Up until 1973, psychologists and psychiatrists will still consider homosexuality to be a form of illness. It will be 1987, the year I’m born, before homosexuality will be completely removed from the DSM. Continue reading LGBTQIA+ & Autism Medicalization Timeline – A NeuroQueer Conversion Therapy History Lesson
Gender is a social construct and a social identity. Someone’s gender is determined by how they feel. An individual can feel more like a man, more like a woman, they can also feel like both, neither, or something in between.
According to one study that included 641,860 people: “people who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times more likely to be autistic as cis-gender people.” Continue reading Autism & Gender 101 – My Trans Nonbinary Autistic Experience with Autigender
These things, that society tends to value in heteronormative culture, are ways that I have been told I am wrong throughout most of my life… or that the way I experience my gender identity and my orientation, and my attractions to other human beings, is wrong, much like being told, being ADHD and Autistic is wrong. Continue reading Pride Month: Why We NEED Queer Pride
Learning I’m Autistic has helped with some things, and made them easier. I am studying facial expressions and body language, to learn what some of that stuff means. I’m learning it in a very unnatural way, and I hear some people picked up on that naturally in life, which is hard for me to fathom… but I’m learning it.
I’m capable of understanding these things, it’s just like learning a foreign language to me. Some things, however, haven’t gotten any easier, because some things might be more difficult for some of us.
Continue reading The Challenges of being Autistic in a NonAutistic World
What’s it like being Autistic? The answer to that question is going to change a lot, depending on the Autistic Person you ask… but I’m happy to share my experience with you this week. Continue reading What is it Really Like Being Autistic
There are people out there in the world today who do not know that they are NeuroDivergent, and may never know in their lifetimes. Not knowing that our brains work differently from that of a lot of other people on this planet, can have impacts on us, on our mental health, and our sense of self-worth; when we constantly compare ourselves to others around us, whose brains do not work as ours do. Continue reading I See Autistic & NeuroDivergent People Who Don’t KNOW their Minds Work Differently
Not knowing that I was Autistic for the first 29 years of my life, meant that I had a lot of miscommunications with other people, because I did not understand the differences in Autistic and non-Autistic communication, or the differences in human communication, and how my communications were often being misinterpreted by the people around me; and also how I was constantly misinterpreting what other people were trying to communicate with me, because I didn’t understand communication differences, and I assumed that everyone communicated like me. When you do this, it’s really hard to decode other people’s intentions. Continue reading My Autistic Experience of the Human Communication Spectrum
For Autistic People, many of us are excluded from the right to having a proper education, whether that is because we are put into these “special autism schools” that keep us out of general education, or we are excluded from education in other ways.
I spent time in general education, special education, and even gifted and talented educator. None of my needs were accommodated in these classes, they were not tailored to my individual learning needs, and the school system was very traumatizing for me. I feel lucky I survived it.
Continue reading Autistic & NeuroDivergent Academic Exclusion & Oppression
The problem with autism is that people, in society, don’t really see Autistic People as, fully human, complete beings. We are seen as a lesser ,second-class tier, of human. We are seen as broken, defective, NeuroTypicals, that need to try harder to fit ourselves into the NeuroTypical mold, or that we have somehow failed, because we do not fit into the NeuroTypical mold. Continue reading The Exclusion & Dehumanization of Autistic & NeuroDivergent People
Autistic people are so defined, especially by the medical industry, by our struggles, pains, deficits, and the hard parts in life. Often the joys, positive experiences, in our skills are completely ignored.
We don’t even, really, have a good understanding of what Autistic success looks like, because, by definition, Autistic People are often described by our failures. Continue reading We Don’t Have a Definition for Autistic Success Because We Only Talk About Autistic Struggles & Pain