Autistic Hedgehog

[“Autistics are the nicest people you’ll ever meet because they don’t know how to hate people.”

Yes, because we’re actually made out of magical hate-proof fairy dust instead of water, electricity and skin cells like everyone else.]

Could we just…stop with this kind of nonsense, please? Autistic people are people. Like any other people, we can (and do) learn hate, and we learn all kinds of hate. Okay? It really is just that simple. Occam’s Razor: Autistic people are people and people can hate so autistic people can hate. 

There we go. We can stop this silliness now. 

[“I’m raising a child with autism. What’s your superpower?”

Resisting the urge to strange every person who thinks they’re Captain Good Parent for raising an autistic child.]

Could we please just stop acting like raising an autistic child is something that requires being bitten by a radioactive spider or being a bulletproof alien from the planet Krypton? Please? Because it’s really fucking insulting to have people say things that imply that the very act of raising you requires greater than human ability. 

P.S. Before any allistics try to crawl into my inbox to gaslight me with how I don’t understand what’s really being said here, I’d like to make it abundantly clear that I have no fucks to give. If your intentions are really so good, fucking think harder next time about how you sound when you say this shit! 

[“My son has autism but he’s not autistic!”

So does he keep it in a jar on his shelf or something?]

No, I’m not kidding or exaggerating. This is the sort of shit drifting around the autism tag right now. Rhetoric like this. 

This is why “person with autism” is such problematic language. Some parents try to defend it with claims that it’s because they see their child as a person first WHARGARBL. I suppose there’s something to be said for this person’s honesty. 

Please note that I’m not saying autistic people shouldn’t define themselves as “people with autism” if they so choose. But allistic people have no right to dictate what language gets applied to us. Whether they realize it or not, when they talk about “people with autism” a part of them is trying to separate autism from person, as if autism is some parasite that has taken up residence in their child’s body rather than a very real part of their child. 

This is a genuine–though slightly paraphrased–quote from a person who honestly believes having autism and being autistic are two distinct things. That attitude is vicious and harmful, so when you see autistics speak out against person-first language, know that this is why.