Sia, "Music" and outrage: when non-autistics get autism wrong

48 hours ago, I had never heard of Australian singer Sia. Then her directorial-debut film's trailer was released, and the global autistic community exploded with completely justified fury.

*****

Dear Sia,

I, like many other autistics, am beyond disgusted and horrified with "Music". Not just the infantilising, inspiration-porn-style presentation of us, but perhaps even more so with your response. "Explosive fury" is an understatement, and it came from autistics all over the world. And responses from us are pretty much unanimous: it's ableist, NT-centred inspiration porn. It's a strop with the same magnititude as those of Donald Trump. There's a whole Airbus 380 cargo-hold's worth of baggage to unpack here.

 

The trailer

This was pretty painful to watch. It's cutesy, saccharine and reeks of inspiration porn. Although you wanted it to be "feel-good", that is nothing like what I and so many autistics are feeling. Obviously I haven't seen the entire thing because it's not out until February next year and we have only the trailer to work from. It looks like it had the potential to be quite fun...except it ended up feeling anything but, because of the way it was handled. 

It starts with the sister saying "this magical little girl", which suggests that Music is aged 10 or under. It was a shock to see that she's actually coming into adulthood. It's infantilising and reinforces the myth that we are perpetual children. Trust me, we're anything but. The "pure", "innocent" stereotype is old, overdone and clichéd, too, and we're sick of it. It's the perpetuation of this stereotype that contributes to people presuming our incompetence. Depriving us of experiences. Removing our rights and access to the world and information. Endangering us. It's myths like this that lead to us being denied sex education, valuable information about consent, the right to live outside of the family home or some sort of institution. You're simply adding to it and making it that much harder for us to demonstrate our capabilities and our competence. This phrase would probably work well enough if she was, say, 12 or younger, but at 18 it's painful.

"Magical" others us, implicitly encourages others to see us as not quite human, and that is damaging; it also carries an infantilising undercurrent, especially given the tone used. I'm getting vibes of Music's role turning out to be the "angel" sent to "rescue" the sister from what I've read about her, and we as a community are so sick of this narrative. We are not here to rescue you, to teach you to be better human beings/teach you life lessons.

The other big problem that I can glean from such a short trailer is that there's a strong whiff of the abled "protector/saviour" in the sister. Those narratives are infantilising and make our skin crawl.

Stella Young: Not Your Inspiration

 

Language use

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1329726137375870976

First, your choice of language to describe us (and refer to disability generally) is atrocious, inappropriate and offensive. "Disabled" is not a dirty word and the linguistic contortions you put yourself through in a desperate attempt to avoid using it (like so many before you) is painful to watch. Many of us actively embrace the term, and you are doing every disabled person a huge disservice in your efforts to say anything but "disabled". You reinforce the taboo of the word, reinforce that it is A Word That Must Not Be Spoken. In doing so, you erase our reality, you erase our struggles and difficulties. You send a very public message that our way of being is fundamentally, inherently wrong.

"Special abilities" is cringey, infantilising and painfully euphemistic. We see no difference between that and "special needs". We hate "special needs". We've been shouting this for years. "Special abilities" also implicitly contributes to the falsehood that we all have some kind of savant ability - and that's simply not true. Don't perpetuate it. This is an excellent video that you need to watch: Not "Special Needs"  

Use the language we prefer.

Additionally, we are not called "special abilities" now; that's just you. It's literally just you. Just you, like so many others before you, deciding on a term for us, without consulting us, imposing your uninformed, ignorant, infantilising, patronising, inappropriate term on us. You are not part of that community, therefore it is not your place to hand out labels. And your phrasing of it in the Variety interview presents it as a a term that's in widespread use, and it isn't at all. This is sheer arrogance.

And then there's your use of functioning labels:

3 years of autism research and you didn't know how restrictive, inaccurate, offensive and inappropriate that terminology is? Pull the other one. If you'd put in the effort, you could easily have found this out - we've been talking about this for years. There are so many articles, blog posts, memes, etc. explaining precisely why it's such harmful language. You know who uses that terminology? The Martyr Parent crowd. The clinicians who view us through a lens of deficits. So much of your language indicates that they, not autistics, were your primary source.

You say that you have cast a number of "neuroatypical" actors (see below, under "Using trans people as a shield"). I'll be frank, I've never come across this word before and it doesn't have anything like common usage in the neurodivergent communities from what I can tell. It's a poor choice of wording because it's so similar to "neurotypical", with a difference of only a single letter, and because it's in the middle of the word, the 'a' gets completely lost. I've seen it quoted as "neurotypical" instead of "neuroAtypical" in a number of articles because people haven't seen that extra 'a' - it's not in common use so nobody was looking out for it. I didn't even notice it at first, and it took several re-reads due to the sentence not making sense (because I was reading it as "neurotypical") before I spotted it. It's not dyslexic-friendly in the slightest. Besides, "neuroatypical" does not necessarily mean "autistic", so that doesn't actually tell us whether there are autistic cast members or not. They could be dyslexic, have AD(H)D, Tourette's... There's a plethora of neurodivergences beyond autism; "autism" and "neurodivergent"/"neuroAtypical" are not interchangeable.

Omission of autistics

So who was this autistic actress you supposedly originally hired? A lot of the autistic community aren't actually convinced that this is even true, given your close relationship with Maddie Ziegler, and suspect you're just claiming to have originally hired an autistic actress but never actually did, to deflect criticism from that angle. I'm not sure what I believe on that front, but I'm sure you can understand the scepticism of so many.

https://twitter.com/edgar_a_bitch/status/1329826164819550208

https://twitter.com/sia/status/1329723656768024577

https://twitter.com/sia/status/1329721477025947648

Before the first rehearsal Ziegler was concerned that people (i.e. autistic people) might think she was making fun of them, to the point that she turned up in tears. She was absolutely right to be concerned: just look at the fallout. But you pushed her to continue anyway, and dismissed and invalidated her very real and valid concerns.

(Let me make this clear: Maddie Ziegler, if you ever read this, we are NOT UPSET WITH YOU. You did your job, you did what you were directed to do. I am not angry or hurt by you. And from what I've seen across the autistic community generally, neither is anyone else (if there is, they're in a tiny minority and I haven't seen anything). It is SIA we are upset with.)

