After months of thinking through this, I concluded that this will do more good for the world than bad. Especially for children on the autism spectrum whose futures I am concerned about.

Here is my story that spearheaded my disdain for ABA as a treatment for autistic children and my fight for autism rights and children's rights.

#AutisticJustice #AutisticRights #AutismEducation #AutismAwareness #HumanRights #AutismRevolution #StopTheHarm #BanABA #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

Talk about mixed feelings... It's great to see so many Europeans sign the petition to ban queer conversion therapy. But it's also heartbreaking that autism conversion therapy (ABA) is always omitted from efforts to ban conversion therapy. My own state of California banned queer conversion therapy, but nobody is even looking at banning ABA here. In fact, US federal law mandates that insurance companies cover it.

If you oppose conversion therapy, you should oppose ABA too, BECAUSE IT'S CONVERSION THERAPY TOO.

#BanABA #AutisticRights

So you can tell there's something different about Kennedy's anti-autistic attack because even neurotypical people are mad about it. I've never seen so many allistic people speak up on our behalf before like they are now. Usually it's just crickets when we're under attack.

A friend thought it might be that they're making a national registry of Autistic people. That might be it, but there have been registries of autistic people in multiple states for years, so it could be that making the threat national finally got people's attention. Or it could just be seeing the federal government take up rhetorical arms against us because that looks too much like a bully picking on the harmless class weirdo with the teacher's blessing.

Personally, I think it's the eugenics and demonization of Autistic people that is backfiring on them. Kennedy's disgusting lies about Autistic people all being soulless creatures and useless eaters who can't use the toilet unassisted were too much for people to swallow, plus the other lies about it being a preventable disease and an epidemic. I see plenty of comments about those things in particular, and people seem quite mad about it. It's nice to see people can recognize eugenics and respond appropriately.

I love to see allistics stand up for us. But I am a little worried that they might do the usual thing of appropriating the whole conversation and speaking over us, because that's almost always what happens. We usually get infantalized, ignored, and excluded from the conversation, and autism-adjacent people's interests are centered over our own. ("Won't somebody think of the parents?!")

I'm not saying that's definitely going to happen here, but I already see that allistic people are inviting allistic experts about autism on their shows and podcasts to discuss, instead of having Autistic people on. That's like inviting a white person on to talk about racism. We should probably keep an eye on that and demand to be included in the conversation. It would also help if allistic people asked to see Autistic people centered in the conversation and invited onto the shows. This is the kind of moment when I wish we had an Autistic version GLAAD/HRC or NAACP so there was an organization that could help news folk find guest Autistic advocates for their shows.
#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticRights

I am hosting a race and documentary to spread awareness against ABA in November.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1AMm2J8A49/

#AntiABA #EndABA #ABAReform #StopABA #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticVoices #ListenToAutistics #DisabilityRights #AutismAdvocacy #SayNoToABA #AutismAcceptance #ABAisAbuse
#AutisticJustice #AutisticRights #AutismEducation #AutismAwareness #HumanRights #AutismRevolution #StopTheHarm #BanABA #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #AutisticCommunity #Neurodivergent #DisabilityJustice

Little goofy art for Autism awareness/acceptance month!

#Autism #Autistic #AutisticRights #AutisticArtist #AutisticArt #ActuallyAutistic #AutismAwareness #AutismAcceptance #Acceptance #AutismPride #Disability #DisabilityRights #DisabledArtist #DisabilityArt #Art #MastoArt #Krita #Furry #FurryArt #FurryArtist

OK, so this RFKjr attack on autistic people is terrible and demands a response. But the response can't be only to go on the defensive, because then all we can do is try to lose ground more slowly. We need to go on offense and fight for expansion of autistic rights and protections. This is the moment for it because people are paying attention, and we might be able to turn that into support for positive change. Look at all the support there is for trans rights and protections now, largely in response to government actions against trans folk. We could do that, too.

I can think of a thing or two to push for: 1) Ban ABA. 2) Ban electric shock torture at Judge Rotenberg Center.

What else would be a good goal to fight for to expand autistic rights and protections? What about expanding support for us, or having any support at all for autistic adults? What changes do we want in schools? What about having texting available as an alternative for all public phone-based systems? I don't know what makes sense, but I want to hear if you have an idea.

But banning ABA would be amazing and if we got nothing else out of this moment that would be enough for me. Who would be a good leader for this effort? Do we need an autistic celebrity spokesperson? And does anyone have a "talk to your electeds about banning ABA starter kit?"
#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticRights #BanABA #StopTheShock

Benevolent Ableism is a very real growing problem around ABA and it's infringing of autism/human rights these days....

#AntiABA #EndABA #ABAReform #StopABA #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticVoices #ListenToAutistics #DisabilityRights #AutismAdvocacy #SayNoToABA #AutismAcceptance #ABAisAbuse #BoycottABA
#AutisticJustice #AutisticRights #AutismEducation #AutismAwareness #HumanRights #AutismRevolution #StopTheHarm #BanABA #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #AutisticCommunity #Neurodivergent

My response to Agents of Speech's defense of ABA.

#AntiABA #EndABA #ABAReform #StopABA #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticVoices #ListenToAutistics #DisabilityRights #AutismAdvocacy #SayNoToABA #AutismAcceptance #ABAisAbuse #BoycottABA
#AutisticJustice #AutisticRights #AutismEducation #AutismAwareness #HumanRights #AutismRevolution #StopTheHarm #BanABA #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #AutisticCommunity #Neurodivergent #DisabilityJustice #AutisticSurvivors #SupportNotSuppress