autisticlife

Today I’m in a celebratory mood. On one hand, it’s Pride weekend in Berlin, and I’m on my way to the Internationalist Queer Pride march, a valued alternative to the commercialized and pinkwashing-ridden CSD. On the other, all 6 episodes of the first season of my #ActuallyAutistic podcast The Autistic Rant Hour are now online and available to binge.

Being a queer and disability activist doesn’t stop at making sure we have the right to change our names and change or delete our gender markers, to love whomever we choose or have the right to self-determination along with needed support and accessibility measures.
It also means standing up for the rights of people in intersecting struggles: migrant rights, asylum rights, worker rights, bodily autonomy, the right to live free of oppression, eugenics and apartheid, and the right to live at all, in times where folks are hunted down, locked up, denied life-saving medical care, ethnically cleansed and genocided, in more countries than anyone would have believed would still be the case in the 21st century.

My guest on the closing episode of Season 1, Tal’y Wozner (she/her), is the kind of person who understands that and who has always been part of this kind of struggle, resisting intersectionally and challenging preconceptions, both outside and inside queer spaces and discourse. This is why it was such a pleasure and a privilege to have her on the show, even though she isn’t autistic (how dare she!). Tune in to hear us discuss the different challenges of accessing places and services: I from the autistic perspective, and she from the mobility perspective. Together we not only explain the challenges, but also dig into their systemic reasons and reach some conclusions about the meaning of community and how disabled people can be there for each other to make going places more accessible than it, infuriatingly, is.

Get The Autistic Rant Hour wherever you get your podcasts, or see here for links to various platforms, RSS, online player and human-proofread transcripts: https://prepped.to/podcasts/autistic-rant-hour

#podcast #podcasting #disability #disabilityJustice #disabilityLife #autistic #autisticLife #CP

@autistics

@actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe I just did that autistic thing again, where I present facts to someone, FYI style, trying to offer some help and guidance - without realising that they did not ask me for help, nor were they ready to accept said facts.
Then to make it worse - I did another autistic thing again, where when they respond with anger, but sarcastically - I just think they are joking.
How am I supposed to know they're angry when they look like they're smiling? So, my response was to laugh, like you are supposed to when someone is joking (even if you don't get it) - but then I continue to emphasise the actual facts... as they are still the actual facts, and I felt were important to understand.
💥Then everything suddenly blows up, seemingly out of nowhere!... 💥 Emotion is flying everywhere ..and now I definitely recognise the angry face. 😠
Then I have to spend the next hour playing it all back, and going through the entire thing to work out if it was my fault, and where that fault exactly was.
I did conclude that there was no way for me to know that they would be triggered, and so I can't take responsibility for that. I also can't take responsibility (anymore) for not "reading the room" - in the same way someone in a wheelchair cannot take responsibility for not using the stairs - especially as I now make a point of telling people that I'm autistic.
However, I did try to force help on someone, not ready to receive it, and who didn't ask for it. Something I have done many times before. Just... out of caring really - but a mistake I don't seem to realise until after I've made it.
But, it isn't just that I was forcing something they are avoiding, but I also understand that with neurotypical thinking, trying to help someone who didn't ask for it, can come across as judgemental. As though you are putting yourself on a higher level, as a pretense, to look down upon them - making them feel inadequate.
For me, in my mind, it was just meant FYI, and a subject I know well enough in the details to feel confident enough in relaying that information.
Something that is often problematic for us Autists in many different situations. Where we present simple facts, but which are received with connotations, or with hidden meanings, that we just never meant....

#actuallyautistic #autistic #autisticlife