Today is officially #WorldAutismAwarenessDay, designated by the United Nations as day of recognition and appreciation. This kicks off #AutismAwarenessMonth, which many of us call #AutismBewarenessMonth because it's always much more about "here's how bad autism is" than "here's how to make autistic people's lives better". When we want to be more positive than snarky, we call it #AutismAcceptanceMonth, because it's better to be accepted than for people to be aware of us mainly as a set of problems.

The problem with the above is that all that awareness and acceptance is something that allistic people are supposed to do, so the occasion centers allistic people instead of autistic people. The whole month is about how allistic people think and feel about us – it's not actually about us at all!

But over on Bluesky, Aslynn (`@audhd-psychnp.com`) hit on some better branding: Autistic People's Month! I really like this, as it centers us in our own celebration. #AutisticPeoplesMonth is not about how anyone else feels about us, but about our own existence, accomplishments, problems, and all the rest. I hope this catches on, so doing my part to make it happen. April is now ours!

#ActuallyAutistic #autistic #autism #neurodiversity

Oh look, it's #AutismAcceptanceMonth, or officially #AutismAwarenessMonth but that really means #AutismBewarenessMonth because mostly it's allistic people telling other allistic people to beware of us.

I'm so tired of non-autistic people capitalizing on us and using this month to push their ableism and eugenics. I'm also tired of well-intentioned folks trying to do something helpful but they get it entirely wrong because they didn't even think to ask an autistic person if what they want to say would help. You know what we need for autism awareness? Allistic folks with platforms should lend their platform to autistic folks. No more of Hank Green foolishly promoting ABA because he's totally ignorant about autism and is just doing his job of confidently reading a script someone else wrote about it (as he did last year). I think about what that video might have been like if Hank had just introduced an autistic YouTuber and let them have the stage for 10 minutes, or perhaps had a back-and-forth conversation about the topic.

I wish there were a way to get *any* allistic creator/influencer/celebrity/politician to stand up for autistics the way some straight people stand up for gay and trans rights, the way some white people stand against racism, or the way some men stand up for feminism. But they don't - they just make jokes about us being awkward while autistically-coding fictional characters to make them more interesting and marketable.

#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #ActuallyAutistic

We interviewed Karen Muriuki about her work around Autism Rights in Kenya. Karen’s work looks at policy to provide autistic people and people with disabilities rights which ultimately improve their autonomy.

Nothing about us without us.

#AutismAwarenessWeek
#AutismBewarenessMonth
#ActuallyAutistic

One of the cruelest jokes society plays on the #autistic community is drilling into the brains of very young children with a predisposition for creative, out-of-the-box problem solving, and telling them that they themselves are, in fact, The Problem.

#AutismBewarenessMonth #asd #autism @actuallyautistic #actuallyautistic #masking #autisticmasking #autismawareness #autismacceptance #audhd #adhd #neurodivergent #weird #autisticadult #AutisticAdults #anxiety