Sia, you've basically said that we autistic people are too difficult to work with. Which in this case clearly translates into "I wasn't willing to make accommodations or change the environment". If you'd really done good research, if you genuinely wanted to better represent our community, you would have made those accommodations. By your logic, would you hire a hearing actor who knows a few signs rather than hire a Deaf actor whose first/preferred language is sign language (I'm deliberately not specifying any sign languages because there are many and it would depend on location) because it would be slightly slower communication-wise and there are costs of hiring interpreters, etc? Would you favour an able-bodied actor who then crips up to play a wheelchair user because it would be too difficult to make the physical accommodations (including provision of appropriate toilet facilities) for a wheelchair-using actor? My gut instinct is that the answer would be "yes" (accompanied by some half-baked excuse).

Judith Drake's article "My Left Foot: The cripping-up debate" has an excellent discussion on the topic of cripping up, and includes a number of other articles on the subject.

Also, the inclusion of "beautiful" is cringeworthy - what does a person's beauty have to do with any of this? It's irrelevant, patronising and superfluous. As for "young girl" - no. Absolutely not. This is so inappropriate and infantilising for a character that is approximately 18. If she was, say, under 10, it's applicable. But by using the phrase in relation to a young adult, you are contributing to the myth of us being perpetually children, just because we don't conform to NT notions and behaviours.

By presenting us as too difficult to work with, that sends a message to others who may be considering hiring autistic actors. What if they initially decided they specifically wanted to hire an autistic actor but changed their mind after what you've said? Or have just hired an autistic actor but then doubt their choice and renège on on that? Have you any idea of the long-term damage this could do to already-marginalised autistic actors?

This decision was, according to you, "compassionate". Do you truly expect us to believe that? There are so many autistic actresses out there who I'm sure would have done a damn good job (and a number of them reached out to you). This is disingenuous and arrogant.

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1329735312126455814

But then, you were rude to someone who pointed out that you were merely making excuses, without having seen any of their work. Rude, judgemental and completely without foundation. Personal attacks are an ugly look.

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1329738992519147521 

When it comes to assessing the accuracy of the portrayal, instead of sending it to a variety of autistics for feedback, you sent it to...the Child Mind Institute. A place that describes us solely in terms of deficits, uses person-first language exclusively, presents autism as a linear mild-to-severe spectrum, talks about "risks" of autism and promotes ABA as a "treatment", as well as directing people to the Autism $peaks 100-Day kit. https://childmind.org/guide/guide-to-autism-spectrum-disorder/

This is unacceptable. The best people to give you accurate, authentic feedback is autistic people, not a group of non-autistics. You've said that Music is based on a friend's autistic brother. Did you run this caricature past him and get his feedback? What about a viewing with some autistics? Given that nowhere that I can find have you said you did, we can only extrapolate that you haven't. What is not said, what is omitted, is just as revealing as what is said, what is included.

 

"Rain Man: The Musical"

Another clear indication of how out-of-touch you are with actual autistic people is the way you referred to it as "'Rain Man: The Musical' but with girls". When you said this, I winced. A number of autistic people over the years have written about their issues with this film (not least that the character is never officially labelled autistic) and I can definitely see the parallels. Given the community's feelings towards that film, though, you've done the opposite of selling it to us. For its time, it wasn't toooooo bad (although it does still have a number of deeply problematic elements, which have been discussed widely by autistics; my own feelings towards and opinions about it are very ambivalent) but it's very outdated now. The world has moved on. We have a far better understanding of autism now. By comparing "Music" to "Rain Man", you're basically taking us back over 30 years and that is not a good thing.

Support and promotion of Autism $peaks 

You claim to have been immersed in researching autism for 3 years, yet you still appear to be utterly clueless about how harmful Autism $peaks is, how they are almost universally regarded as a hate goup by the autistic community. That you had no idea they were so "polarising". 

Bluntly, I don't buy it, not if you'd spent any significant time with autistic people and in the autistic community. 3 days, maybe, but 3 years is more implausible than Torquay United winning the 2020-21 Premier League title (for context for those of you unfamiliar with English football (soccer), Torquay are in the 5th tier of English football and the Premier League is the top division, and would require 4 promotions to even get into the Premier League). We're extremely vocal about A$. We constantly educate people about them. There are tons of articles all over the internet explaining, often in great detail, why they are so problematic and harmful. And yet you claim you didn't know??? Sounds like an excuse (something you're full of), nothing more. 

It gets worse. On April 2nd you tweeted this from A$: 

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1245761824902901760

People educated you about why A$ is a terrible organisation and not one to support, and gave you alternatives such as ASAN and AWN. You thanked them for the education in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/sia/status/1245768272420564992

 

...And then on November 13th 2020, only a week ago, you retweeted something from A$ on World Kindness Day (and added a blue heart...). 

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1327305594890403841

 

So you clearly had no intention of genuinely educating yourself. Don't try to claim otherwise, because it's there in your own words and images. 

As for promoting the notion of "be kind"? In your case it is clear, audacious hypocrisy, because "kind" is the LAST thing you have been to so many of my neurosiblings, so many disabled people and basically anyone who has called you out.

 

Using trans people as a shield

https://twitter.com/sia/status/1329736604819316737

Moving away from autism for a moment, you go on to use the trans cast members as nothing more than shields, defensive trophies to shout about how amazingly inclusive you're being, and to deflect and shield yourself from any criticism about inclusion. There is no good reason whatsoever to bring them into it unless the trans actors are also autistic/neurodivergent. You've reduced them to a box on the Inclusion Bingo card, to make yourself look super-inclusive. You want a pat on the back from putting them as doctors, nurses and singers instead of prostitutes and drug addicts. No, you don't get a medal for showing a basic level of decency towards marginalised groups of people. This is about you trying to save face.

https://twitter.com/NotLasers/status/1329824873489854464

 Oh, and to add insult to injury, you did this on Trans Day of Remembrance.

 

Intentions v. impact

https://twitter.com/Sia/status/1327305594890403841

You say your intentions are "awesome" and that your "heart has always been in the right place". I don't give a f*ck what your "intentions" are. Are you at all familiar with the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? Because that's certainly applicable here. Impact is greater than intent. Always. You're using the "but my intentions..." line to discredit, deflect and silence criticism, to basically victim-blame us for having the audacity to be upset about your non-autistic representation of an autistic person.

