recently two friends of mine brought up autism in a conversation. one of them knows about my diagnosis and the other one is a nurse and regularly works with autistic children.
They brought up lots of things I disagree with and that kind of hurt me… They said things like “there are severely autistic people and there are others that are pretty chill” “being autistic is fashionable these days” “people use their autism as an excuse for bad behavior” “autistic people should keep their diagnosis for themselves because society is not really ready for that yet”
I tried to argue against it, but I wasn’t really good at that. I also didn’t feel comfortable to say I am autistic. I felt really devastated when I got back home. I texted one of my friends (the one who knows I am autistic) and said the whole conversation made me feel really bad.
Since she is gay I said that I am feeling the same way you would feel if two of your friends talked about homosexuality the way they talked about autism (“being gay is fashion these days” “people use their homosexuality as an excuse for bad behavior”, “gay people should stay in the closet because society is not ready for them”…) She got really angry at me, literally told me to go fuck myself and that I am victimizing myself…
I feel so hurt by this. invalidated. I don’t know… I just wanted to share :I
that’s not a friend, that’s an acquaintance that thinks you’re less than human. as A Gay™, that was an apt comparison, especially considering an autism diagnosis has been specifically used as another way to oppress and infantilize trans and gay people (especially AFAB people). absolute scumbag behavior. i’m really sorry you had to go through that. :(
When I hear about the experiences of trans people from when they were growing up, going through school, how they felt different, I relate so much as an autistic person.