Advocating for Autism Acceptance

Welcome back everyone!

In honor of Autism Acceptance Month, we critically analyzed a different form of medium during our weekly general body meeting, a Reddit post titled “It’s Autism Acceptance Month. I wrote something about it.” by the user FooFighter0234 under the r/autism discussion thread. The post criticizes Autism Awareness Month for frequently portraying autistic individuals as inspirational figures fighting a battle of their diagnosis, expressing frustration with the movement. The author argues that this form of advocacy does not depict the everyday struggle of constantly having to mask to fit in and navigate a society that often fails to meet their needs. They highlight the challenges they encounter in obtaining work and acceptability in the adult world, including the harmful stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream media. The post calls for better acceptance and understanding of autistic people beyond the boundaries of a designated awareness month, rejecting attempts that downplay or minimize the experiences of autistic people.

Notable Quotes:

“Our reality is that once we turn 21 and graduate from transition programming (or college, whichever we chose), we get thrown off a proverbial cliff into an adult world that refuses to acknowledge our uniqueness”.

“We are not ‘people with autism’, as if it’s an accessory that we can take off at will; autism is an integral part of who we are.”

“The world at large focuses on either the low end of the spectrum or the very high end and extols parents of kids on the low end as “heroes” for fighting to ‘save their kids from the scourge of autism’ ”

Discussion Questions:

1. Are there any comments in the post that particularly stood out to you? Talk about them!

2. So, what is autism awareness versus acceptance? How are they different? Are they mutually exclusive?

3. OP mentions being “thrown off a proverbial cliff.” Do you think about your future after college? How might this be similar or different for neurodivergent people?

Thank you for reading this week’s topic: advocating for autism acceptance! Please feel free to take some time to reflect and leave any questions or comments in the section below. Check out our instagram page for the post version of our weekly blog posts and future updates. Don’t forget to subscribe down below so that you don’t miss out on upcoming educational posts! ♾️🌈