#autistic women and nonbinary network

[bookquotesfrombooks]

“As has been said over and over, by autistic people who have been advocating and educating for much longer than I have, there is no hating the autism and loving the child.”

Amethyst Schaber

“Unconventional” in Sincerely, Your Autistic Child

[yisanged]

thinking of all of the things like asd and adhd and nvld and hyperlexia and irlen syndrome and just all of those things with overlapping symptoms makes my head hurt. i can never tell what fits my experience the best because it always seems like there's something or another that fits with one but not the other and then something that's pretty much unique to one and uggghhh. it doesn't help that i'm not at all self aware so identifying symptoms who and also that a lot of the resources on this stuff are janky. you know it's bad when one of the first search results for 'precocious speech' starts like this

[todayontumblr]

Tuesday April 11.

Autism Acceptance Month.

Today is Tuesday, April 11, which means we are eleven days into the 30 blessed days of #autism acceptance month, 2023 (previously known as #autism awareness month). April is the month and April 2nd is the day—World Autism Day, to be precise—and these first weeks of spring are a time for uplifting autistic voices of all identities, advocating for acceptance, progress, and sharing in the community's joy. It began back in 1972, as National Autistic Children’s Week, and was founded by The Autism Society to raise awareness and campaign for change in communities, schools, medical facilities, and businesses. And this same vital, wonderful work continues today, and not just for the month of April, of course—but every day of every year. The lived reality is that every day of every month is Autism Acceptance Month, and it is on all of us to do better.

Progress has been made, but there is still so much to be done in the struggle for equality and justice for all those living under the broad church of autism. And if these words sound hollow, then simply read the moving story of Debra Vines, of The Answer Inc., and of her autistic son Jason. She articulates everyday struggles that families can face, and the many joys they experience, too. Her message is simple, but powerful: don't give up on milestones.  

Want to know more, get involved, or donate? Here is just some of an impressive selection of charities sourced by the fine people at the Applied Behavior Analysis Programs Guide, where you can find the complete list of 20 charities and organizations:

The Asperger/Autism Network

The Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network

Autism Research Institute

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network

The Autism National Committee

Happy Tuesday, folks, and here's to better.

[autisticadvocacy]

CN: Slavery "Thus, the history of emancipation has been, in essence, a history of able-bodied freed slaves, as disabled slaves, along with some children and elderly people, often could not escape the plantation South."

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

7 Ways Autistic Special Interests May Show Up

Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network

Autism

[badaziraphaletakes]

Hi friends!

We wanted to let you know that we are setting up a Kofi associated with this blog. We also want to make it very clear that there should be absolutely NO sense of expectation or obligation. We did not start this blog with any idea of making money off it. Frankly, we're still pleasantly shocked that the blog has the reach it has.

It's vastly surpassed the expectations we had back in the good old days in February, when Mod X, after months of choking on BAT's, read a take saying depression wasn't real and finally snapped, created a Crowley-coded anonymous email address, and fired up a silly little Tumblr.

It's definitely surpassed the expectations we had when, less than two weeks later, that blog suddenly became the demon of the entire fandom for a couple days despite only having 70 followers). Your presence here and your engagement with this blog is and will remain more than enough reward for what we do.

However, writing this content has proven to be more time-consuming than we anticipated. (We had no idea of the sheer quantity of bad takes out there! That also surpassed our expectations - yikes! It feels like Whack-a-Mole, except that it's more satisfying and Whack-a-Mole eventually stops. 😁)

Anything that comes our way means we can spend that much less time driving for DoorDash and that much more time writing content over here, which is what we'd vastly rather be doing. :) If it feels worthwhile to you to throw a couple smackeroonies our way, we'd be more grateful than we can express.

Regardless, we love you all so so so much.

***All profits made from the t-shirts which you have been so kind as to purchase will continue to go to the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network.***

Thank you!!!

Love,

BAT

[enbycrip]

I need people to stop telling trans binary and nonbinary people who vent about their family forgetting or not using their pronouns or chosen names to “just cut them out of their lives if they can’t respect who you are”.

*Lots* of us are disabled. I really depend on help from my folks to manage my life when things are bad.

But, frankly, even if I didn’t - I’m not going to cut my folks, or the rest of my family, out of my life, because things they do hurt me. Because they do, sometimes right to the heart for things I don’t think they realise mean a lot to me, but that *doesn’t* stop me loving them. Nor them loving me. My folks are also right at the limit of their capacity caring for three people to different extents, and that doesn’t give them a lot of capacity to spare for learning or processing stuff they don’t necessarily see as all that important.

Trans folk, and disabled folk, which have a big crossover in the middle of the Venn Diagram there, are socially marginalised and isolated. Lots of trans and disabled people are literally cut out by their families for being who they are, and that is a big, big cause of marginalisation and isolation.

