#autistic spaces

[askanautistic]

I'm fairly new to Tumblr, and I'm not sure how to use tags on everything yet. I've seen people using a tag called #actuallyautistic, and I don't know what it means. Do people not actually believe self-identified autists are autistic? Is it a defensive measure? Or is it designed for use by only people who are autistic and nobody else? I think I might be on the spectrum (and am at least fairly certain my father is) but I've never been diagnosed and nobody from my family is willing to discuss it.

#actuallyautistic is a tag made for only autistic people to write in. Self diagnosed autistics are welcome to write there. The name refers to the wish to get something separate from allistic health care professionals, “autism parents*” and others, who often lead the debate in other spaces.

They often fail to listen to our voices, and would rather speculate with each other than listen to us. Their overbearing and often wrong ideas abut autism where overflowing the #autism tag.

#actuallyautistic is a place where we can discuss autism from an insider perspective, and share our stories.

Let me tell you a story. I’m an young adult who self diagnosed not very long ago. I've known about autism my whole life, but I never thought I myself was autistic. This was because allistic people explained autism to me as they would explain it to another allistic. Autism described by allistics sounds scary and impossible to understand.

It was when I read autistic people describe autism I could connect with it. Suddenly there was an explanation to my whole life, and it wasn't scary of incomprehensible. That’s why it’s so important for us to have this space and other spaces where we can share our experiences.

Wow, this kind of turned into a rant. Just so we’re clear, I’m not mad at you, I’m just passionate about this subject :) . Since you’re questioning your neurotype I advice against posting in the tag for now. If you ever get an autistic diagnosis, be it official or self diagnosis, you are welcome to post. In any case you’re welcome to read and educate yourself further.

-Mod E

*This refers to allistic parents of autistic children, not autistic parents.

[ananiujitha]

I think it was very helpful to have relatively safe, closed, spaces to talk about trans issues, autistic issues, and my various disability issues.

Now the trans forum might close down. And the autistic forum has closed down.

Obviously I need to be able to talk about these things, and ask for help and advice with the disability-related things in particular. Obviously I can't always talk about all of these things on a public site like tumblr, or an inaccessible site like tumblr. So from my point of view it would be a loss to lose one of the only places where I could usually talk about most of these things.