 

Sources and engagement

Following on from the above tweet, it is clear that you prioritise and focus, as so many "real life" autism narratives do, on those around the autistic person, rather than the autistic person themselves. You admit that in the above tweet, wehere you say that this film is "a love letter to caregivers and to the autism community". Not the autistic community. That sums up in a nutshell who you have written this for. Not us. You're yet another non-autistic taking our story for yourself. Profiting off our neurology.

Are you aware that there is a difference between the "autism community" and the "autistic community"? If not, how and why not, given your supposed 3 years of research? It's one of the most basic distinctions out there, and if you'd engaged directly with the autistic community (and I don't just mean one or two, I mean with the global autistic community, with many people), you would know that. Your choice of the former rather than the latter is incredibly revealing and rather suggests that your primary source came from the former rather than the latter - and non-autistic members of the autism community are the ones who invariably get far more attention and who also frequently get it wrong.

I'd love to know the specific sources of your "research". According to various news articles, your star Ziegler "watched YouTube videos by parents who recorded their child's episodes". I've been an active part of the autism world for long enough to know that "episode" is code for "meltdown". Many of my autistic friends and acquaintances are saying this, it's not just me. That's a whole other discussion for which there isn't space here, and plenty of other autistics have written about why that sort of thing (parents filming their autistic child's meltdowns and then putting them online for the world to see, without the child's consent) is Completely Not Okay. Did she not talk to adult autistics?

https://twitter.com/fodderfigure/status/1329519783910445064 

Your place in the autism narrative

The short version: it is not your place to tell our story. I appreciate that you acknowledge that our community is "underrepresented" (one of the very few things you've got right, and it was nice to see that the autistic character was female, which is still a rarity even within autism representation - although there's also a distinct lack of trans and non-binary autistics, and AAC-using autistics); however, if you truly want to increase that representation, you should use your position to promote the many actual autistic writers, actors, directors, producers, etc out there who would benefit far more from the publicity and support. Hire autistic scriptwriters. Hire autistic actors. Hire other autistic staff. And accommodate them. Then you'll get a far more authentic representation of us. Fund our projects, use your huge platform to shout about our work, give us opportunities to shine. Increase our representation that way. Not with this. Not by speaking over us. Not by projecting your personal, second-hand, non-lived-experience, non-autistic-coloured outsider view of us. Amplify us.

https://twitter.com/dacy_alex/status/1329919378834546690

Response to criticism

Then there's the way you've responded to criticism. I get it, nobody likes being criticised, being told they've got it wrong, that they've caused hurt, damage and offence. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it's upsetting. I've been there, done that. I doubt there's a single human on the planet who hasn't. But how you deal with it is revealing, and your aggressive, profanity-filled attacks on anyone (primarily autistics) who points out a problem is a stark contrast to Anne Hathaway when people with limb differences (I gather that's the preferred term) expressed their hurt and concern about some of the editing decisions taken to remove fingers and toes in the recent fim version of The Witches. She didn't try to defend the move, didn't try to argue with or invalidate the perspectives, feelings, etc of people with limb differences, didn't try to fall back on the "but my intentions..." line; she acknowledged that although her intention was not to cause harm, she realised she had in fact caused harm, and so she apologised wholeheartedly, acknowledged the harm she had inadvertently caused and promised to do better, without using the "but my intentions were good so that makes it OK and invalidates your hurt and criticism" line that you, Sia, have used. On top of that, she encouraged people to educate themselves on the #NotAWitch hashtag. 

You can read the article about Hathaway's response here: Anne Hathaway apologised and promised to "do better"

THAT is how you respond. You put your ego aside, you acknowledge and recognise the hurt you've called (and you identify it), you admit and accept that you got it wrong, you apologise (without quantifiers like "if" or "but") unreservedly, you do better in the future (and actually do better, not merely say you're going to and then carry on as though nothing happened) and you encourage people to be more educated.

You seem completely unable to recognise the harm you have caused (or if you do, refuse to publicly acknowledge it). Is your ego and self-image so over-inflated that you see yourself infallible and so unflawed that you are incapable of error?

You say in your interview with Variety that you "want people to show compassion"...yet you afford precious little (or, more accurately, none whatsoever) of it to the people you have hurt, instead viciously attacking them.

Blackface 

Metro: Sia denies using blackface

I'm sure you and your defenders will be quick to highlight that this took place in 2011 and point out that your "reason" for doing so was to "blend in to the background. But it doesn't changed that it happened and I'm sure you could have found an alternative if you'd bothered to try. Denial and deflection are inappropriate. Any explanation should have been in the context of an unreserved apology: "I admit that I did this. While my intentions were to blend into the background and not to harm the Black community, it was thoughtless of me and I did not consider the impact and consequences of my actions. I recognise now that they were harmful and that I should have done [insert alternative] instead." Followed by a full apology an genuine determination to do better. I refer you back to Anne Hathaway, above.

There are no ladders or ropes anywhere near long enough to get you out of this hole you have dug yourself. You have revealed yourself to have a nasty, vindictive streak, demonstrated a complete inability to accept criticism, take responsibility for hurt you have caused

What part of #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs have you completely failed to grasp? All of it.

Please, do everyone a favour and stop. Just STOP. Apologise. Properly, wholeheartedly, unreservedly apologise. Pull the film. Vow to do better and then actually do better - none of this lip-service-only in a face-saving attempt to placate us. Be more like Anne Hathaway.

*edited 25/11/2020 to include posts and articles published/that came to my attention after I originally posted this, as I want to include the voices of as many of my fellow autistics as possible.

A selection of posts from other autistics:

Actually Autistic Katie

A Gay Articulate Autistic

AUsome Training

Autish

Autistic, Typing 

Charlotte Colombo

Communication First 

Echolaliachamber

Emma Dalmayne

Fierce Autie

Hazelwood Consulting

Hayden Neely

I Am Autistic

I Am Cadence - Growing Up Unique

In The Loop About Neurodiversity (blog post)

In The Loop About Neurodiversity (Facebook post)

Mickey Rowe 

Naia B

Paige Layle

Parenting Through The Fog

Queerly Autistic

Sara Gibbs 

Stim for the Planet

Tania Melnyczuk

Yessica

Other articles and posts:

Carrie Grant 

Crutches & Spice

Digital Spy

Entertainment Weekly 

IndieWire

JustJared (also contains the trailer embedded in the article)  

NowThis News 

Wheelchair Rapunzel 

The Daily Beast 

The Metro

 

Appendix:

The screenshots from the YouTube video come from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=-j2QZyKdx_g. It can also be found on the official Variety YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIVppt0YPio

Resource: key articles on identity-first language

I've been meaning to write this for a while. Following a conversation just now (in a cat group on Facebook, of all places!) I thought it was about time I pulled together a comprehensive list of articles by autistic people about why identity-first language is overwhelmingly favoured by us (and person-first overwhelmingly - and often vehemently - rejected).

