Thinking about how I recently told a cis man that I thought they’re really pretty + they thanked me and said nobody had ever called them pretty before despite their partner being nearby
Last week I commented to a different cis man that it seems like he’s not used to being asked
what it is he’d like, asked him if he’s happy in the role he’s been set, or if there’s more he wants. He seemed stumped & needed time to work through it
Yes all men need to work to fight the patriarchy. That doesn’t negate the fact that men are also punished by it, even cis ones
Let autistic people use the comfort items we want to without assuming we are 'childish' or 'immature' or have a younger 'mental age'.
Self-soothing is a skill EVERY adult person needs to get a hold of to regulate their emotions.
Our comfort items might be things
& before someone starts I know this is not equivocal to material oppression but this tweet is not about oppression;
it’s about roles we are forced into, the perception of masculinity, + the lack of a softness or delicate-ness that is so denied it’s not thought to be offered
Unmasking is a white autistic’s game.
A different level of cultural safety needs to be present before I could ever endorse that for Black autistics - for those able to opt in to unmasking.
Adhd is laying in one very uncomfortable position for over an hour bcus u can’t bear the thought of spending 2 mins brushing ur teeth and taking ur clothes off haha pain
Hello white autistics,
“blackfishing for autistics” is a horribly problematic way to describe Sia’s film.
Particularly as
1. Black autistic people exist.
2. There is literal blackfishing / blackface going on.
3. We can just say “ableist caricature” w/o co-opting language.
So funny when undiagnosed autistics are like “I don’t have autism; I just have a series of intricate rules I follow that confuse those around me.”
Ok pal, whatever you need lmao
“You’re not a victim, you’re a survivor.”
Can be a very damaging rhetoric for abused people who 1) are not yet at the stage of their healing journey where they can claim they’ve survived it
+ 2) don’t want to shift the framework of enduring abuse to one of survival.
Gaslighting is a slow psychological manipulation tactic that makes you doubt your own experiences and account of events.
It's not a word to be used when someone disagrees with you.
My brother just rang me up. First time I’ve spoke to him in months but it’s my nephews birthday next week + he’s asked me to go which ofc I will
But haven’t had the “I’m trans” conversation with my siblings…
So this just happened 💀 -
I just think Little Britain did so much cultural damage to minorities that I simply can’t look past.
Growing up and seeing Matt Lucas in blackface + a sumo suit to play a sexually aggressive fat black woman? Having that be the most common instance of seeing someone MY ~colour~?
Me: yeah. & I’m non-binary.
Bro: yeh? What’s non-binary?
Me: I’m not a man or a woman
Bro: so you’re like a… GOD?
Me: yeah I’m a god 💀
Bro: oright ash, well I’ll see you next week then yeah?
Me: yeah, cya
So that’s one down, easier than I expected lmaoo
Ok but. The critiques of JK Rowling ain't landing.
It's not awful bcus she's being a TERF during Pride month OR that she's spouting shit while BLM movements are happening globally
IT'S BOTH.
Being Black and trans means double the enemies, double the risk of being murdered.
Me: it’s ok to be disabled and have to rearrange plans and take rest days when pain is too high
My brain: you’re so useless yr so useless la la la la la la la you can’t even clean the house (wow useless) la la la la la la la
Begging non-black people to realise how calling a Black person intimidating or scary or assuming they’re aggressive is just antiblackness
Whether it’s a microagression or expressed directly, it’s not devoid from racism
Wanna talk about disordered eating + the overlap of ADHD and autism but I also don’t have the attention span so, behold -
ADHD: forgot to eat
Autism: No, not That food.
ADHD: ok let’s avoid
Time: passes
ADHD: still have no eaten
Autism: perhaps it is now Too Late for food?
“If I can’t use Asperger’s because of its history of eugenics, and I don’t like the term autism, what can I use?”
Glad you asked!! There’s a really simple but appropriate term here, it’s called ‘annoying’!👌🏽
You can kiss a cat onto of its little head. You can smell the rain on the grass. You can eat a warm slice of bread. You can hold a friend for a longer hug than necessary bc you missed them. You can sing a song in the shower. So much pockets of freedom to experience in this life
An adult approaching any youth as though their suicidal ideation is a manipulation tactic and not a solid cry for help is morally bankrupt + utterly repellent
The fact that it’s the standard for GC parents with trans children makes me sick to my stomach.
I’ve often found a very common autistic trait to be - not an inability to make friends - but the difficulty in *maintaining* those friendships.
Or, similarly, knowing that you are still friends with a person with the gaps of communication etc.
