The Awe Sea: Autistic people should... be Heard.

Reprinted from The Awe Sea.

Autistic people should be empowered to express their own views in their own “voices” and to have those voices and views respected

to ensure that

Autistic people should be full participants in the social, political, medical, educational, scientific, and other public discourses that affect them

so that

Autistic people should be able to make decisions about their care, education, relationships, daily lives and issues that are important to them.

For this to happen,

Autistic people should be given opportunities to explore and develop language through Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) beginning in early childhood,

and

Autistic people should have access to the communication technology they choose to make their “voices” heard and to have these communication needs accommodated,

and

Autistic people should be respected and engaged as equal members of the community,

that is,

Autistic people should be valued as members of We the People in whatever state or country or nation in which they live

just like everyone else

Autistic people should be loved, valued, engaged as who they are and not who others wish them to be

because at their core

Autistic people are people and should have their human and civil rights respected

and always, always

Autistic people should be treated as active agents in their own lives and not as passive objects of others’ decisions, scorn, ridicule, anger, torture abuse and ignorance.

drive mom crazy: Autistic people should...

Jason wrote. He has a lot of should's.

Autistic people should prove to the rest of society wrong about the stigmas and negative hype of Autistics
Autistic people should be able to contribute with what they can do
Autistic people should live their lives happily
Autistic people should not get upset about what other people think regardless of what society thinks
Autistic people should be be able to live life like any body else
Autistic people should do more OUTREACHING to their Autistic friends who need more help
Autistic people should listen more to the rest of society when the rest of society wants to have a conversation
Autistic people should be included in conversations about them!
Autistic people should ALWAYS move forward without looking back…!
Autistic people are…the LOVE of the World, but we are very sensitive to the world at the same time, treat us well!
Autistic people should always remember how far they’ve come while moving forward!!!
Autistic people should know we are ONE community ready to support anyone who needs it!
Autistic people everywhere should gather at Autreat!

I'd add that Autistic people shouldn't need to have most of those shoulds, and that Autistic people shouldn't need to have most of the rest listed because they apply to everyone. But we do need to, because of the world we live in. That's why we're having the flashblog, right?
Now, go read the rest of his post.

Venna: Autistic people should... be allowed to just BE

Venna said we could reprint this here, so here it is. 

What would you do, if you were told that you were not allowed to listen to your favorite music, or read your favorite book, relax in your favorite chair or do any of the things you enjoy and help you feel at peace with the world? How would you feel if you were only allowed to eat food that burned your mouth, or only could wear clothes that were itchy or painful to wear? What about if everyone around you seemed to speak in riddles and inside jokes and you never felt able to participate in the conversations? Think about this for a moment, really think about it. These may be all things you take for granted and not even realize it. How uncomfortable would you feel just being? Always uncomfortable, overwhelmed perhaps even and with no way to help reset yourself from all of that input and irritation. Welcome to the world of autism.

I am writing this and hope it may be included in the flash blog being created to change the auto complete options when a person types 'autistic people should' into Google or Bing. Go ahead and do it, see what options you get. It's sad, it's scary and it's a little sickening, and no different from what people of minority ethnicity or alternate sexual orientation have dealt with in the past and fought tirelessly to eliminate. Here's the difference between those groups of people and people with autism; autistic people can't always fight for what they need because being part of the world and society can be painful for them, it can be a sensory nightmare and leave them filled with anxiety and physically and emotionally drained. Therefore, it is up to us 'normal' people to advocate and fight the fight that they may have difficulty fighting on their own. Granted there are many who do fight and fight very well, and they should be commended and everyone should listen to what they have to say. But at the end of their speech if they need to flap their hands, rock in their chair or step outside to walk in circles and hum, don't stare, this is their way of dealing with the emotional stress of speaking in a public forum, just as any of us might go out for fresh air, or go the the restroom to finally be able to relieve our bladders, or even have a cocktail to reward ourselves for a job well done.

