two or more autistic people, in collaboration with a clinician, in a non-hierarchical relationship. a good model — building meaning from the inside out — instead of being handed a pronouncement from above.
ever since i was young, i’ve felt like i was from a different culture, and was dropped into this one by a stork. somewhere along the way, i decided to stick by this, and honor the integrity of my original culture, and not get too deep into this dominant culture that i still feel like…
the etymology of the term ‘autism’ derives from an idea that a person with autistic traits is somehow isolated in a world of their own, that others can’t reach. i would offer that this is exactly wrong, and a projection by an observer with a mindset built from a variety of assumptions that prevents them…
I’m a bi-gender person—masc and femme together in parallel unison. Like a Tootsie Roll, a Twinkie, a Ho-Ho, or a KitKat, I have a more brittle, masc outer layer; and a creamy, femme inner core. The femme part of me has been surprised when I have proposed activities to femme friends that I think of…
all of the reasons to hate ai and to love ai are valid, to a point. it does things for us that are helpful to have done for us. it does things to us that are harmful to have done to us. the main thing we should focus on is what it requires of us.…
There’s a mindset I keep seeing—in Buddhist sanghas, autism advocacy, establishment political discourse. I call it ‘cognitive centrism’—inhabiting a kind of middle ground, not because one felt their way there, but because they computed it. Like cognitive empathy: decode, then perform the answer. Here’s what it looks like: Someone defending an argument gets confronted with…
i got this letter from my nana today. i thought id share it with you. it made me cry, she’s such a sweetheart. i miss her so much, but i thought you might get something out of hearing how she talks to me. take care, rag hey, baby, i hope you’re settling in nicely. i…
my tendency is to laugh at my first impressions.
something in my history casts a sinister spell
that even the simplest question disperses.
delightful surprises arise when i go
Two people in a boat. One can row, but cannot navigate. The other can navigate, but cannot row. If we view each as a whole, each has both an asset and a liability—each is both abled and disabled. If we view the relationship as a whole, we can describe things differently. If participation and cooperation…
continue reading complementary adaptation: toward a kinder view of neurodiversity and disability
Education builds bridges to new understanding. (educare: to bring up; to nurture). Indoctrination burns bridges and prevents new ones from being built. (endoctriner: to instruct; to imbue with an idea or opinion). Education makes the world bigger. Indoctrination keeps one sequestered in a silo. The reason anti-woke folks rail so hard against indoctrination is that…