“Men don’t like being called pretty” “I’ve never called a woman handsome”
You realise you’re the issue, right?
Pretty men and handsome women are EVERYWHERE
& I know you see it bc it’s the same reason you degender black women & the very same reason you target black studs.
Her name is Belly Mujinga.
She was working despite being vulnerable but I want to point out that no amount of arguing that she should have been home can compare to the fact that a man with Covid-19 fucking SPAT on her.
Low-key think any queer adult with DNI boundaries around ‘pro-shippers’ ought to do a detox consisting of education on queer history esp wrt the fight against censorship + purity culture,
How to word “there’s nothing wrong with this child, she’s just autistic and lives in an environment that doesn’t care to make any accommodations beyond diagnosis so is perpetually in distress” in a way that actually makes them genuinely change 🙃
“ew men are so disgusting” is not the feminist take you think it is.
Reeks of radfem rhetoric & it’s really frustratingly shite to see in ~liberal feminist spaces
more commonly associated with childhood - e.g. stuffed animals, teddies, blankets, even dummies/pacifiers - but that doesn't mean we're become younger every time we choose to self-soothe.
A lot of it is based in sensory comforts - fabrics, and textures, and repetitive movements.
Bro: you orite anyways?
Me: I’m recovering from my operation
Bro: yeh I saw on insta, what did you have?
Me (thinking about the topless pics on instagram): top surgery
Bro: like a breast reduction yeh?
Me: kinda. I have no breasts now
Bro: cos they’re too big wanit?
My wish for 2022 is that all those who suffer from anxiety find the courage to say - and keep saying:
1. I disagree
2. I don’t appreciate being spoken to like that.
3. I don’t feel comfortable right now.
- in whatever iterations you can manage.
Autistic people take a photo of a blade of grass with a macro setting on and spend the next week in awe thinking about how beautiful the natural world is lmaooo
That doesn't mean you should treat us like children, or worse, with scorn.
Using these items in adulthood is arguably a more healthy outlet for ND folk who could, in full adult conscience, choose to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol.
Not that that is automatically bad, but
The white autistic complex* posits unmasking as a measure of self-love and personal authenticity
in a way that’s entirely devoid of the anti-black reality of the relationship between institutionalisation, detention and perceived Black threat within whiteness.
that we live in a society that tells us burying our emotions in these things is somehow a more "adult" choice than using non-harmful ways to soothe ourselves.
It's absurd. & exactly the reason we have a culture of teenagers thinking they need to dissociate themselves from their
Guys, pals hello.
This was a very nice response but my family is varying lvls of homophobic. Part of the lightness of this is bc there’s an inherent dismissal.
Whether my family accept me or no, I am who they am.
They can opt into who I am, or out, + this was neither.
childhood comforts to seem grown and mature, so they drop the things that help with self-regulation for more 'adult' risk-taking behaviours.
A culture of infantilising adults, whether disabled and/or autistic, because of the way they use their personal agency, harms everyone.
Ofc not all of us have the choice to unmask.
For some Black autistics and autistics of colour, that element of visibility works alongside the multiple threats of systemic harm.
The safer you are, the safer it is.
It exists in a bigger pool than confidence + self-concept.
Which is to say theory that exists within disability spaces cannot be divorced from race
That doesn’t mean white disabled people are embraced by society - we know ‘acceptance’ is fleeting and conditional - but there’s not the deep-rooted history of racism being applied to you.
So WEAK when asexual folk are like “waaah kink at pride traumatises us!”
when kink communities are absolutely made up of traumatised &/ ace folk who find it to be the most accessible kind of intimacy
On seeing autistic kids line up cars
Allistics: why don’t you (just) PLAY with it!?
Autistics: that’s so cool! Why not arrange it by size too? Or maybe by your favourite colour?
Proposition: ADHD and autism are all on the same spectrum and we *will* see a collapsing of these categories as distinct.
Hopefully before I die. Sooner if the psychiatric industry stops being led by the stale + pale.
I think the autistic superpower rhetoric is very annoying, but I think failed autistic superpowers are very funny
Mine would be the ability to hear electrics but not know where they come from!
What’s yours?
Kinda of the opinion that accessible options should be offered to everyone without having to flag that you’re disabled or need to “advocate” for yourself
Sorry that’s it’s a sobering addition to a light-seeming post but it’s a real one lmao
& tbh it’s rubbing me the wrong way that ppl are comparing coming out stories as tho this is easy.
This comes at a time where I’ve been distanced from family for my survival for a long time
I HATE the way white people think reggae is about ~chill vibes & weed smoking~ when it’s about RESISTANCE and the fight against colonial powers n imperialism !!!!