When it comes down to it, NT and autistic people are not that different from one another. We all feel stress, we all feel pain, we all can feel fear and anxiety and we all deal with it in our own way. So what if an autistic needs to flap their hands to help them process the sensory stimuli all around them, they don't say anything about your foot tapping or leg jiggling, and essentially it's the same thing. So next time you happen to see someone pacing in circles, rocking in their chair, flapping their hands or hear them humming, don't stare. Just think of your favorite relaxation activity, and how you would feel if people stared at you while you were doing it and thought it was weird. NT people are allowed to just be who they are, the same human rights belong to autistic people also, because they are human, (no, they aren't aliens) and they have the same thoughts and feelings as any other human, and that being the case, autistic people should be allowed to just be. Because that's what the rest of us expect from the world around us, it should be the same for autistic people too.

speaKnots: Autistic people should... feel safe to accept themselves completely

Reprinted from speaKnots with permission.

In order for me to accept myself without reservation, I first had to understand how I was contributing to the social prejudices against people with disabilities. For quite some time after my autism diagnosis, I struggled with complete reception of my differences and challenges. Over the past couple years I progressively came to a painful realization that my own internalized ableism adversely impacted my life in various ways, including my advocacy. With candor, I admit that I continue to fight lingering fragments every day. These deeply ingrained ableist-views have refused to tip-toe quietly into the night, especially after spending a lifetime believing it was my responsibility to accommodate others in toxic attempts to promote that typical is normal.

Autistic People Should… feel safe to accept themselves completely.

Autistic people should not have to find themselves contributing to ableism, due to a systemic belief-system which promotes a cookie-cutter version of normal as the acceptable way toward full and meaningful lives.

It would be wonderful if all Autistic people grew up believing in themselves, honoring their individuality and understanding they are whole... just likeHenry Frost.

The universe may still be antagonistic toward anything that doesn't present fashionably into its translation of normal, but I’m not looking back.

* (I had intended my first post after reopening my blog to be on tokenism, but I put together a few thoughts when I heard about “Autistic People Should…” a fantastical flashblog taking place today!)

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.

the apparent apanthrope: Autistics Should

The apparent apanthrope thinks that if exterminating Autistic people is on your to-do list, your priorities are way off.

If you really think that autistic people are something you should be afraid of, or so dangerous that we need to be euthanized, go to your nearest hospital’s ICU. Look around*, reflect on the notion that I’m at home knitting, and tell me how the fuck your priorities got so screwed.

*Don't actually do that. The apanthrope tells you why at the end of their full post, which you should read.

tagAut: "Autistic People Should"...

tagAut gave me the OK to repost this from here.

Today is the new “Autistic People Should” day. It’s being done because when you type “autistic people should” into autocomplete search engines, you get some pretty disgusting top searches (for details, check out the Autistic People Should blog, and some of the posts there – I’m not going to honor that search by typing any of those terms into this post).

I had a hard time coming up with answers to that question. (Speaking of questions, I highly recommend reading Musings of an Aspie’s post on Autistic People Should in particular – it has some excellent details and suggestions.)

But I was thinking about it this morning, and I found myself coming up with some interesting (and hopefully much better) ways to complete that sentence.

Autistic people should be able to be themselves.

Autistic people should not have to be ashamed of / angry about / embarrassed about / humiliated by who they are.

Autistic people should not have to conform to the social mores of allistic / neurotypical society. (Please note that I’m not saying anything here about the “moral” mores. What I mean is that we should not be expected to want to go out a lot, make lots of friends, enjoy loud and bright places, etc. We should still be held to the standards of not hurting people and the like. We are perfectly capable of that.)

Autistic people should be able to live in the way that they prefer. (Independent, independent with support, etc.)

Autistic people should be respected for who and what they are.

Autistic people should not be looked down upon as “defective” or “damaged”.

Autistic people should be listened to about who they are and what they want.

In other words: Autistic people should be treated like human beings, because that is what they are.

Thank you.

 tagAught