On the context of 'Broken'

On the context of ‘Brokenness”

I never liked the word ‘broken’ to describe anyone. Not because ‘no one is broken’ but because it’s so flat and incomplete of a word. It has no form, or context. The word tells me nothing, because what exactly is broken and why are people so offended by it? In regards to disability, people think that ‘broken’ limits, dehumanizes and restructures a person around their disability ignoring the good and the positive skills they have. Yet when you do look at the good and positive you also need to balance it. It’s one the many reasons I feel like bringing this up and using some of the character I write with in my fiction. One that many already have known, for this essay, instead of Tikaani as my avatar pseudo-person its, Chiko my airbender original character which I think fits a bit better.

One of the most frustrating about disability narratives in fiction, is the idea that for the story’s arch to be completed the person with a disability must A) Accept his disability or B) learn to defeat it and be comparatively normal and like everyone else. Both are rather half-ass and shoddy endings, but most of these are written by able bodied people who never had a disability or that experience so they are just contextualizing as someone that woke up disabled than someone born with one. It’s one of the reasons I like Toph from Avatar. She is born blind so her narrative is not about her blindness but people’s perception and her ability to surpass that. In some way, Toph is broken, but her brokenness is not her disability but whole experience of being patronized and coddled by her parents, of her constantly having to match up to her sighted peers and putting walls among people because she is afraid of being seen as weak. With that all in context, she is a broken character. Brokenness is not about disability, it’s about social perception of worth, of value and reclaiming that word not as a flaw but as a paradigm. Brokenness should be part of the character’s narrative; it shouldn’t be a hurdle for the person to get over, because frankly, it never actually happens in real life. 

Chiko’s narrative is being used because I use Tikaani a lot his narrative isn’t about accepting and deal with a sudden disability but social stigma and moving against it. Chiko on the other hand has to deal with much in short time. For those that don’t follow the show or know the canon, this might be confusing and there is a special interest blurb about the show somewhere so you can do your own research. Yet, for those that are aware, the show brings up the fact that a race of people (Air Nomads) have been wiped out, Chiko is one of them and he and his family survives. Barely. His missing left arm is reminder of that massacre at his temple and it does haunt him. He does have phantom pains, he does deal with nightmares and flash backs and all that crap. His missing arm is a point of grief of him. The thing I want to bring up with Chiko, is that his narrative isn’t about his missing arm though it does feel like that, but honestly about his frustration of constantly being jarred around and dealing with a massive war. It’s about growing up on the battlefield and about being considered an outsider but not because of his limb but because of his social context. Chiko does seem himself as ‘broken’ but not in the idea that it’s because of his missing arm, but because he is considered unworthy to live, that he isn’t meant to be here and to him, surviving while others died, isn’t fair. He doesn’t get closure or sort of respite. His brokenness, his hurt, doesn’t go away if he gets a prosthesis or finds a stable home, the war will still be there and people will still die. Giving a disabled person an accommodation or a tool, doesn’t make their brokenness go away. Chiko’s value isn’t undermined by his brokenness, his love for his brothers and his willingness to never submit isn’t challenged by it. Over all, he isn’t less of a person for being ‘broken’. 

Which is I suppose the crux of the argument really. Tikaani isn’t less of a person, neither is Chiko neither am I. Brokenness doesn’t minimalize a person. Which is why next to ‘broken’ I hate the word ‘different’. People think that broken is a word that strips a person’s self and negates them but different doesn’t do that. I don’t believe that. Calling someone different, doesn’t negate that they are broken but accentuates it. It’s still isolating, negative and othering. Calling Tikaani ‘different’ doesn’t remove the fact he lives in a universe where his humanity is always in question, where is feared a shadow of a person and one that gambles with spirits. Saying that Chiko is different, doesn’t negate his missing arm. His nightmares or the fact his people are dying and being systematically killed (So much for Avatar being a ‘children’s’ show) and watching his whole world being set on literal fire. So I cringe when able bodied people saying that I am “differently abled’ thinking that my humanity isn’t questions or the alienation I feel evaporated by well-meaning sympathy. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t make me feel any less included. I don’t want to downplay either of my characters stories because I wouldn’t want mine negated for the sake of the comfort of abled people. I don’t believe calling me ‘broken’ strips me. No more than calling me different or special. I am either. I am just a wild satyr, an organic android, a bard with no song. 