The idea that the rest of us should just do that to ourselves when people we love hurt us by not understanding who we are - and this stuff *isn’t* actually that easy to learn for people outside the queer, disabled or queer disabled communities if they’re not incredibly motivated to do so - is incredibly fucking damaging and, to be absolutely honest, a complete cop-out by people who are not willing to put up with the emotional labour of understanding that most lives are not simple, and marginalised people have to constantly deal with trade-offs in most areas.

I don’t remotely mean that people should put up with abuse if they have the capacity to leave that situation. But people need to expand their understanding to a) behaviour that hurts us is not necessarily the same as abuse, and b) marginalised people *are* frequently stuck in abusive situations, and this sort of absolute “leave or shut up” attitude people are so keen to put out online further traps and isolates marginalised people who are stuck, instead of giving them emotional support and, hopefully, physical and informational support too.

The idea that we can simply and easily withdraw from parts of our social network without it costing us something vital is incredibly privileged, and incredibly dangerous.

We talk so much in environmental and social movements about building community. We always talk about it in this purely positive light. I need people to start engaging with the fact that real, as opposed to idealised, community, is a multifaceted thing, and all the more so for people who are intersectionally marginalised - anywhere at the crossover point of queer, disabled, BIPOC, trans, neurodivergent, migrant, and other things. We are communal creatures by nature, but, frankly, capitalism has done a *lot* to break that up, and to prevent us from learning the skills of negotiation and existing in community as equitably as possible. And that includes in small communities like families.

Part of that, frankly, *is* letting people have vent spaces. Without necessarily jumping in to problem solve unless people *ask* for that. Venting is literally one of the ways that people move towards problem solving themselves - it not only lets them express emotion they may not have the space to express properly in the situation that’s causing it, but it starts letting them lay a situation out and put it in perspective. And online venting is great, tbh. It stops individual people from becoming sole venting spaces, the emotional labour of which falls disproportionately on women and femme-read people. And it means that, if you don’t have the spoons to hold that space for people, you can scroll by.

I absolutely do *not* find this stuff easy. At all. I am *way* too autistic for that. That’s why I work *hard* at this stuff.

We *need* communities. We are communal primates. It’s what we are and what we do. And, frankly, we need to get better at being in community with each other to build the future we need to survive. Capitalism and oligarchy has been far too fucking effective at pushing a narrative of individualism which ignores our responsibilities as humans - to each other and to the planet we live on. We need to learn to see the costs of isolation and being isolated, and learn the skills of supporting each other and negotiating with each other.

And, absolutely honestly, if someone *is* in a situation where they do need to walk away from a relationship (of any kind), they will be *so* much better able to do so if they have a community of genuine support from others around them.

[autistpride]

It's acceptance day so of course today calls for another post.

Originally the puzzle piece logo was made by a non-autistic parent of an autistic child. It was green and black with a child crying on it. The idea was that "autism is puzzling".

Over years, autism speaks changed the puzzle piece and began to light it up blue. They, and the medical community, also promoted the person first language.

Now the puzzle piece represents that autistic people are "missing a piece" and if our autism could be removed, we would be whole. Autistic people are now viewed as a broken person missing pieces from them.

And this is the narrative that has been pushed by Autism Speaks and ABA companies since.

Autism speaks is known for dangerous (life threatening) recommendations and very little of their money ($4/$100) actually supports autistic individuals.

Autistic individuals have pushed for years to change the symbol of autism to a rainbow or gold infinity symbol.

The autism community prefers an identify first language because autism is a neurological difference that makes the person who they are. Autistic individual, not on the spectrum, having autism, or suffering from autism.

The autism community are trying to promote a symbol, terms, and things to represent themselves and their community just like others have done.

Please follow what the autistic community prefers.

DO NOT support autism speaks

DON'T light it up blue

DON'T use the puzzle piece or person first language (unless someone tells you otherwise for them specifically or your child is able to tell you their preference for themselves)

INSTEAD

Light it up gold

Wear red instead

Use the gold or rainbow infinity symbol

Just like you would for any other community.

Please support these instead!

Autistic women and non binary network

Autistic self advocacy network

[juiceb0xexe]

DTE Autism Acceptance Adoptable Charity Raffle!! (Donate to enter)

HAPPY AUTISM ACCEPTANCE MONTH!!

As someone who cares about activism and as an autistic person, I decided to host a charity raffle for autism for autism acceptance month!

Please consider checking out my charity adoptable raffle!! This raffle is DTE (donate to enter), you can donate any amount to enter for a chance to win one of these adopts! 100% of proceeds goes to the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network which supports autistic women and trans people, as well as people of color! Theres more information on that organization within my post, and even more information on their website.

Any support is appreciated! Raffle ends on the 14th. If you cannot donate, please consider sharing/reblogging!