DO NOT try to minimise or trivialise this subject. DO NOT say, "There are more important things to discuss", or "This isn't important in the grand scheme of things", or anything like that. It may not matter much to you which language is used, but for many autistic people, it really does matter because of how language works and because of the impact of language. At some point I'll be writing something about the linguistic effect and significance of PFL and IFL (and differences between the two), but that hasn't come into even planning existence yet, so keep an eye out. When I do, I will update this list.

I am aiming to make this as thorough as possible, so it is quite likely that as I come across more articles, research, etc on this subject, I will be updating this list. If there are any you readers know of that I have not included, please do let me know and send them my way!

Note: if the article is from The Mighty, don't link it directly and instead try to find it on an alternative website; if you have to, use DoNotLink. The Mighty partners with Autism $peaks.

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Definitions

Person-first language (PFL): puts the person before the condition, separates the two.

Examples: "has autism", "a person with autism", a person living with autism" (I wrote a scathing comment on THAT one on this blog's Facebook page a few weeks ago, which you can read here: https://www.facebook.com/autisticonwheels/posts/2360697670691438), "a person experiencing autism"), "someone touched by autism". I have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.

Identity-first language (IFL): incorporates the condition as an inextricable part of the person's identity.

Examples: "is autistic", "is Deaf".

*****

Articles and content on IFL

Listed alphabetically for ease. Mostly from autistic people, but also a few parents who listen to the autistic community and defer to our preferences.

Amy Sequenzia
Person First Language and Ableism
The Gymnastics of Person First Language

Autistinquisitor
Actually, I Do Let Autism Define Me: Identity-First Language

Autistic and Cheerful
Autism terminology: Identity or person first language
Actually, autism DOES define me

Autistic Zebra
No, I Will Not Call You a "Person with Autism"
Identity First Language 

Beth Wilson
Identity First Language

Cassie Crosman
Why the autistic community prefers identity first language

Chloe Farahar
A rose by any other name would smell…of stigma (or, the psychologically important difference between being a “person with autism” or an Autistic person)

Dawn-Joy Leong
Identity First

Diary of a Mom (*NT parent of an autistic child)
Person First: An Evolution in Thinking (at TPGA)
I do not have neurotypicalism: where person-first language fails
Neurology as identity, not accessory

Emily Ladau
Why Person-First Language doesn't always put the person first

Erin Bulluss and Abby Sesterka
Talking About Autism

Gordon Darroch (Autistic Dad)
On Language

Identity-First Autistic
A Brief History of Identity-First Language

Illusion of Competence
Disability first: autism is not an accessory

Jean Winegardner
'Autistic' or 'Person With Autism'? (at TPGA)

Jeff Gitchel (Turtlemoon)
Autism First (Again)

Jim Sinclair
Why I dislike "person first" language

Julia Bascom
Dear "Autism Parents"

Kassiane A (Radical Neurodivergence Speaking)
I don't have autism. I am autistic.
Remember autistic & person aren't mutually exclusive! Language, again.
Classic Neurodivergence: The Cancer Comparison. AGAIN.

Katherine Last (Autistic on Wheels; me)
30 Days of Autism Acceptance: day 15

Kaylene George (Autistic Mama)
3 Simple Reasons to Use Identity Language For Autistics
Yes I Will Say That My Son is Autistic, and Other Unpopular Autism Opinions

Kieran Rose (The Autistic Advocate)
An Autistic Identity (*VERY long; for specifics, scroll down to the heading titled "How we talk is how we think" in particular)

Lorcan Kenny, Caroline Hattersley et al (*researchers; neurology unknown)
Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community (*abstract/summary only unless you have institutional or paid access)

Lydia XZ Brown (Autistic Hoya)
The Significance of Semantics: Person-First Language: Why It Matters
Identity and Hypocrisy: A Second Argument Against Person-First Language
"People First - Create an Environment of Respect"
My Dog Isn't Named Autism 

Maxfield Sparrow (Unstrange Mind)
Labels are Valuable Tools

Michelle Swan (Hello Michelle Swan)
The language of identity, or "I am not an autism parent"
Why do you say "autistic" instead of "person with autism"?
Autism does define me

Monique Botha, Jacqueline Hanlon, Gemma Louise Williams
Does Language Matter? Identity-First Versus Person-First Language Use in Autism Research: A Response to Vivanti

Morton Ann Gernsbacher
The use of person-first language in scholarly writing may accentuate stigma

Musings of an Aspie
The Logical Fallacy of Person First Language

Nathan McConnell
https://www.facebook.com/growingupautie/posts/324455222418940

Patrick Dwyer (Autistic Scholar)
Identity-First Language

Phillip Ferrigon
Person-First Language vs. Identity-First Language: An examination of the gains and drawbacks of Disability Language in society

Pia Bradshaw et al
Autistic or with autism: Why the way general practitioners view and talk about autism matters

Reaca Pearl (*NT parent and wife of autistics)
5 Reasons Why I Use Identity-First Language For My Autistic Daughter

Robin Eames
Identity first language: a note on language 

Ryan Boren
Identity First

Speaking of Autism
How Person-First Language can be Dehumanizing 

Wibbly Wobbly, Neuro-UNlogical Stuff
Person First vs. Identity First Language

Yenn Purkis
"It's my 'me'!" Identity, language and autism
Why I say "I am Autistic"

Yo Samdy Sam
Person with autism or autistic person?  My problem with “person-first language” for autism

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Images

Identity First Autistic

Jonathan Raiseborough

*****

Articles on IFL not specific to autism:

American Psychological Association
APA Style and Grammar Guidelines: Disability

Brittany Wong
It's Perfectly OK To Call A Disabled Person 'Disabled', And Here's Why

Cara Liebowitz
I Am Disabled: On Identity-First Versus People-First Language

CL Lynch
Confused about person-first language?