I want people to see the brokenness and love it. Because it is a part of me it’s not separate thing. It is me.

Saving Oneself

This is sort of a response post on a couple blog posts that I read recently.

Being disillusioned is rather painful. Nothing quite like having the wool over your eyes and rug pulled out from under you. For me that is what happened as an activist. I found out one day, I wasn’t as amazing I as I thought I was and out of frustration and disappointment, I lost myself in burn out and apathy. I guess this is a word of warning to my brothers and sisters who are disability activists. Fighting the fight for rights and inclusion, for equal status and for remaining human; it’s pretty much an uphill battle, and one that doesn’t seem to have a real outcome. So it’s why I felt like writing this, because I need to make something clear.

I am not a hero for being an activist. I didn’t go into this for heroics.

But I guess I need to explain why I went into activism and why burn out and being jaded can be so easy.

I guess what started as a venture in community turned out to be a romp through social-ethics and identity politics. I didn’t plan to be an activist, to write blog posts, to go to senators, to talk at summits to march at protests. It wasn’t in my purview. Yet I manage to do all those things and I loved it, because I had the image in my mind that I was boldly doing great things, for everyone, that I was changing the world. That I was…being a hero.  That my friend was the first step on the road of a cliff into the hell of burn-out.

First, I didn’t pace myself. I threw on more projects, I tacked on more lectures I talked to everyone educated everyone with no chance for myself to breath. I got tired easy, but I kept soldiering on. Because I told myself I was making a difference. I never knew I was burning the wick at both ends that I was getting more and more exhausted and overwhelmed and that protesting publicly was traumatic. I just kept working, kept trucking along with my normal job and drowned myself in policy and social-commentary. I kept thinking that progress was happening that I was doing a good thing.

But I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I burst into flames. Jaded cynicism and apathy seem to ooze out of wreckage that was me a year ago. I wrote about it on my blog, I commented on it and I left activism I was done with the verbal abuse from parents. I was done with the public backlash; I was done with ASAN abandoning my pale pagan ass out to dry. I just had it. So when the smoke cleared I was left with a pretty real result.

I wasn’t saving anyone, I wasn’t anyone’s hero. I was a train wreck that everyone watched burn.

You don’t go into activism to be a hero, you may change and impact people, you might start a chain of events that will eventually change a law or a social belief. But it never happens quickly and there is more dead-ends and road blocks than breakthroughs. You will find out that people that you loved and were loyal to you, will stab you in the back. You will find out that people you respected turn out to be monsters. You will go up hill and fall down like Sisyphus. Everything will become a pain, a chore and startling example of human hivemind and group think. You will start to hate it. Activism is often thankless and void of gratitude. But an activist knows this, and still presses on. It with this wisdom that I realized I am only a hero for myself. That I need to take care of my needs before everyone elses.  I have to see where I am in the scope of things, where I am going and if my goals match what I am trying to do with my life personally. I got to step back, and take care of myself before I burn again.

Now at round too, with disability activism, I am better prepared, I am not a hero for trying to get back on the saddle. Just a human being who wants more, who seeks the better of people, I don’t want to save anyone anymore. Just myself.  

On Notions of Rats and Cats

Just an notice, I know I have been very neglectful with my blog. It's not quiet dead...but I have been less than interested in posting. Tikaani misses everyone and says he's sorry that he doesn't feel like playing with folks.


Onwards...

It’s twenty passed nine and after making breakfast and coffee to start my week of constant repetition, I hear the sound of ‘clikclikclik’ nearby. My two young male rats (called bucks) are thirsty and I just filled their water-bottle with fresh clean filtered water. Dodger being the more inquisitive one sits on the water-bottle surveying the living room from the cage. Fagin his brother prefers to doze in the hammock or in the blanket nest that they made. Watching them play, investigate talk to each other in high-pitched noises that I can’t hear, I think about why I love rats and why I felt a need to write this essay.

