With April around the corner,
I want to ask of you, whoever may be reading this,
to please not support, send money to, share or otherwise participate in anything related to Autism Speaks in the month of April,
or ever, for that matter.
Autism Speaks may look like a good organization on the outside, but they’re not the perfect puzzle their media makes you think they are (see what I did there?).
-More than 96% of their money goes to “autism research”, fundraising, supporting “families with autism”, and not to actual autistic people themselves (link to source here: http://www.rootpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AutismSpeaksFlyer_color_2017-1.pdf).
-Autism Speaks is searching a cure for autism (what their research money goes to), which causes harm to autistic people who are treated with things like ABA therapy (which Autism Speaks endorses) to appear “normal”.
-Autism Speaks’ fundraising team made a horrific videos called “I Am Autism” and “Autism Every Day”. The former compared autism to cancer & diabetes and makes out autistic people as something to be feared (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UgLnWJFGHQ), and the latter includes a woman talking about wanting to murder her child because she is autistic (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vCz2KWMM0) (Please watch at your own risk.)
-The origin of the infamous puzzle piece logo comes from the myth that autism is a “boy’s disease” (hence the blue color & Light It Up Blue campaign), that only children can be autistic (hence the infantilizing image & color palette), and that autistic people are puzzles to be figured out and solved.
-Autism Speaks doesn’t actually consult autistic people. In their history, only two people on their Board of Directors have been autistic, and one of them, an author, resigned, realizing his mistake (link to his statement about his resignation here: http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-resign-my-roles-at-autism-speaks.html).
I could go on and on, but these are the most important reasons to not want anything to do with this organization.
I know for many of you, this was the support you were given after your child’s/sibling’s diagnosis and you weren’t made aware of any other organization to help you. I understand that. I blindly believed they were good too.
But the truth of the matter is, they’re not.
If you want to support autistic people, support organizations like Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (autisticadvocacy.org) who make the voices of autistic people the most important when discussing our rights and our freedoms.
Autism Speaks does none of this. If anything, they make our voices the most quiet when they should be the loudest.
If you don’t have an autistic relative, or aren’t autistic yourself, you may be wondering: “What can I do?”
And to that, I say: share our stories. Listen to what we have to say. Ask questions if you don’t understand. Don’t assume that this doesn’t apply to you. Odds are, you know someone who is autistic, even if they may not even know it themselves, or you will know someone who is autistic.
The more you educate yourself the right way, the better off you will be in the future, and the more you will be helping your loved ones around you.
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
janainaart
snowghoul
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
