It is breathtaking to behold communities where enough people have worked out the way things work, that when they are hit with the usual forms of sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism, etc., they are ready for it. They have answers to the usual bothersome questions and comments designed to disempower them. Even if the people attacking them don’t understand those answers, they at least are told a lot of the same things by a lot of people.

It’s breathtaking because we haven’t reached that point in some of the communities that I work within, including the autistic community. It’s like we’re almost there, but not quite. So a small number of us end up sticking our necks out and a large number seem to either understand but not be able to articulate it, or else not understanding yet what’s going on.

This isn’t because we’re too autistic to understand (which is in fact one of those obnoxious power plays, rather than a reality), it’s because as a community we’re just not quite there yet knowledge-wise. It’s been like this for other communities in the past, it doesn’t have to be like this for us forever. I don’t always even have coherent answers to a lot of what goes on, because this is not easy work by a longshot, but I think it’s work worth doing.

What would be cool is if eventually we all just automatically understand what is going on when people say certain things to us, and from that understanding (plus some time for thoughts to congeal into words), know what to say and how to react. My problem half the time is understanding but not knowing the words.

But imagine that, if anyone ever told us…

…”You’re not really autistic.” or “You’re not really autistic enough.”

(“You just have Asperger’s,” “You’re too high-functioning,” “You understand your situation too well,” “You’re too articulate,” etc.)

…”You’re too autistic.”

(“You lack the empathy necessary,” “You couldn’t possibly understand,” “You lack theory of mind,” etc.)

…”You’re too much like children and confusing us with your parents, somehow.”

(“You’re just like adolescents rebelling against their parents without understanding why the parents know best,” “You’re just like small children who can’t possibly understand the adult world,” “You’re just like little children who want to do whatever you want and can’t understand why your parents don’t want you to do that,” etc.)

Etc.

…then there would be an immediate, coherent response to each one, explaining why this is not an okay way of treating us or viewing us, explaining how the misdirecting of other people when it comes to us works, explaining why this is not okay… voiced by enough of us at once that it would be harder to ignore than the current sporadic response to it.

We’re getting there. See Bev’s Are you autistic? and I repeat myself. But we’re not there yet. And it would be wonderful for a lot of us to work towards this until we are, until we can throw answers back at that stuff easily. Because I’ve been watching these comments thrown at self-advocates for ten years and they never truly change in substance.

[Note also that I’m not going to be taking comments that actually try to explain why those particular ways of dismissing us are actually real or good or right. So don’t bother. Because this blog is about how to work towards this kind of change, not about getting the conversation derailed by people who think we shouldn’t even be trying to.]