You ask an autistic how they are and you're gonna get 1 of 2 answers:
1) a description of what they've been doing - EG "just drinking a coffee and watching cartoons!"
Or 2) a real emotional check in - EG "I had terrible dreams and I can't stop thinking and I've got a headache"
I hate how difficult it is for disabled people to accept they’re disabled because of deep ingrained social ableism
Disabled does not mean disposable!!
Or unworthy!!
Or lacking!!
I’m so sorry we’ve been taught this 😠😭💜
Apparently addressing white autistic people by saying “hello white autistics” is ‘unnecessary and harmful’ bcus it implies that some white autistic people are ignorant wrt racism
I’m here to set the record straight: that’s not an implication. That’s exactly what I’m saying. 📝
I don’t mistake a lack of understanding with acceptance.
Ideally, this would be the response to people coming out, but at the other end there would be acceptance, and care, and willingness to learn.
Very gently… let’s not conflate these.
“Men don’t like being called pretty” “I’ve never called a woman handsome”
You realise you’re the issue, right?
Pretty men and handsome women are EVERYWHERE
& I know you see it bc it’s the same reason you degender black women & the very same reason you target black studs.
Listen. If you read this tweet and suddenly have a problem with the phrasing: get over it 💜
Not everything applies to every one!
Just a reflection that I know would have benefited me to hear.
It is what it is and there’s nothing to argue about 😭💜
If me sharing about my experiences of autism + adhd upset you because they don't encompass everyone you've ever met who is autistic + adhd,
that's a you-problem, not a me-problem.
You think this is cultural treasure?
Thinking people weren’t horrified by it then completely ignores the cultural context of the time it aired. You think white British people weren’t copying that shit?
That it didn’t bolster racism, homophobia, ableism + transmisogyny??
Nah fam. That ain’t it.
The sketches of the disabled guy faking being disabled?
The woman who eats baking until she finds out a South Asian person made it and vomiting?
The transphobic character with the fake high voice who always got aggressive?
The conflation of sex and kink have so many people dizzy.
Listen, asexuality is a spectrum.
But even if it wasn’t, kink doesn’t have to be intrinsically sexual.
Asexuality is not a pro-puritan scapegoat lmao
“If you can’t love yourself, how are you supposed to love somebody else!” is such a BULLSHIT rhetoric
It’s often through other people loving us that we realise we are worth loving.
& loving someone else has little to do with loving yourself.
Capitalising the B in Black is often a point of political resistance + cultural pride.
Under anti-blackness all Black people are conflated into monolith, resisting that leads us to Black + Blackness.
For that reason, capitalising the W in white makes me think two things:
@_mimikyus_
I appreciate that
It’s basically saying that it’s more risky for Black people (& non-white people) to exhibit more ‘obvious’ stims and traits of autism, because of the threat of violence, brutality within government systems like police hospitals detention centres etc &
This is the crux of racism in Britain: if you fully call it out, you’re too serious. If you don’t, apparently you condone it.
& it just ties into the perpetuation that we’re a post-racial society who can joke about this shit when we’re clearly fucken not.
Once again, I am reminding non-black people that reaching for reaction gifs + images of Black people
- especially Black femmes - is discomforting as fuck.
It’s DIGITAL BLACKFACE.
Autistic flirting is so easy! All you have to do is tell them A Fact, preferably related to an interest they have
.
.
.
.
.
(and let them know 6 months later that yes, you were flirting with them)
I've been sitting on this tweet for a while but:
If you're happy to say you've got ADHD, but utterly refute that you could be autistic when it's a nearly equal probability
That's ableism.
I think this is one of the realisations that make us as adults understand just how vulnerable autistic youths can be.
And it’s a process of grief. Because that’s a loss too.
The process of realising our own vulnerability + the ways we might have been hurt / harmed is painful.
Self-diagnosis does NO material harm to autistic people.
There’s no way a person using a label to understand themselves can materially harm another person.
It’s just straight up ableism. When you dig deeper to who it’s applied to, you’ll see it’s also racism & classism too.
I’m gonna mute this for my own mental health bc it’s making me feel hella guilty + ungrateful
But a funny comment cannot undo the damage I’ve experienced in my family; which I think is important to talk about.
So yeah, I’m sorry if this has taken u on an emotional one. 🎢💜
Perhaps I should have been clearer about that from the offset, but I didn’t expect this many people to be congratulating me and having to sit in a space where it’s like, “oh I wish this was nice, but it really doesn’t mean anything”
Or anything other than my laying out who I am.