People With Disability Australia
Identity-first Vs Person-first Language 

On-stage dehumanisation of autistic people: All In A Row and #puppetgate

"[I]t seems that the company was advised by the National Autistic Society against aspects of the production and decided to go ahead with them anyway."

"In a discussion with the BBC, Alex Oates responded to this criticism by saying 'people are making the point that we’re dehumanizing him…and, you know, in a way we are. But that wasn’t the primary reason we chose the puppet.'"

You can read Shaun May's (excellent) full review here: https://shaunmay.co.uk/allinarow/

I am not in a position to attend the play to write my own review of it; however, this man, a senior lecturer in drama and theatre, has, and this is his thorough review of it. I'm not sure if he's autistic or not (although some of the things he says in the review suggests that he is).

I am utterly appalled and disgusted at Oates' attitude, as are many, many other autistics. He ignores advice and guidance from the NAS (they are not without problems themselves, but in this case they absolutely got it right) and has the audacity to openly admit to dehumanising us. At least he admits to this callous action, which means it is undeniable and thus he cannot attempt to backtrack and claim he didn't. But the fact that he says it "wasn't the primary reason" implies that it was a reason, which suggests that, consciously or subconsciously, Oates does not see autistic people as human. And that is horrific.

The play's Facebook page has been deleting any and every comment expressing any objections to the puppet use, which makes it abundantly clear that our voices are explicitly unwelcome and that All In A Row has no interest in representing us fairly or accurately.

Yet again autistic perspectives are silenced.

In some articles they have claimed that the reason they opted to use a puppet rather than an actor is a combination of child-labour laws here in Britain and that the subject material would be too difficult for a child actor to handle, the emotional impact too difficult. That seems like a cop-out, an excuse, an attempt to pacify the autistic community, because if that was really the primary concern, there is a simple way around it - use a young adult actor fresh out of drama school. It would be far from the first play to do so: I present to you Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In that, we initially meet the two protagonists (Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy) at the age of 11, with the main action occurring at the start of their fourth year, when they are 14. They use adult actors for these roles, and because they have fantastic actors in the roles, it works brilliantly and there is no issue with suspension of disbelief (I've seen it twice, with two different casts, and never once did I find myself thinking, "They're too old", same for everyone else I know who has seen it). I even said so on a post on the Southwark Playhouse post where they try to fob us off claiming "child protection", and on AIAR's page underneath the Southwark Playhouse post; I took screenshots because All in a Row has been very vigilant about deleting each and every comment criticising their decisions and dehumanisation of us.

So All in a Row has NO EXCUSE.

[For those using screenreaders, my comment is: "If you're so concerned about issues of child protection, there's a simple solution: use a young adult actor fresh out of drama school. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child manages this fantastically well, as have other plays, so why not go down this route instead of using a creepy puppet that reinforces the dehumanisation of us autistic folk that is still so pervasive in society?

And then there's this highly problematic cover/publicity image they use:

3 yellow French Fancy cakes neatly lined up, with one blue one (for the record, French Fancies do NOT come in blue; they come in yellow (lemon), brown (chocolate) and pink (plain)) upended and out of line in front of the yellow cakes. This blue one (Autism $peaks blue, no less!) is clearly meant to represent Laurence, the autistic child character, which sends up all kinds of red flags because of the connotations blue carries when it comes to autism (ie. Autism $peaks).

Symbols are hugely important in theatre (and fiction generally), so this cannot be an accident - so if they are using blue to represent autism, either they are unaware of this link (which shows a worrying lack of research) or they do not care that the autistic community on the whole rejects blue being used to represent autism. Given their actions mentioned above regarding dismissing the NAS's recommendations and the persistent deleting of all comments expressing objections, I'm inclined to go with the latter.

Using a puppet is another symbol: in this case a symbol of dehumanisation and absence of agency. The puppet in use is, quite frankly, creepy as hell. The face is grey (and grey is often associated with blandness, dullness, apathy and other such things - hardly anything to elicit positive feelings about it) and the expression does not change, suggesting passivity, and absence of emotions, thoughts and feelings (all accusations thrown at us in the past). It feeds into the false "blank slate" concept that Lovaas (the founder of ABA) so loved to espouse, reinforcing this concept that we are not people inthe same way that NTs are. Even more so because slate is grey. Additionally, the puppet has to be operated by another person, reinforcing the notion that autistic people do not have agency, that they need to have their every move prompted by another (implicit: NT) person. Finally, it perpetuates the false idea that autism is a shell, an idea so often used by those pushing the tragedy narrative (ie. that there is a "normal" NT child "trapped" inside the "shell" of autism). In short, it creates the idea that autistic people are not fully human, do not have agency, thoughts or emotions, and are just a shell operated by another.

This is a play that could have had great potential, that could have done so much good. But instead, like so many works of fiction written by NTs that feature autistic characters, it perpetuates the tragedy narrative of autism and literally completely dehumanises us. And on top of that, it was highly inaccessible to autistic people, which makes this even worse than it already was.

It is clear that Alex Oates (and by extension director Dominic Shaw and Southwark Playhouse) have no interest whatsoever in listening to autistic people or accurately representing us. Their persistent disregard of autistic voices has become wilful ignorance and active silencing.


#puppetgate

My academic background: BA(Hons) English Literature (2:1), MA Creative Writing (Merit) from Exeter.

Beware a harmful image (dissection included)

This post on a Facebook page for a local (not to me; further up-country) "Special Educational Needs" organisation popped up in my newsfeed this morning, in an autistics-and-allies Fb group I'm in. I don't know who originally created it because one of my friends encountered it today on Pinterest as well.

So consider this an open letter to the person who originally created this horrific, self-martyring, pity-party drivel. This is cruel, gaslighting, fearmongering, emotionally-abusive hate. If you are the creator, I hope you read what I and so many other autistic people are saying about it, and understand how harmful it is, and do better in future.

EVERYTHING about this is WRONG and here's why. The numbers below correspond to the numbers on the image above. As of about 5pm it's been removed from the page on which I saw it and a subsequent apology issued, with an assurance that it will not happen again. I certainly hope so! The autistic community will be watching closely.

I don't know what the original creator's intent or point was, but if it was to highlight any kind of systematic problem with support and service provision, it has utterly failed. This image is all about the appalling self-martyrdom I see among so many parents of autistic children, who make their child's struggles about how hard it is for them as parents, completely overlooking and ignoring how hard things are for the child. It exploits our struggles for the parent's desire for attention and ego-stroking. That is something that Needs. To. STOP.

