Yes, I am proud to be autistic, and I am proud to be part of this community.
No, I don’t see myself as “uwu quirky and special” because I’m autistic.
Yes, I know autism can impact autistic people’s lives negatively, and that it can be challenging – trust me, I’ve experienced it myself.
No, I will not see my autism as this 100% terrible and negative thing, because it isn’t.
Yes, I acknowledge that some autistic people will need more support than I do, and that some will need different support for different sensory needs.
No, I am not dismissing those people by refusing to use functioning labels. Nor am I holding myself up as superior to those people.
The thing is.
Neurotypicalism has about as many *actual* drawbacks as being autistic, it’s just that other neurotypicals automatically account for those things when designing spaces and jobs and stuff.
Put an autistic person and a neurotypical person in a place that hasn’t been *designed* for either one of them, and they’ll both do about as well as each other. Just. They’ll go about it differently.
Like.
Put 100 autistic people in the woods, and 100 neurotypicals in the woods.
About as many autistics will do just fine as neurotypicals, and about as many neurotypicals will do just as terribly there as autistics. Because it’s a neutral space.
But buildings and stadiums and so on are *designed to help neurotypical people function at their best.*
ifesbob 