Autistics tend to be required to have certain attachment to things. It’s a sort of litmus test to prove to that we are not some sort of organic machine but a real flesh and human being. In some ironic way I wonder if this behavior is what leads to the empathy tests in Blade Runner to find Replicas. If autistics like Thomas the Tank Engine and Lighting McQueen then they are read as ‘normal autists’ it’s expected of us to like machines with faces for some reason. To empathize with them before we start with bigger and better things, I liked Thomas, but I wasn’t obsessed with it as some autistics do, I prefer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, especially Master Splinter when I was four and five. That was my first special interest. I wanted action figures and outfits and bed-sheets. I had a love for stories, connections and crime fighting I wanted more than talking trains. I wanted more than what was expected of me to be a good and proper autist. 

This doesn’t go away once you’re an adult; now you’re expected of have the right sort of sensory issues, the right sort of special obsessions, to be a virgin, de-sexed and naïve but brilliant. To be a “Gary” from Alphas or “Sheldon” from Big Bang Theory, if you not any of these you’re considered ‘atypical’ at best, or ‘poser’ at the worst. I have been in this conundrum before. Be accused that I am not what I said I am and so forth I don’t look at it with any sort of anger, just confusion. Suddenly everyone is an armchair neuro-scientist. Out of all the expectations I have to carry, one seems to grate on me. It’s one that many autistics have in common and share, yet I don’t seem to fit that stereotype.

You hear it from autists, you see it on webpages. “This is a cat, not a defective dog, this it’s happy being a cat”. There is even a book called “All Cats of Aspergers” that even continues this idea that autistics are like house cats. Autistics are routinely compared to cats; in fact most autistics I have met love cats and talk about them all the time. It’s almost expected of me by other autists than neurotypicals that I should have a hoard of cats and being devoting myself to loving them. Don’t get me wrong. I like cats just fine. My mother has two males at home, Garfield and Andy and I love them both. I was severely attached to our female cat Jade before we had to find a better home for her. Still though, I am not a ailurophile, I don’t have a bunch of cats in my apartment and even though Josh likes them I don’t have big interest in getting one (though, we have considered adopting one, right now it’s not possible with the boys). I am perfectly happy with my curious loving bucks who make me grin every time I see them scuffle, scamper and learn new tricks with me. I have nothing against autists that have and love cats; Josh my partner has interest in them and even acts on occasion like a big lazy ginger tom. 

Yet for some reason the idea that we should be compared to a domesticated animal unnerves me. For some reason it’s appropriate to put us on the same platform as animal that wholly dependent on people. Cats are not as independent as most people think. Looking at it for what it is, it feels like it’s another metaphor that autists need allistics to take care of them. I know most people don’t think like that, but I see that perception. But let’s look at how we raise cats. We declaw them, force them in house for their safety, neuter and spay them and we should. They are cats, they don’t have agency like people do, I believe in being a responsible pet owner. I don’t castrate my males as they are brothers and it’s going be a same sex cage, but if they get too violent I will be responsible. Since autistics everywhere are fighting against compliancy and patronistic ideals of the neurotypical majority; I find it almost ironic that many identify with cats and are quiet content with being compared to a house pet. If folks choose to use a cat as metaphor for their state of being, then by all means more power to you. But as for me, I don’t see myself as laid back cat that enjoys cream and fish. 

I am investigative, too smart for my own good and have an insatiable appetite. In many ways, I am like a rat. Curious, bright, active and finding comfort with my own kind, I am social and adventurous, a lover of new things and things to explore. In many ways I throw a lot of the stereotypes of a typical autist out the window. Despite the phrase, ‘if you have met one autist, then you have met one autist,’ people don’t seem to follow it very well, including other autists. We make comparisons and we gage each other, there has been pissing contests among autistics on who is more ‘autie’ than thou. Parents to it every day picking out what traits that their child has are ‘clearly’ autistic traits. Thus using it as measuring stick against other autistics. It’s clear that in the spectrum of thing that there are other things I should fixate on. Yet why are we painting ourselves with the idea that we should be tame pets, and why are those traits that make us an autistic used to measure others? Is it because we have to prove to NTs that we are really are pussy cats? That we have to give them some sort of reassurance that we’re not like those guys? Can autistics be like, dogs, ferrets, horses, ducks or even rats? More importantly, what value is it for us to be considered typical by NTs, why should we be their ‘pussy cat’?