Enter Raffle Here! -> https://www.instagram.com/p/C5ebXVdPeug/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==

More About AWNN Network -> https://awnnetwork.org/about/

[bookquotesfrombooks]

“First the world says not to let autism ‘define you.’ Now, all of [a] sudden, when I need help, I have to prove to people that I am autistic.”

Kayla Smith

“I Wish I Wasn’t So Hard On Myself Back Then”

Published in Sincerly, Your Autistic Child

[librarycards]

not ask but i went across your blog want thank for your time writing things

i want learn more anti psychiatric but am autistic with very difficulty reading, can only understand chunks of things i need simplified language it feels frustrating try to understand things

it's my pleasure! i don't know if this was a request for tips/other resources, but you might be interested in checking out some recorded webinars on antipsych/Mad studies and praxis.

Mad in America has a huge archive of webinars, etc - but ymmv with some of these, their politics skew too libertarian for my taste.

The Autism Womens' and Nonbinary Network has a great collection of videos, too.

Liat Ben-Moshe is an excellent speaker and a giant in disability/abolitionist scholarship, and has given a lot of talks on the subject. I particularly liked her talk with Beatrice Alder-Bolton of Death Panel, one of my favorite podcasts.

idk if this is helpful, but i wanted to share some resources in case anyone else/you wanted to listen rather than read + thanks for the ask!

[toondisneyartz]

Star Butterfly Commits Arson to Autism Speaks

This is your ANNUAL reminder to NOT donate to Autism Speaks or support them. Here are some other autism organizations to donate to: ASAN Autistic Women's and Nonbinary Network The Autistic People of Color Fund AANE Commission an actually autistic person

Star Butterfly is owned by Daron Nefcy and Disney TVA

Made using Procreate

[aropride]

Where do you get most of your autism info?

oo good question,, tbh a lot of stuff i just know cuz my both my brothers are diagnosed + my best friend growing up has it, so a lot of stuff i just kinda absorbed over the years from my family + friends. usually with factchecking that stuff i just google it and scan a couple sites that look trustworthy to see if it's something that seems widely agreed on or not before i say it conclusively

for specific online sources, i know the autism self advocacy network has a lot of good info, and embrace autism is also good. also spectrumnews.org and autistic women and nonbinary network <- these r all as far as i know but also i havent done like, a full background check on all of them so i might be incorrect

i think the main thing is double checking anything from social media or any article/news story/whatever with big red flags- it definitely varies and most of these things arent like, 100% indicators that something is wrong, more that the source might be biased or ableist or just outdated. but for me big red flags are -> allistic writer/speaker insisting on person-first language (tho thats still very common in psych spaces unfortunately), calling autism a "disease"/"epidemic" or saying it needs to be cured, the puzzle piece logo and "light it up blue" (red instead is the alternative movement for that, it's for autism Acceptance rather than awareness which is the movement with weird ableist undertones (overtones?)), that sort of thing. also checking for things written by autistic people or with imput from autistic people

also academic papers can be super dense (and somewhat ableist tbh) but they also have good information sometimes, so again just checking and seeing if there's other sources for stuff & if those look reputable

+ id say just in general be especially careful with stuff on social media bc ppl will Lie or misinterpret stuff or misremember or whatever and misinformation gets spread very very quickly . but also community is nice & can be incredibly helpful so it's difficult to completely disavow it yknow .

but yeah a lot of stuff ive learned from my family & friends over the years, and dont have super good specific sources for learning that sort of thing other than just hanging out with autistic people and absorbing stuff via osmosis HAHA but i hope some of that helps :}

[autisticadvocacy]

Available in English and Spanish, AWN's Guide to Voting has specific resources for disabled voters, BIPOC voters, voters in the South, trans/nonbinary voters, and more. Check it out!

[badaziraphaletakes]

We've been beefing up our Redbubble shop...

...And we're really proud of it!

These are just a few of the elegant items that can be yours:

All proceeds go to the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network.

[factoidfactory]

Autism Acceptance Month Fact #13

The vast majority of autistic adults consider Autism Speaks to be a hate group.

If you want to support autistics this April for Autism Acceptance Month, donate to autism groups run by autistics or wear red instead of blue.

Here are some recommendations if you are interested in donating:

Australia + New Zealand

ASAN Australia and New Zealand

Brazil

Liga dos Autistas

Canada

Autism Canada

Autistics United Vancouver

Autistics United Comox Valley

Autistics United Manitoba

Autistics for Autistics Ontario

London Autistics Standing Together (LAST)

Mexico

Asperger México

Portugal

Associação Portuguesa Voz do Autista

United States

Autistic Self-Advocacy Network

Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network.

Huntsville Autistic Adults

California Autistic Self Advocates (CASA)

Autistic Rebel Family

Autistics Against Curing Autism – Chicagoland

Kentuckiana Autism Spectrum Alliance (KASA)

Autistic Students Alliance (ASA)

Prism

Pennsylvania Center for Autistic Advocacy

Nashville Autism Peer Support (NAPS)