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…
I’m not sure we should even be studying autism in the United States. My mother just turned 82 today. She has faced challenges in every measurable area of her life, that I won’t go into—that’s a different story. Her diagnosis has changed with the trends of the healthcare industry, and she has only recently been…
Framing gender, sexual, and relational preferences as choices does real harm. These choices are the result of a culture built around a specific origin story, that by now is clearly a failed metaphor. When the beauty of human variation has been forced through binary tunnels for centuries, who we are has to make a choice…
Saying that autistic people who question the current paradigm of neurodivergence are seeking proof of a superpower does real harm. Diagnostic criteria are a snapshot. To refer to the snapshot as reality, without considering the hand that crafted the lens it was taken with, and for whose benefit, or what it distorts, cannot be seen…
this is one kind of harm caused by the abled/disabled binary when it is applied as a permanent designation to people: it erases from view the environment that enables or disables a person, and it makes invisible all of the ways that the environment is designed to enable the abled person. it functions to other…
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
be honest:
is culture the ability
to sing the same songs together
in joyful abandon
with your neighbors?
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…
there’s no decolonization without dismantling the gender binary. the intersectional person is the one who binds community—because they actually understand and empathize with everyone. countries and communities who stigmatize nonbinary identity and orientation are doing white colonizers’ work: one-drop purity tests don’t build you up—they prove you’re not good enough. if you’re judging someone for…