-Bard.

Does this Unit have a Soul?

One of my more recent addictions lately has been lately the Mass Effect Trilogy that you can play on Xbox. It follows a very "choose your own" adventure sort of story where your choices do have certain consequences (Before anyone starts I don't want wank about the ending), it's enticing to me as I play through discovering planets, aliens and re-discovering a genre that I love but don't find a lot of good material on it, "Space Opera".

In the first game the big bad was a race of sentient machines called the geth. For the player they are simply crazy robots bent on destroying everything. In the second game we meet a character called Legion who explains a bit about the geth and their perspective on things as well as their view point on why the rose up against their creators the Quarians.

We have seen this song and dance before. This is an old trope done before, where machines fight against their masters and we must destroy them before they kill everything. In some cases with androids or robots, the Velveteen Rabbit trope is used to make them more approachable to humans. Over all this is nothing new and it borders on cliche even. But the whole idea of Legion recalling the memories of many geth that he stores and explains the situation in his perspective is kind fascinating and something I look forward too when I get to that part of the plot.

The reason I bring this up is because androids and robots seem parallel autistics in a sense. Writers use similar tropes to portray us. The "Autistic Killer" echos a bit of about a crazed machine that goes haywire and snaps and kills it's masters. The love of a NT woman to normalize and Autistic man is another echo on the idea the love of a human woman can give humanity to a machine. Autistics have been used lately to be the new "android" metaphor, it's common in films like Adam and books like House Rules that the autistic is used to be a figure for something that is uncanny and not truly human. It's the idea that autistics are so familiar or so foreign or so tragic that they are more like robots than people. The reader gets to know the autistic as outsider or Other. NT writers tend to write autistics as tragic context that needs a happy result for the story to be complete. Other times they come off as plot furniture. This is nothing new or needs repeating, we all know this from various books.

What I am getting at is like the geth writing it's own story without the outside perspective of the Quarians; autistics tend to do the same thing. I find more autistics writing their own novels and stories in their perspective. Their narratives and fiction have more power than the ones written by NTs, because their narratives are from their own collective, their own context. Not one made from guesses or ideas on how autistic should be but rather what they really are. This is interesting to watch as autistics are starting to craft their stories. Regardless of what the rest of community might scoff or say; we are the archivers of our own mythology.

FlusterCluck: Disability in Fiction why I hate the "disability superpower" trope

This topic has been floating in my head for a long time and something that I want to approach it and actually talk about it.



aiffe brought this up recently in her post about TV shows she is watching and I responded to the parts about the show "Alphas" here. One of the issues I have within in fiction, or rather Sci-Fi and fantasy is the idea that people of disabilities needs a "karmic balance" or able-body "personal Jesus". It's something I've noticed in books and in movies when the disability is turned into a hurdle to get over or the disability must be balanced with a great power or skill in order to make up for the disability.


This is a big pet peeve and one I am going to address. While the link doesn't explain the problems concerning karmic balancing it did bring up the feelings of worry I have when I see a rise of autistic heroes especially within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy quagmire. It feels that writers have to make them a tragic hero or a naive one (like Lou Arresdale in Speed of Dark), they are normally male and asexual (and yes there are asexual auties, but their also NT asexuals too and queer auties, but autie in books/movies/tv have been portrayed as hopeless cases or asexual which is because writers want to dodge sexually active autists) and he must love numbers and math and be good at computers and in sci-fi books, must have superpower.


And this is where I sigh.


I have not seen an autistic hero, be female/queer/or sexually normal. I have not seen an classic autist be useful in a plot that isn't a plot tool. I haven't to seen a happy aspie hero, that is happily adjusted as he is and contributes to the story in other ways that has nothing to do with his disability. Instead, writers feel like they have to weigh in on their opinions on autism and thus their character ends up being a soap box, like Lou from Speed of Dark and Jacob Hunt from House Rules. While characters like Hikaru Azuma from With the Light are out there(a happy and severely autistic kid in a slice of life manga), they are few and far between and autistic writers are just as rare. Yet that is another topic....