It was good to see so many people (autistics and allies) pointing out how cruel, abusive and harmful the post was.

1. The self-centred "Autism Parent" title that seems to be becoming more and more widespread. No. STOP IT. You don't parent autism, you parent an autistic child. You don't get to appropriate OUR neurology for YOUR identity, especially when you scream at us for using identity-first language for ourselves, when you use IFL for yourselves but deny us the right to do the same. That's something I'll be talking about in a future post because it warrants an entire article to itself.
2. The accusatory tone that suggests it is our fault that the parent has to fight, that it is somehow our fault or choice that we need additional supports, rather than the fault of a fearful, ill-informed tragedy-and-burden-narrative-pushing society (of which certain organisations play a highly influential role in perpetuating) and a broken, resource-limited system that doesn't understand our needs or want to help us, along with an implicit, "You'd better be damn sure you repeatedly express your undying gratitude".
3. The parent being blamed for the child being autistic - yes, it is horrible and unacceptable that that happens (and it does, frequently - it's a guilt-trip that the antivaxxers and the woo- and pseudoscience-pushing false-cure peddlers love to use, and a mentality that was commonplace in the past among clinicians, such as the false theory of the "refrigerator mother"), but the structure of this and the lack of clarification sends the message that it is our fault that the parent was blamed for it; this expression of frustration needs to be directed elsewhere, to those who told the parent that it was their fault. The current layout of the page clearly shows it being directed towards the autistic (expanded on below), which needs to be changed.
4. Blaming the parent for autistic behaviours and being perceived as a bad parent, much the same as point 3, needs to be directed to a more appropriate figure, such as an ill-informed society.
   
   
5. Learning how to fight lawyers in order for suitable education to be provided is also said in a very accusatory manner, as though it is the fault of the autistic person for having additional needs. Yes, it is incredibly tough on a parent to have to fight for their child's right to education and they should not have to; however, again it is the layout that is the problem here and the tone. This, like points 2, 3 and 4, need to be directed to appropriate targets  (those in positions of power who make the criteria, funding decisions, etc), not blaming the autistic person in the way that this image implies.
6. Declaring themselves as more knowledgeable about autism than any other NT is incredibly arrogant and disingenuousto those NTs who work with a wide range of autistic people and other parents, and this arrogance frequently comes across when Paaaaaarents (by which I mean a particular subset, among the Martyr brigade) when they try to silence autistic voices and their allies.
7. The 80%-divorce-rate statistic is utter bollocks and has been repeatedly debunked - and not even recently! This is a bogus figure put out by Autism $peaks (I know, I know, no surprises there) purely for fearmongering purposes: Relationship status among parents of children with autism spectrum disorders: a population-based study and Autism Families: High Divorce Rate is a Myth
8. Losing friends because of "caring duties" is called BEING A PARENT, regardless of the child's neurology, and to be quite frank, if the friends can't understand this and aren't willing to accept your child's needs, or understand autism, they're probably not people you want in your life anyway. And again, the layout of this image directs the blame towards the autistic person. You DO NOT get to blame us for the behaviour of other adults. Our neurology is not the cause of other adults' douchebaggery and lack of consideration.
9. The loss of a job because of "caring duties" - again, a lot of this is called BEING A PARENT and many parents find themselves leaving a job because of childcare commitments/the cost of childcare. This is not unique to parents of autistic children. You aren't a superhero just for doing what you signed up to do when you decided to have a child. And the use of the word "duties" makes it out to be a chore and leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Further, if society ensured the right support, the loss of a job would not be as big a problem as it currently is - again, not the fault of the autistic person.
10. Mental-illness rates being higher among parents of autistic children may be true, but yet again this is presented as being the autistic person's fault. This needs to be directed towards those limiting support services and those perpetuating the burden/tragedy narrative of autism that spreads the fear that is so prevalent around our neurology. One of the biggest problems facing the autistic community is the dominant narrative that autism is some sort of death sentence to everyone's lives, that we are a burden, a drain on resources and society, that an autism diagnosis is life-destroying. It is NOT OUR FAULT that the institutional structures, financial decision-makers and society at large are failing parents. You DO NOT get to blame us for that. Blame groups like Autism $peaks and others who talk about us as some kind of disaster. When society creates that much fear around it, it's going to have a knock-on effect on those dealing with it. Tear down the barriers, the misinformation, the fearmongering, the systematic anti-autistic narrative, and things will be infinitely better.
11. Declaring that parents sacrifice so much is an incredibly heavy (and wholly unfair) burden to place on us, and is very much misplaced. I see this refrain constantly from the Martyr Parent ranks. What do you want, some kind of jewelled golden crown being brought to you by a host of angels, just for BEING A PARENT and doing what all good parents do as par for the course??? Every parent, regardless of their child's neurology, makes some sort of sacrifice; your child being autistic doesn't make you any different or more special than those with NT children. And before you say, "But autistic children are harder to parent and require more work!", STOP. Think about the impact of that, the message it sends. Also, it's not true. My mother will happily tell you that I was far easier to parent than many of the NT kids she taught (or attempted to teach) over the years. I have seen quite a few parents who have kids with both neurologies say that their autistic child is actually far easier and less work than their NT child.
    
    Additionally, they don't "know more about autism...than you can possibly imagine". I'm pretty sure those of us who ARE AUTISTIC, who LIVE autism with every sub-atomic particle of our being, know at least as much as these parents, and certainly more about the direct experience, because however much of an expert in autism an NT might be, it is all from an external, detached position. They do not know it in the same way that we do. I'm pretty sure that we know at least as much as you.
12. Claiming that nobody helps is an oft-uttered refrain from the Martyr Parent brigade even when there is help. Generally what they mean, when you dig a bit deeper and unearth the real meaning, is, "Nobody can make my child NT". Yes, some do struggle and in a lot of places there are limits on supports and services, and some people don't really get any support, but this is far too much of an over-generalisation, and I have seen many Paaaaaaaaaarents dismiss the offers of help when it's not the kind they want (even when it's better, such as recommending OT in place of the abuse that is ABA). If I had a pound for every time a Martyr Parent dismissed autistic input and then persisted in claiming nobody will help, even when the autistic people have been doing so, or when family members and friends have offered to help but not in the way the Paaaaaarent demands, I really wouldn't be worrying about how I'd be able to pay my bills each month.
13. The young man is clearly meant to be a caricature of us autistic adults who call out the Martyr Parents, presenting us as ungrateful brats who don't understand or appreciate how difficult we are on them and who are directing our frustrations in the wrong directions. It is an active attempt to silence those autistics who are trying to look out for the current generation of autistic children, to make things better for them and to stop them being put through the things we were forced to endure. It is an attempt to guilt-trip and manipulate us into staying quiet because then the parents don't have to confront the fact that they may possibly have been getting it wrong.

