"To autistic people reading this, I encourage you to continue to stand up for what you believe in, and do not conform for conformity’s sake when you can." Dr. Sara Woods, at TPGA: thinkingautismguide.com/2023/09/auti... #autism #neurodiversity #autistic

Autistic People and the Power of Positive Nonconformity  — THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM

But sometimes autistic noncompliance and differences are positive nonconformity, so, "Be grateful for those who dare to be different."

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Sure yeah, it *could* be CPTSD, but have you considered: • I’m ontologically a bad person • It actually *is* my fault • I’m lazy and need to try harder

States with the lowest literacy rates shouldn’t be banning books, they should be reading them

AWN's latest blog by Sam Streuli is available on our website in English and Spanish language versions. "Exigimos mejorar los servicios para el autismo, no a las personas autistas" awnnetwork.org/exigimos-mej...

Exigimos mejorar los servicios para el autismo, no a las personas autistas - Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN)

Recientes discursos sobre los programas de servicios sociales financiados por el Gobierno en los EE. UU. se han centrado en la idea de que muchos presentan problemas de «fraude, despilfarro y abuso». ...

awnnetwork.org

I call this photo ”accessibility“. Sure there is an accessible entrance but the main entrance makes it clear who is most welcome.

Hear me out. What if autism was magnetically attracted to me?

I was so furious about that Channel 4 ADHD documentary that I done a sarcasm.

The Daily Tism@thedailytism.com · yesterday

The Great Sun Myth, from the producers of Not Quite Walls, Not Quite Gaps: What are Doors? and Trees: What’s Their Game?, will hear from the growing number of professional opinion-havers who are boldly questioning mainstream “science” and “facts”.

https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/simpso15/?file=SIMPSONS.ZZT&board=0 “The Simpsons Part I: The Search for Maggie's Pacifier (V 1.5)” by Chris Martin (1994) [SIMPSONS.ZZT] - “” https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/simpso15/

On this day in 1944, the Gestapo found Anne Frank and her family in their Secret Annex. Her diary stands as a warning against hatred and persecution. Eighty years later, we should recognize the warning signs before it’s too late.🙂‍↕️

💌 Mark your calendars for THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US by Sita Jit, forthcoming from Lerner Books on February 2nd, 2027! 🎨 Illustration by Ash Roy 🖼️ Cover design by Athena Currier 🌟 bit.ly/DistanceBetwe...

What we don't need: to be told we are just seeking a popular, trendy diagnosis.

Autistic adults need some predictability and support in our lives. We need places to work that don't emphasize our weaknesses at the expense of our strengths. Executive functioning support. Help with communication. The opportunity to meet others with our neurotype. Money when we can't work. Etc.

I'm sorry the right wing is so angry about having to make the world a slightly better place. What a sad existence. But tough love isn't going to un-autistic people anymore than it's going to de-trans people!

But to not be a true monster, you have to dismiss the transness of people (they are VICTIMS of social contagion, as vulnerable people! We're saving them!). Same with ADHD: "They just haven't learned the life skills they need, and shouldn't be coddled to avoid that!". And now autism.

It's not dissimilar to the right wing panic over the ADHD. The panic isn't so much that people are ADHD, it's that we can't beat the ADHD out of them by punishing them more: this is exactly what they want to do to trans people too: make trans existence hard enough that people choose cisness.

We're autistic when someone wants to scare people about our existence and use our autism to claim we're not able to make sound decisions. We're non-autistic attention-seekers when we need minor changes to the environment or how people want to interact with us.

And all of this builds up in our nervous systems as intense and chronic anxiety that compounds over time. Which physically hurts us. More specifically... hurts our hearts. And I do mean this literally.

So, despite our best efforts, misunderstandings still often lead to all the painful things our nervous systems anticipate... Invalidation, judgment, criticism, ridicule, vilification... abuse.

Overexplaining becomes a part of how we operate because we are constantly trying to pre-empt the hurt we are anticipating and keep our nervous systems safe. But here's the thing. The reason overexplaining doesn't solve the problem most of the time.

Our nervous systems encode threat at the start of the cycle. At the point of misunderstanding. So being misunderstood starts causing us extreme anxiety in *anticipation* of those traumatic outcomes.

And when this cycle happens repeatedly (whether by one person or many), it becomes bullying and abuse. And this is just what's happening TO us during this cycle. This doesn't yet touch what's happening INSIDE of us as the cycle is playing out.

Not the misunderstanding itself, but the consequences of the misunderstanding. I think autistic people experience being misunderstood differently than nonautistic people... and I think this can be seen in the high rates of bullying and abuse that autistic people experience¹.

I have come to realize something important about the internal autistic experience that I think needs to become a serious focus of autism advocacy. Being misunderstood is not just an annoying side effect of being different for autistic people... It actually hurts us.

All set & ready to premiere Wednesday August 5th at 3pm EST my interview on Black Girl Diagnosed Podcast hit that notify me button & let’s watch Diane J Wright founder of @autastic interview together 🩷 youtu.be/JuXL0L39CVM?...

Black Girl Diagnosed - Diane J. Wright of Autastic

YouTube video by Black Girl Diagnosed

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When disabled people/many people who work on disability/health pointed to the dangers of this kind of framing since COVID, they were usually mocked ("oh you think everything is eugenics") or ignored. But normalising the idea that the deaths of disabled people are desirable/reassuring is dangerous.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2d ago

Breaking News: Two deaths in Michigan have been linked to cyclospora. Both people who had the parasite also had underlying health issues.

Here's a weird issue I'm running into: I've posted comments on a few of these now, along the lines of "when did everyone decide that ugly kids got diagnosed earlier?" and they insist that I'm reading too much into it and that's not what they're saying at all.

Sarah Kurchak@fodderfigure.bsky.social · 2w ago

The hot new trend in neurodivergent instagram is to post some text over your hot face that says "Turns out that if you do well in school and are at least moderately attractive, they just let you raw dog ADHD and autism until your thirties, forties, or even beyond."

49 years ago, #OTD in 1977, the first mass produced personal computer hit the market. The Tandy TRS-80 was cracked open the market for Commodore, Apple, and the IBM PC. I miss Radio Shack.....

If you're a cis person insisting that the prospect of trans children playing youth sports is not only "a problem" but in fact one of the biggest problems we currently face as a nation, I'd be happy to introduce you to literally a million other things that should be worrying you more.

Please rate and review It’s a Superpower?? I so rarely get the pleasure of being graded in adult life. Unless you didn’t like it, in which case plan on rating and reviewing it but get distracted by a squirrel playing outside your window and forget all about it.

Can't think of a thing that will radicalize a generation faster than "you've gotta let that old man in the corner over there see what's inside those pants before you play Kindergarten volleyball."

Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 2d ago

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play