You don't need to make your autistic or disabled hero "balanced" but giving him a superpowerful skill (now before someone shouts out 'what about Tikaani', I want to say, while I don't regret giving Tikaani edidic memory, I do think I should build more of his character and re-designed his savant talent in a way that wasn't used to make him "useful" then again Tikaani was beta character and his concept is in constant refinement, to maybe it's lesson learned), you can however develop him like all your other characters with his own talents and flaws and wishes in a way that isn't showcasing a litany of stereotypes. You can make an autistic character "quirky" and "awkward' but you don't have to point that out all the time (like in Hunt's rules) you don't have to make him male. You can give him a relationship that isn't tragic. If the story does have characters with superpowers you can give him one that compliments and balances the team (say that you have one super hacker, one with superstrength maybe the autist can be a shifter?) instead of a power that is following the "auties are good with math and science" trope.


Rambling aside of ideas to improve the auties in fiction problem, the crux is the reason the disability superpower is aggravating is that accentuates the idea that "Disability is bad" and needs to have something good to even out the bad of being disabled. The fact that only autistic savants are useful in stories is forgetting the fact that not all auties are gifted some are just mediocre all around. Disability shouldn't be painted as flaw that needs to be balanced. Disability should be a facet of a character that makes it whole.

When is an NT ally not an ally?

I've done a few essays on the gratification that NTs have when they try to do autism activism. The whole "LOOK AT ME! LOOK, LOOK IMMA HERO" shit that they seem to perpetuate no matter what they do. This isn't an essay critiquing it. This is telling my NT readers how to avoid getting the side-eye.

How to be an ally not an asshole

*) Don't compare an autist with your autistic sibling/cousin/friend/co-worker etc.
One of the biggest pet-peeves some self-advocates have is the tenancy of contrast and compare NTs do when they talk to them. It seems as soon as an autist outs himself or herself to an NT the first thing that comes out of the NT's mouth (besides "Oh I can't tell you're autistic") is: "Oh I have {insert relation} with autism!" Suddenly they have this idea that know they can relate to your issues and problems instantly because of this off-hand and distant connection. Despite whatever your relationship with this other autist is, it's not fair nor is it appropriate for you to compare or believe your in the same ball-park as the other autist. Every autist is unique. Whatever your sister/friend/yoga-instructor is like has nothing to do with the other autist.

Nor do we give two shits if you know someone with autism.

*)Telling an autist that they are doing "so well" is not a compliment
Don't try to praise an autist for passing as normal. It's not a compliment it's a constant reminder if the facade we put up every single day. It's an indication on how "other" we are in relation to you. Every time you praise an autist for passing it's patronizing and continues to divide NT from NA (Neuroatypical). You don't need to remind us that were doing a good job with making eye contact/not stimming/speaking clearly. The only time I see it as ok if the autist and the NT have been friends for years and the autist is struggling to correct a behavior (like stimming in public) only then I see the praise as genuine.

*)Don't try to pity us and say how much of an inspiration we are.
I am not your fucking "feel-good" moment for you. I am not your "precious moment", saccharine coated proverb that you can masturbate to when you feel depressed. Don't go on about how "brave" we are for being autistic, it's condescending and rather asinine. Don't fucking recount our struggles as a disabled minority like you actually understand. It only adds to your privileges as an NT and makes you look like an ass. I have had people compliment me for being brave and strong, but that's only after time has passed and one actually sees the challenges I face than assuming my autism is some-sort of "trial".

*) Do not play "Oppression Olympics"
Don't feel like your disability or sense of otherness is an excuse to invalidate an autist when they are venting out their issues and struggle. Don't jump into the discourse lamenting that having bi-polar is so hard and that autists should be grateful that we are not medicated 24/7. This is frustrating and starts a us/them dialogue that does shit. It's not rude for someone to use their otherness as a frame of reference to gain empathy, but say that you have it worse is inappropriate when the stage is set for an autist to vent. Their are other places to vent about the struggles of other NA statuses.

*)Don't correct our autistic behaviors
You're not our damn therapist. I am sick of allies trying to pretend they are helping when they remind me that I am not making eye-contact or stimming in public. I had a friend tell me that I was toe-walking and I should stop in the middle of the grocery store. It's not your god damn job. Shut the hell up. It's embarrassing to have our behavior brought up and shamed. Not all autistic behaviors should be modified, and it's not an ally's job to judge which behaviors should be modified.

