Saturday, February 23, 2013

Autistic People Should by AutistLiam

AutistLiam doesn't have a blog, but you can find them on twitter! https://twitter.com/AutistLiam

Autistic people should be loved. Autistic people should be respected. Autistic people should be treated with kindness and decency. Why? Because we're human too.

Autistic people should be full members of society. Because we are and we could do so much more if other people stopped thinking of us as eternal children (also: children? So much more capable than many people let them be).

Autistic people should be treasured. We see the world very differently from most people and our perspectives are useful and interesting. We have so much to offer the world and being treated like we're less than and not being supported to live our autistic lives in ways that are comfortable for us means we're spending all our energy trying to fit or to fight for our rights when we could be doing something more awesome and less tiring.

Autistic people should make our own decisions about our lives and be supported in those decisions instead of having our parents or other people choose for us all the time even when we are adults. Whether it's what to have for breakfast, who we want to be friends with or whether to keep a pregnancy, autistic people deserve to make their own choices and have those choices respected.

Autistic people should communicate in ways that work for us instead of always trying to communicate as close as possible to how NT people communicate. There may be more NT people than autistics but that doesn't make their ways of communicating any "better" than ours.

Autistic people should have access to Autistic culture.

Autistic people should be allies to other parts of the wider disabled community when they can.

Autistic people should be welcome everywhere. In schools and shops and synagogues and everywhere else people should expect autistic people to want to join in and make sure it's accessible for us.


Autistic people should be autistic. Because autistic is a good way for us to be. It's exhausting to try to pretend to be something you're not and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Let's stop expecting it of ourselves and our children. Happy real autistics who might seem a bit strange but an get on with what they want to do are much better than sad exhausted pretend NTs who have meltdowns when no one's looking.

Autistic people should be loved and respected and supported as part of society because we are people and we are here and we are here to stay.

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