.

I quickly figured out I was an easy target. I had braces, glasses, a unibrow, was shorter than everyone else in my grade, and I certainly didn't starve myself or make fashion a priority like a lot of the other girls did. I was missing a crucial element from this list, which was that I was deaf to what the kids were actually saying. "Great job, Katie," was taken at face value, but what it really meant was, "Way to screw that up, you retard."

I started having suicidal ideation for the first time in my life. My grades were suffering horribly, I felt alone, and isolated, and unwanted. One evening, I couldn't take the pressure any more, and begged my mother with tears in my eyes to get me a therapist. It was this therapist who shed light on my situation, and provided me with the diagnosis of a Nonverbal Learning Disorder.

I was so relieved to get this diagnosis. It opened up new paths to understanding myself. Around the age of 14, I began being able to read the nonverbal cues, thanks to a few school friends with perverted teenaged minds. Suddenly I understood that there was something called a "double" or "hidden meaning," which meant I finally knew that when my friend said "(Insert classmate's name here) wants to burry his bone in your yard," he definitely didn't mean that literally.

Now, I am an adult. I am usually on my game with picking up on the nonverbal cues. But I have to say, it's a double-edged sword. On the positive side of things, I am a social butterfly that can make many people on different parts of the spectrum smile. I don't feel quite as on edge about whether I am missing out on some crucial piece of data that is totally affecting the course of a conversation.

However, now I can't look at the world with the same, genuine innocence and kindness. I find myself acting less like myself a lot of times for the sake of other neurotypicals and how they may perceive a given piece of body language or phrase. I tend to read far too much into what a person says, when sometimes literalism is an appropriate form of interpretation. My self-esteem is much improved, but I still battle with self-doubt and a chronic sense of needing to apologize to the world around me, because of years of feeling I had to change what I was to be loved.

Long story short, I think there is a great deal of benefit to learning to read these cues in today's neurotypically-slanted society. But if we keep believing that these nonverbal skills are the most important part of survival, then we are going to miss a bigger lesson in teaching acceptance of differences, and that there a lot of people without any form of nonverbal cue skills who have a lot of great things to offer to the world through their innovation, intelligence, creativity, and passion.