*)Don't tell us we need more empathy
It only indicates you have no empathy. Allies feel it's important for them to go and say: "Don't paint us with the same brush and you should have empathy for "so and so" because of {insert issue with their autistic whatever}." It's not helpful and once again pushes the arrogance that only NTs have empathy and autists just have echoes of it. If an autist feels that they need to state phrases like "I hate NTs, I am sick of NT's making choices for us, I am sick of this NT parent treating their child like a burden" then you should shut up and let us get it out. Listen and don't judge or critique an autist for their anger. Don't play devil's advocate, don't try to make us see "another point of view" just listen for once.

We kill for NTs that just would listen and understand our anger.

*) Don't say that were better off than so and so
Don't try to ignore the issues of an autist by telling them that they dodge a karmic bullet by not being non-verbal/classically autistic/mobility impaired/intellectually disabled etc. Not only does it degrade the issues that autistic with verbal communication or those that can pass, but you're feeding the lie that having a severe disability is "wrong" and "bad" and growing the divide in the spectrum not only that but you're also continuing the constant stigma of having a severe impairment.

*)Don't use terms like HFA or LFA
Don't try to call an Aspie HFA because he can talk, far as you know he could struggle with learning how do laundry and might need guidance with doing simple task. He probably struggles with keeping a job too and deals with unemployment. Don't assume a classical autist is incompetent or LFA because they need staff and lack verbal speech, they could use AAC have skills that you probably could never do.

Don't use stereotypes to construct and feed myths that continue to do more harm than good. Get to know a person.

*) Encourage the autist to speak for themselves don't speak for them.
Don't try to assume you know our needs, don't assume you're being a good ally by telling off the jerkface that called your autie friend a retard. Don't think you're bridging the gap by bragging on how you want to be a special needs teacher and how awesome you think being a self-advocate is. I don't give a shit.

If you want to be an alley, be aware of your privilege be ware of the gaps, don't ignore them. Encourage our voices, and make them stand out in the chorus of opposition and hate.

VLog: Problem with Goldilocks Rhetoric

Rev 3:15-16

‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
-Rev 3:15-16

No one can ever be neutral when it comes to something that effects them so strongly. They have an emotional stake which tethers them into the debate. One cannot be neutral to Gay Rights, when he or she themselves is queer or have a family member or close friend that is queer. One cannot be neutral to immigration policies when one is part of immigrate community. One cannot be neutral to environmental ethics agriculture ethics when one is a farmer or a conservationist.

One cannot be neutral to disability socio-ethics when one is disabled or has a disabled family member/friend.


Picking sides and using reason to be skeptical on both ends isn't being neutral. You have a set of socio-ethics that don't change. You have a set of core beliefs that don't change when you feel they can't get you what you want. You don't warp them to fit both sides of opposing ends.

You have a side. You stand with it.

Call me militant, but I am not a fan of "neutral" stances. Especially when you can't really be neutral. If you wish to side with one side. Stick with it. If you feel the other one serves you and your family better than it's ok to the other side of the argument. But don't try to have your cake and eat it too. You can't claim to be for Gay Rights and Gay Marriage but have a copy of AFA in your bathroom or throw around "Fucking faggots" whenever you get pissed. You can't be religious freedom and then claim that Muslims shouldn't build their mosque near your neighborhood.

Hypocrisy is never pretty. But it's comfortable coat to wear. It's easy to be hypocritical it's easy to be lukewarm. I am not a stranger to waffling myself. Yet when I am told that I need to put on my big point pants and make up my damn mind. I do. If one wants to switch sides and serve another perspective because it benefits them then I see no problem with that. I won't judge them if they think B is more logical than A even though at one point the supported A. But don't say you support B but also claim to support A which have conflicting beliefs with B. Don't say you still support A even though you donate money to a B cause that works against A ethics.

Pick a Side.

Do not waver.

The Advantages of Self-DX

Ok admittedly I have been avoiding this topic for years, because I am pretty passionate (read: an asshole) when it comes to the topic of Self-DX. However, I thought this would be something to approached, especially when I have been talking about NT privilege.

