Thread by @autisticats

Hi everyone, I’ve received a lot of feedback on the thread I made the other day with the story about Liza.

I want to apologize to anyone who was upset by it.

A lot of people have been asking for clarification on what I meant, so that’s what I’m going to do here.

I actually agree with all of the critique that the thread received.

There was nothing I read from an autistic respondent to the thread that I thought was untrue.

A lot of people were just responding to things that I wasn’t trying to say. (Hence why I agree with them)

The main issues arose from the fact that Twitter has a strict character limit, and the fact that I hadn’t fully considered how everything I said might be perceived.

I didn’t know what to clarify until people asked, basically.

So that’s what I’m doing now 😅

What I intended to say in my thread was this:

For autistic people who have the energy and patience to engage with clearly well-meaning parents of autistic kids, it’s a good idea to consider the context of their beliefs & the ways they’ve been influenced by power structures.

I did not mean any of the following things:

- that all autistic people should educate any parent, even if the parent is being rude
- that parents are all innocent and cannot be ableist
- that Liza’s attitude and beliefs were not ableist
- that parents should be coddled

- that autistic people who are exhausted and traumatized are obligated to be gentle with people demanding their time and labor
- that good intentions and ableism are mutually exclusive

I understand how my words might have come across that way, though, and I’m sorry.

I am also frequently annoyed, upset, and irritated by the non-autistic parents in our DMs and comments.

Two types of DMs that irritate me are:

1. Someone who is being entitled and rude

2. Someone who is genuinely asking what I see as a silly question with an obvious answer.

I am never nice to people who are actively speaking over me, telling me what language to use when describing myself, or telling me that they’re the real authority on my own life experiences.

So I would never expect other autistic people to be nice to people like that.

I usually delete messages or give snarky responses to the 1st type of person.

For the second type of person, since I can tell they’re genuinely seeking guidance even though some of their wording is ableist, I usually redirect them to places where they can do their own research.

My response to the second type of person, who is like Liza in my story, is carried out that way because I have the energy for it.

But it’s not like I just hand out lengthy explanations to people anytime they ask.

My responses are usually one sentence: “Go look in X highlight”

Running an account like this one is extremely demanding, and I have encounters with angry & entitled non-autistic people all the time.

I am very aware of the fact that not everyone has good intentions, and that people with good intentions can cause harm.

I also think that people’s intentions matter at least somewhat when deciding how I should respond to them.

But not everyone feels that way, and I respect that.

Not everyone has the energy I do. Not everyone wants to educate all the time. And I value those people too.

I hope that this clears some things up, and if anyone still has questions or wants more clarification I’ll try to respond to you.

It’s stressful and requires a lot of energy for me to respond to lots of people though, so please keep that in mind. I am autistic 😅

❤️