The layout, with the parent character facing towards the autistic-adult character, with no other character, sends a very clear visual message that the parent is directing their accusations at the autistic, which is completely inappropriate. There are no other figures in the image to which these statements could and should be directed, and so, consciously or unconsciously, that is the message being sent. That it is all the fault of the autistic person for being autistic, that we are a burden and too difficult, and ruin parents' lives. No. You don't get to do that to us. You don't get to gaslight us.

Layout and design matter. They communicate with the viewer.

This image is abusive, gaslighting, cruel, harmful and dangerous. It perpetuates the othering narrative of autistic people as a burden, people to be feared, hated and cast out, and as ungrateful brats who don't know what's good for us.

It is victim-blaming and that is NOT OK. It is NOT ACCEPTABLE to blame an autistic person for the difficulties they face and it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to make the autistic person out as the villain when the fault lies with a lack of support and service provision, with those restricting finances to fund those resources. You need to place the responsibility of shortfall with them.

You know who the parent character here reminds me of? Vernon and Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter books. At some point I will likely edit this post with some direct quotes but not right now. I know that I am very lucky to have not had parents blame me for simply being autistic and for being a burden on them or making their life oh-so-hard, or tell me how grateful I should be because of everything they've ever done for me and I should be on my knees in overwhelming thanks just for being given the basic necessities of life, but I have encountered a disturbing number of autistics for whom this is their experience. It's horrific, and has left them with serious long-term mental-health problems. THAT is why things like this are so dangerous and cause so much harm. THAT is why autistics continue to speak out against things like this.

There are far, FAR better ways to talk about us and the struggles that can ensue from systemic shortfalls and damaging societal narratives than this self-serving, guilt-tripping drivel.

Finally, regarding the statistics given for the friend/job loss and mental-illness comments (we've already established that the divorce figure is utter rubbish), from where are these figures sourced? If you're including specific numbers, you need to give the source. Anyone can write a number and claim it's a statistic, but it's meaningless if they're just made up, and actively dangerous if they're being used to perpetuate fear and harm. What are you going to do with those figures, creator of this post? Stick them on the side of a big red bus and drive it around the country claiming it as fact?

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Day 15

#30DaysofAutismAcceptance

Day 15:

Talk about identity.  How do you identify?  Autistic?  Asperger’s?  Person with Autism?  What’s your take on person/identity first language?

I'm going to do a more in-depth post on this in future, because I would like to do one that's thoroughly researched, includes references to various articles on the matter and is more comprehensive, with detailed explanations; this post is more a summary, hence the bullet points.

I identify as autistic and as an Aspie* (if people don't know what "Aspie" means, I explain that it's someone who has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, which is part of the autistic spectrum - I was diagnosed in 2012, before Asperger's was removed as a separate diagnosis and absorbed into the umbrella term of "autistic spectrum condition"). Like the vast majority of my autistic brethren, I reject person-first language ("has autism"/"person with autism") and use identity-first language, aka IFL ("is autistic"). If an individual wants to use person-first language (PFL) to describe themselves then I respect that and will use PFL when referring to them, but as you may have noticed on this blog, IFL is the default. I did a lot of reading on the subject before reaching my conclusions, I've read the arguments on both sides, and that is why I am firmly in the IFL camp, rejecting PFL.

*Edit June 2018: I don't use "Aspie" any more, just "autistic". There will be a future post on this.

So why choose IFL and reject PFL?

• Autism affects every aspect of my being, everything about how I experience the world; autism is intrinsic to who I am, how I think; YOU CANNOT SEPARATE ME AND AUTISM and PFL seeks to do precisely that. I don't say I am a "person with femaleness" or a "person with whiteness", like it's an optional add-on.
• If I was not autistic, I would be a completely different person. I'd probably retain a degree of bluntness because I'm Northern (here in the UK, Northerners tend to be much more blunt and direct than Southerners, I might enjoy some of the things I do, but possibly not to the degree I do or with the intensity that I do. People talk about autistic "obsessions" and "special interests"; if it was a neurotypical person they'd simply be referred to as an "expert", so why can't we be referred to that way with regards to our "obsessions"/"special interests"? And for some autistics, that autistic desire to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING about something really does lead us to become top experts in our area of interest. My knowledge of autism has led me to come up with a number of ideas for books that I'm working on (fiction and non-fiction), and without that autistic desire to know absolutely everything I might not have those ideas and wouldn't be going in the direction I am.
• I shouldn't have to remind people that I'm a person; that should be obvious. PFL feels patronising to me because it comes across as "Now don't forget, this is a human being just like me, you must remember that they are human, in case you'd forgotten". By using PFL it comes across as dehumanising, which is perpetuated by old ideas that we're monsters, not fully human, broken, defective; by using IFL, it's much more affirming, a much more positive, intrinsic aspect of ourselves.
• I am aware that "autistic" has in the past been used as a derogatory slur, and that seems to be making a comeback at the moment, which makes me so angry; we are claiming it for ourselves and speaking out to show that we are not monsters, we are equal members of society, and we won't let those people win,
• PFL makes autism sound like a disease (for example, I have fibromyalgia, I have friends with MS), which it isn't - it's a different neurology. 
• Exclusive use of PFL is almost inescapable in the "cure autism" world, partly because of the mentality of autism being a disease (which is separate from the body and is an invader, an attacker, a destroyer) and partly because of their desire to separate (and ultimately remove) autism from the person. Even though you can't.
• PFL and the curebies (people who want to cure autism) will forever be associated, due to history, with the antivax attitudes and agenda, because it ties in with the autism-as-disease ideas.
• Continuing on from the above, because we tend to use PFL when talking about disease, we have been conditioned to see the use of PFL as inherently negative because the thing the person "has" or is "with" is generally a disease and thus out to cause harm to the person, so when using it regarding autism, it sends powerful signals that autism is Purely A Bad Thing.
• A lot of autism organisations that speak about us without us use exclusively PFL; by using IFL we are distancing ourselves from those organisations and positioning ourselves with organisations that are autistic-led, that include autistics, that have our best interests at heart, that target acceptance.
• For me, using IFL asserts myself and my actually-autistic voice, separating me from Autism Parents/Autism Warrior Parents and other ableist and/or curebie "allies", because they pretty much exclusively use PFL. They also force it on us, act as though they know best, don't listen to our voices when we disagree with them and explain why we disagree, shut us down, silence us, scream at us that we don't know what we're talking about and that we don't understand (I've often seen them add that this is because our brains are broken, defective, etc), they kick us off pages for daring to question how they present autism and using IFL (I have actually been kicked off an Autism $peaks page primarily for use of IFL - they told me what I "should" be using and when I informed them that the vast majority of us favour IFL, I first got screamed at and then got kicked off). By using IFL, I am positioning and connecting myself with my fellow autistics, asserting my Autistic identity and being part of the world that accepts autism and neurodiversity, and seeks to accommodate and include us rather than hate us and desire our eradication.
• And finally, if those reasons weren't enough, PFL is just so clunky! It's a real mouthful, compared to IFL!

