Thread by @alainaskeys

I just want to thank everyone immensely for the support of my article about Sia’s film Music. You have no idea how much it means. I was deeply ashamed of being autistic until I was about 21, when I found #ActuallyAutistic community online.

I wrote more about that in a personal essay for @semihandmade that @atthecrosswalk edited over the summer: semistories.semihandmade.com/years-into-our…

I dated my wife for five years by the time I “came out” to her as autistic. That’s how hard it is to deal with shame. Teachers and medical professionals made me feel I should be ashamed to exist as a child because I struggled to speak and communicate the way others do.

I made a choice several years ago when I first published about being autistic with my name attached, and now the info is out there. I can’t take it back. Every future potential employer, mortgage lender, landlord....so your support means the world. Really.

And I hope that nondisabled and non-autistic people understand that supporting us publicly and amplifying our voices DOES something to change the ableist perceptions that quite literally lead to the ableism I faced as a kid. It matters.

Every time you prioritize a book, a film, an article, an essay by an autistic creator about our community, you help send the message that harmful tropes and stereotypes created by non-autistic and nondisabled people are not okay and need to go away.

I highly recommend following and consuming work by a wide varied of autistic creators, including multiply marginalized autistics—and not only when there’s a controversy or something awful happens to our community. All year round.