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2:41am June 5, 2014

➸ Past, Present, and Future

spikyprofile:

youneedacat:

[Understand: I picked and chose words to make myself look as hopeless as possible, in order to demonstrate that this was exactly what people were doing when they described that hypothetical institutionalized person who needed a cure. I had, and have, a lot of abilities that I didn’t mention here….

I wonder whether the comment about thanking your father was based on the assumption that *all* autistic people’s parents are their primary oppressors, and therefore that any expression of thankfulness by an autistic person towards their parent(s) must be either coerced or something that demonstrates not being really committed to autistic people’s liberation (because to be really committed to autistic people’s liberation would require disowning your parents and encouraging all other autistic people to do the same).

(This is an assumption I once held myself, and that in some ways makes sense as a reaction to the NT-parents-of-autistic-kids “Not like My Child” toxic community… but in actuality is just as false as the opposite assumption that all parents of autistic (or otherwise disabled) children (including grown-up children) are perfect saints of self-sacrifice for “bearing that terrible burden”.)

Some disabled people’s parents are their best allies. Some disabled people’s parents are their worst oppressors. Some (probably most) are somewhere in between, but it’s as false and damaging a stereotype to say that they are *always* one as it is to say that they are *always* the other.

No the comment about my father came from a notorious autistic-hater who used to post pictures of monkeys to his website and give them the names of prominent autistic activists.  He was also the person who allowed his website to be used to post my address and purported staff hours and solicit murderers.  He wasn’t autistic himself, he was the father of an autistic boy (I fear so much for that boy, how much this man hated autistic people) who pretty much spewed hatred day in and day out.  I have a friend who is not my girlfriend but he used to say homophobic stuff about us being girlfriends and how he’d send us an exploding two-way dildo in the mail to finish us off.  Charming, charming guy.  I think he really would say anything at all that could be made into an insult.