Reminders for Autism Awareness this coming April:
1. Don’t light it up blue. If you really want to light it up something, light it up red instead.
2. Don’t donate to Autism Speaks (Why is A$ bad?).
3. Don’t praise autistic people for existing. We aren’t ‘inspirational’, we aren’t ‘so brave’ just for being alive. Our disorder isn’t an illness to be cured, don’t act like autism is some terminal disease.
4. Don’t infantilize autistic people. We aren’t little babies, don’t treat us like we are. We aren’t puppies following people around that you can just treat as a pet. We’re human too.
5. Don’t use the puzzle piece as a symbol for autism—use the infinity sign instead.
6. If an autistic person tells you your ‘activism’ is harmful, listen. If you take offense to being told that something you said harms the autistic community, then you seriously need to reconsider why you’re spreading awareness.
7. Don’t speak over autistic people, boost their voices (There is a difference between reblogging posts made by autistic people and making your own post about ‘support autistic people’). You can use the #actuallyautistic hashtag on most social media sites to find people with the disorder.
8. Posts that just say something like the above (‘support autistic people’, ‘autistic people exist’) is widely performative and honestly you’re better off not making that post.
9. Autism acceptance doesn’t end with April. If you genuinely care about autistic people, you need to start supporting them year round.
10. Autism acceptance includes all parts of the disorder. This includes the things that are “weird”, “scary”, or “embarrassing”. If your acceptance ends at stimming, meltdowns, or sensory issues, you aren’t accepting us.
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