this is a pretty short piece from about a decade ago, which leads with:
Somebody calls autism a tragedy. Somebody kills an autistic person. Somebody doesn’t see how these two events are connected. I try to explain. I try harder. It happens again and again and again and somebody ‘splains it away.
and i’m sure you can already see where this is going and why it’s going that way; it’s a good piece, if heavy.
Somebody calls my request for respectful language and symbolism “political correctness.” Although this respect exists barely anywhere, it is portrayed as enforced, and therefore something that must be rebelled against.
This seriously frustrates me so much. People actively resist respecting someone’s wishes in as basic of a way as language and then they have the gall to suggest that by pointing out that there’s a problem, you’re the one causing problems.
People actively resist respecting someone’s wishes in as basic of a way as language and then they have the gall to suggest that by pointing out that there’s a problem, you’re the one causing problems.
it’s definitely a not-just-neurodivergent problem too–obviously queer people run into this kind of thing a lot with, for example, pronoun usage or labeling!