There is a an advantage to being Self-DX. It's one that is seen and talked about with in the community but only non-directly. I've seen it commented as being a "Stealth Aspie" being not on the books, or records. Passing well enough without a lot of suspicion. What this really is. Is NT Privilege.

That the advantage of being Self-DX, you have personal label but not one that strips you of your infrastructural status as an NT. The government, local, state and so forth, sees you as an "NT". You don't need, the county's DD (developmental disability) services, BVR or Disability Medicaid or SSI. According to the government you're normal.

This is a massive advantage to folks with a self-DX, they can live their lives carrying the autistic label and suffer none of the community backlash. This is why they tout being a "stealth aspie" this is why many discourage autists on getting a clinical DX. Keep the label, keep the privilege.

Now I am not arguing the the validity of self-DX (especially online), this is not the forum for it (besides that's a clusterfuck of topic). Yet I understand why self-dx is appeasing for folks. Why would you willingly strip the advantages of being "NT" to gain a diagnosis that would haunt you? One that would make getting employed impossible, getting services hard and walking around with a social ghost haunting you.

Self-dx, can have their cake and eat it too. The rest of us that are on the books, can only look at the yummy NT Privilege cake but never eat it.

Something to be aware of Self-DX....

My definition of Self-advocating

Save the Retards

It's like Save the Whales for slactivists.


Oh a look a heavy political post for once yay!

Anyway, I think it's apparent on how much the pro-cure aspect of Aut-politics really makes me want to long hot shower and try to wash the disgust off my back. I see the common theme of Pro-cure activism something that is very similar to this:
(Trigger Warning: Emotional content)


Ah yes, sad depressing music with a starving probably exploited black child telling white people that they should save the black child because it's your responsibility to save third world brown/black children. The underlining message is simple, black people in third world countries need while people to save them. It's in every AIDS ad every anti-war protest. It's imperialism in the guise of charity.

Autism Politics does the same thing


It rallies NT (white, middle class NTs) to be "aware" of Autism, to save the poor lost children of this "epidemic" they use the same tools, sad music and feeling of grave seriousness. Because your son could have autism. I kinda wanna go outside listen to some Daft Punk and smoke weed. A buzz could totally kill this depressive shit.

It adds on to the Otherness that aut-adults feel as well as the stigmatization that AutSpks often shoves on them. They are tragedies needed to be saved by the smart rich white NTs. It's repeatedly shoved into our heads both by media and by doctors. The idea we need a Jesus is something that I actively protest. It's the perfect example of NT privilege, the idea that they the personal Jesus of some five year old autistic boy and that their donations and volunteering would "save them" It's gross and it's why pro cure often love playing victim around aut-adults who firmly decry the arch-angelism that NT activists seem to exude. It makes them look like bless saints while we are the poor "ignorant savages" needed to be evangelized and converted. I heard this story before? Didn't everyone die of smallpox?

NT privilege is like most majority statuses, people are oblivious to it and not even aware they have it. Self-Dx I am sure know they have it, hence their avoidance on getting diagnosed. I don't blame them anymore, no one wants their NT privilege taken away. People so unaware of their NT status have a hard time seeing the herohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gific bullshit that AutSpks propagates. To them it makes sense, after all? Don't we donate money to Cancer, AIDS, Muscular Dystrophy? To them we are another philanthropic venture unto white middle-class patronization.

It's this heroism that's really hurting self-advocates. Not bad policies, charity-corps, or vulnerable parents lashing out at the turn of fate that they didn't want. They are symptoms of a the real problem and why self-advocacy is struggling.


Can you see? They want to save the retards.


Melanie's article is good example of the mindset that most of use are breastfeed on. It's one of the most tiring concepts I've ever dealt with. And every time we profess anger and indignation over being told that they just want to help us, we are whip-lashed with guilt and sheepish remorse. Like we should feel ashamed for being self-reliant. Our identity is being used as a marketing tool and being against this is somehow "terrible" and we are "bad" for saying "We are not your poster children." Self-advocates are being under attacked by Pro-cure NTs calling us fakes and posers, not really autistic and so forth. They are attacking us because we're removing their "hero high" from them. The feeling of being a hero or a superman to their child/sibling/friend/patient etc. I swear it gives them some sort of thrill when they go to walks or fund-drives. Like they think that they are really saving the word. To have a self-advocate tell you, your oppressing us and continuing the discrimination and stigma...wow it does really kill your buzz. No wonder Pro-cures get cranky when we tell them the truth. It is a buzz kill.