And this is why language use really matters; it's not just semantic pedantry.

When I write the comprehensive post on language use, there may be other reasons that I come across,but I think this is enough for now.

I am Autistic.

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Day 8

 #30DaysofAutismAcceptance

This isn't my best of posts - I'm quite tired so if I don't make much sense please bear with me. I'm also not entirely sure I've understood the questions/prompts correctly.

Day 8:     

Talk about traditional media.  Have you been influenced by autism themes in the media? Have you had to correct misinformation about autistic people that others got from the media?

Autism in the media... This is a fun one...

The short answer is: It's slowly getting better, but there's still a long way to go.

I've noticed that sterotypical portrayals of autism are still very much the norm. Fictional characters are still fairly flat and adhering to narrower, older ideas. Think Sheldon Cooper in Big Bang Theory. No, they've never specifically said he's Aspie, and maybe he wasn't originally written that way, but he clearly is, and he's by far the most well-known possibly-Aspie/-autistic fictional character. He's so well-known that a teacher in the UK was recently told to watch BBT for Asperger's training:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39128918

That's not acceptable. It's nowhere near even vaguely good enough. I'll do a post detailing training for educators on another occasion but it's relevant here so I've brought it up.

Yes, I see some of myself in him. Yes, I am perfectly aware that it's a sitcom so the traits are going to be exaggerated for comedic effect. But I don't like the character; he's a dick. And people take him as the norm - I've had conversations about this. I'm pretty sure Amy in BBT is also Aspie, and I see even more of myself in her than in Sheldon, and she's a much more 3D character, much more complex than he is. I used to enjoy BBT a lot more than I do now, I think partly because I've read a few articles about it by autistics who aren't taken by Sheldon at all, and also I think the programme itself has got tired and has gone on too long.

There are other characters on TV that aren't explicitly Aspie, but clearly are, that I find much more appealing. Once April is over I'll do a detailed post discussing specific characters that I've come across, and another one specifically about Mozart and the Whale, which is a film I came across a few years ago for uni work and is absolutely, utterly fantastic (romance between two Aspies). I'm sure there are quite a few possibly-autistic characters on TV that I've not come across, so if I've not mentioned them in this post, please tell me about it and I'll look into it because I'm genuinely interested and curious! The characters I'm thinking of are actually both female: Temperance Brennan (Bones) and Abby Sciuto (NCIS).

I'm sure at some point I'll talk in detail about the current big one: Julia and Sesame Street. That's got a lot of media attention at the moment and I ventured into the articles on Facebook. Naturally, the Autism Warrior Parents and anti-vaxxers were out in full force; I didn't engage with them, partly because other people had, partly because I didn't have the energy or time and partly because it's pretty much impossible to reason with them. I still got yelled at for using identity-first language (IFL), still got AWPs trying to silence an actual autistic voice. I left comments on various publications' pages when they exclusively used person-first language (PFL), explaining that actually, we generally prefer IFL so if they could respect that and at the very least use both PFL and IFL, we'd feel that our voices were being heard. One AW Mom instantly jumped on me and started with "Don't agree at all" and then went on to say "I'm not saying you're wrong" - to which I calmly and politely pointed out that her first four words meant that she was saying I was wrong. An AW Dad went off on one about how "only high-functioning" people  care about that, so I pointed him in the direction of Amy Sequenzia. I haven't had responses. One woman's comment on one article made me laugh because it was so ridicuous - she took it as a personal affront that the character was called Julia, which is the same name as her "daughter with autism" and it was basically a how-dare-they rant. I was tempted to say something but a number of other people had called her out on her ridiculousness by saying that they had to give the character a name so unless they made up a completely new name, there was bound to be someone who was autistic and shared a name with the character.

We're working to improve understanding of autism in the wider world and with the Internet, that's really enabled us to be more vocal - something which I am clearly taking advantage of with this blog!

But the vast majority of material out there still portrays us in a negative way: burdens, not quite human, a drain, a tragedy, we make other people's lives so much harder. Or as a source of inspiration porn (something I'll explore at a later date, something which really drives me up the figurative wall). There's so much focus on finding a "cure" (not discussing that today as that's Day 10's topic), about identifying the genes etc so that they can be eliminated (ie. eugenics). Mainstream sources do not want to discuss the positives - or, I suspect, in some cases at least, are even aware that a lot of us don't want a cure, that there are positives to autism, that we're not broken, that we're not tragedies, etc. They base things on the old, tired stereotypes, almost exclusively male and white, high-support people.

I've corrected people, both in person and online, when they've said/written inaccurate things about autism. Inaccuracy makes me so annoyed! I try to correct kindly and people I know generally take it pretty well - they know I'm autistic and informed so they tend to trust my judgement. I've found some strangers open and receptive, too; the problem comes with the AWPs, who generally don't want to listen and just want to silence autistic voices. And there's really no point trying to engage with the fanatical anti-vaxxers or conspiracy-theorists, because they dismiss things that conflict with their view by crying "Big Pharma", etc.

I'm aware that I'm rambling and I can't think so well today, so I'm just going to call it here for the day. There will be better and more coherent posts on these sorts of subjects in future.