Thread by @ekverstania

The biggest focus area for #autismawareness should be awareness of the principles embodied in the #CRPD.

Do #nothingaboutuswithoutus.

While you exclude both speaking and non-speaking autists from your decisions, you commit human rights abuses whether you realise it or not.

If people in the autism industry stopped violating the #CRPD, we would see:

- the end of harmful practices and substances masquerading as therapy and (ABA, Le Packing, MMS etc.)

- autistic people driving the priorities of autism research

- nonspeakers' access to communication

We have to stop excluding nonspeakers' inputs from these conversations.

Making them the excuse for not listening to autistic people who speak, while you pay ZERO attention to THEIR actual words means you respect neither group.

The biggest problem with the #CRPD is the people who don't believe in its principles. They are the ones who hold bv back its effective implementation.

We need to shame them. It may not change things immediately, but they need to own their position.

They need to be able to say, "I am a professor [or therapist] who does not believe in the rights of people with disabilities."

Then it's out in the open.

But as long as they claim they support human rights, we should hold up the #CRPD in their faces every time they violate it.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities (#CRPD) is about us and for us as #disabled people. If we don't respect it, push it, elevate it, talk about it, refer to it, quote from it, then THEY won't prioritise it.

It recognises that #disability is a complex and evolving concept and that disabled people may not all agree even on exactly what disability is.

But it continues from there, showing that it is the collective responsibility of societies (and thus particularly those in power) to act in ways that empower disabled people. Because disability is partly the fault of societies which disable people's access to participation.

Those in power incudes presidents and parliaments, but it also includes headmasters, doctors, donors, researchers, therapists and caregivers.

Are you one of these? Then you can make a difference.