(so, there’s supposed to be a picture here of me wearing my red tights while escorting this morning, but guess who forgot to take a picture?)

Today is World Autism Awareness Day and that means two things:

1. Red is awesome.

2. Blue can suck it.

Why? Because blue and blue puzzle pieces and “Awareness” and all that are symbols for Autism Speaks, a group that sounds good on the surface, but sucks.

How much?

A$ treats autism like a disease, one to be cured.  Do you know how shitty it is to treat people, living breathing people, like diseases to be cured or puzzles to be figured out just because they process information differently? Also, for all the damn money they take in, not a whole lot of it goes towards actually helping anyone. Seriously, learn what autism is, check out all of these links that exposes their shit, and this Mary Sue article that tells you how you can help this month (and all year, for fuck’s sake).  Hell, they even call this month Autism Awareness Month.

Hey, I’m aware of autism.  I’m aware of people with autism. What next?

How about Acceptance? How about treating the neurodivergent (which I think includes my ADD ass) like PEOPLE and not terrible burdens on their parents and caretakers. How about instead of teaching autistic children to sit still with “quiet hands”, we teach the world to accept them? How about instead of moaning about the great burden handed to you and recording meltdowns to get sympathy, you learn to work with your child?

(actually, while I’m at it, can everyone stop posting pictures/video of their kids having tantrums/crying? That shit isn’t cute, and if someone stuck a camera in your face while you were that upset, you’d punch them into next week.)

So, just imagine my red tights, act like you’ve got some sense around this issue and remember, it’s Autism ACCEPTANCE Month, okay?

Oh, and fuck Autism Speaks, cause it doesn’t speak for autistics.

(cover image courtesy of The Bullshit Fairy’s Facebook Group)