in hope of autistic pride
maybe we aren't as proud as we say we are
NOTE: Autistic Pride is June 18th. I wrote this originally on Facebook
Also note: I’m finally opening up 1 to 1 counselling and mentoring spots again. So, if you’re interested in moving though the stuckness that keeps you from thriving, better managing your neurodivergence or letting go of some of the ways you’ve learned to keep yourself small and struggling, contact me.
Autistic. Pride.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s a loaded topic for me. I’m fairly new on these autistic streets and the internalized ableism still runs deep in this body.
But today made me reflect on a post I wrote a while back about that Netflix show, Extraordinary Attorney Woo. It was on that episode where they wanted Woo to take on the case of an autistic client accused of killing his allistic brother, because “she was autistic too and would understand him best”. Woo was already frustrated by the request anyway, but when she finally met him she was appalled. It was then that she realised her colleagues saw her like him…
He looked autistic. She was nothing like him!
I wrote that post during a time when other late diagnosed autistics got all pissy about how “autism doesn’t have a look.” They wanted to center their later in life diagnoses because they experienced so much pain and trauma from living undiagnosed for so long.
Of course, these late diagnosed autistic experiences are valid. I’m not saying that they aren’t (again, you’re talking to a late diagnosed autistic over here). But did it have to come through separating themselves from the people in our community whose voices and experiences need to be heard and centered most??
Once again, they worked to harder to distance themselves from a marginalised group in our community than to include them, let alone centre them in their advocacy. This time it was from those autistics who might “have that autistic look.” The autistics who still aren’t getting anywhere near adequate support they might need. The autistics who actually need to be seen, centered and supported most, because without this happening, none of us are anywhere near the liberation we hope for in our lives.
All of us rise when the most marginalised of us do.
I’m learning that the more autistic pride I can extend to the most marginalised of our community, the more I might find for myself.
Happy Autistic Pride to all of us, but especially to those autistics whose experiences continue to be ignored, minimised, spoken over or simply erased.
May we all do better for each other.
Tell me about where you feel autistic pride, where you’re still struggling and what you’re learning to do or think about it?