It all comes down to egotism, and frankly it's time to kill some egos.

You're not our Jesus.

Juxtaposition

It's becoming interesting on how my disability permeates my life. How it's presents covers my everyday living. I have been pushing pasted the old barriers of my autism and continue to walk forward, and find new limits and eventually move pass them. It's a constant cycle of learning, adaptation and acceptance.

It's that acceptance that allowed me to realize something important about myself. I am not really female. I never felt happy being a woman, I do not truly hate my body however, and my dysphoria is mild compared to other trans males. But the acceptance of one aspect of myself allowed me to accept another aspect and thus I started on the path of juxtaposition. Passing as an NT and passing as a man.

Being NT and being a man are very different concepts of passing. NT is not a choice, being NT is a survival behavior an act of adaptation that is needed for independence. It's funny now passing as a man is not about survival but the purest nature of acceptance of oneself. It's exposing, unearthing my real self to the public and revealing in it's freedom. That being said I am not ready for hormonal treatment or maybe I will never go through with hormonal transitioning. It's up the air, but now that I feel much more comfortable as a trans male. It made me realize why it too so long. It had to do with passing as an NT.

As I stated earlier being NT isn't unearthing oneself and finding joy in letting go of a mask. Never wearing it again. Being NT is about putting on the mask. It's about lying, beguiling the rest of NT society. The idea of mask wearing of making sure my true autie nature didn't bleed through is what kept me from realizing that passing as a woman wasn't making me happy. But I had to pretend to be female to use my woman body to fit in. I kept making excuses to why I wasn't happy as a woman. I am really bigendered, I am mostly male but I am female too. They were excuses. Rationalizations because coming to grips with the fact I am a man was very tedious process. It was cathartic when I did finally start identifying and accepting the fact I am a man. It was a relief. The acceptance of my autism has becoming a blueprint to accepting and living as a trans-man. I found other autists that are trans male they became role models. The process was long and going against the lessons I learned as mask wearing autist. Yet now, it's done.

As a child, you learn from a young age that no body wants you to be yourself. No body wants you to be who you are. When people tell you, "it's ok to be you" it's a social lie. Being who you are when you are born different, autistic, learning-disabled, gay, trans, inter-sexed, deaf etc, is dangerous. Look at the countless people that have committed suicide over their difference. Human culture doesn't want diversity, they don't want acceptance. They want conformity under the lie that diversity is ok. They want people to feel comfy that it's ok to be different, or that...their difference is ok while the others are not. It's vile. We grow up being told one thing and then the opposite. No wonder everything is such a clusterfuck, how can we move forward with social progress when everything is so juxtaposed. How can we create a society that will not harm countless of children with different identities when we have such polar concepts? How can we cry that we love diversity and that it is good when at the same time when abusing and oppressing anything that is diverse? It's a paradox.

And one that will eventually undo us.

April 2: Words can hurt you

Words can damage and hurt and ways people can't always see. This illustration shows the pain of what words can do to you. Especially...that word.

[sticks and stone can break my bones but words can always hurt me.

The problem with having so many ableist and gendered insults in our language is that we know none of them are appropriate but we still use them anyway. I have slung around the word "idiot" and "moron" all the time. We know that those words are not as destructive as "retard" or "freak" or any a myriad of the prolific patronizing words we slather on kids with DDs. I've heard them all.

Trying to cut back on ableist insults feels like a never ending climb. And many of use will resist with with saying "well I can't understand why people just don't ignored them." Ahhhh yesss abled privilege. Classic. The deal is though it's not like were "sensitive" or "over emotional". Words weight on us, and sink into us. Sometimes we had enough and we get upset over one more "You're such a retard." sometimes...like myself. You realize people have called you the R-word so many times. That you have become desensitized. Numb. The word doesn't hurt anymore because you start to believe it slowly but surely.

Yeah. I am the fucking retard.

words can damage and destroy, it can undo what has been done. For World Autism Awareness day I want people to be aware of the language the use. Both, obviously destructive and patronizing.