Someone just responded to my #AutismAcceptanceMonth video by calling me 'aggressive', which is both hilarious and symptomatic of how people treat you when you say 'hey, I'm being harmed and you need to stop harming me'. Whatever I say, however I say it, it'll be 'too aggressive'.
Not BECAUSE I'm actually being 'aggressive' (although if I was, could you blame me?), but the very act of daring to be autistic (or queer, etc.) and demanding respect is seen as aggressive because it's a challenge to their insular bubble. And they don't want to hear it.
Society's perception of 'aggression' is inherently rooted in biases and bigotry (as we see most keenly in the 'angry Black woman' trope, and white women weaponising our feminity to cry and call them 'aggressive' whenever they say something we don't want to hear).
So, yeah, next time you see a marginalised person talking and think 'wow, they're a bit aggressive', fucking challenge yourself.

Are they being aggressive, or are they just saying something you don't want to hear?

And if they ARE being 'aggressive', can't you understand why?

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More from @QueerlyAutistic

24 Mar
Imagine if you lot had been as scandalised about the deaths of disabled people due to medical neglect and blanket DNR policies during the pandemic as you are about a donut company offering a donut to people who've been vaccinated.
You're more upset about disabled people eating a single fucking donut after this hell year than you ever were about disabled people dying, and that's why fatphobia and ableism cannot be separated.
"Disabled people are dying!"

You: *tumbleweed*

"Disabled people might gain a few pounds!"

You: 😱
Read 4 tweets
24 Mar
Making it mandatory that you must be vaccinated (unless you have a medical exemption) in order to work in a caring profession is perfectly reasonable. You still have the RIGHT to refuse the vaccine, it just doesn't impinge on your client's RIGHT not to be killed by you.
I'm sorry if you don't want a vaccine and giving up your career makes you sad, but I care an awful lot more about the lives of the people in your care.

If the people in your care aren't your priority, what the fuck are you doing in this profession in the first place?
If you are a carer and your first response to the suggestion of mandatory vaccinations (with medical exemptions taken into account) is upset or anger, consider the absolute sense of entitlement that you are displaying over disabled people's lives.
Read 4 tweets
23 Mar
tw: eugenics, ableism, death

"The hospital claimed a DNR which referenced Ms Deleon's learning disabilities had been incorrectly filled in and another order which did not note them was used instead." - I don't believe a word of this and it's horrifying.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
The hospital claims the DNR order was issued with the family's knowledge, whereas the family claims otherwise. Even if the DNR form which referenced her learning disabilities WAS filled in incorrectly, the fact that they would ever mention it on such a form is horrifying.
"Her family said Miss Deleon, known as Sone, had had her care in her final days in April influenced by her lifelong conditions."

I'm so sorry, Sone, you didn't deserve this. Your life was worth saving.
Read 6 tweets
23 Mar
"Rioters are playing into the government's hands."

No, YOU, the commentators and media, are playing into the government's hands by pear clutching about violence being bad rather than encouraging people to actually talk about why violence happens and combat those conditions.
You are complicit in reinforcing the kind of narrative that the government will use to push this bill through, and YOU are the ones directly harming any fight against it by refusing to do anything other than whine about violence rather than turn it back onto those in power.
YOU could play a role in challenging people's preconceptions, in changing the tone of the narrative, in shifting the way that the general public views all of this. But instead, you want to nod your head and agree tearfully with the authoritarians. That's on YOU.
Read 7 tweets
23 Mar
An important point to make about that 'arrested for harassing police/anti-police views' clip is that that's the same police force who failed to turn up at all when lads appeared at my doorstep with a sledgehammer and then never got the CCTV from the neighbour who chased them off.
I repeat: a group of lads, at my door, obviously targetting the house with a wheelchair ramp, with a sledgehammer. A neighbour clocked them on his cameras, came out to check, and the lads legged it. My disabled mum, who was home, called the police. They never turned up.
We were told that 'maybe' they'd come the next day. Nope.

We let them know that my neighbour had footage and was willing to share (actual images of these lads with a fucking sledgehammer walking towards my house), and the police never bothered following up.
Read 4 tweets
22 Mar
Thinking about how Christian and Syed had a big onscreen wedding in the last months before equal marriage passed, as politicians argued that our love was wrong and I was at protests being called disgusting names, but sure, it was unimportant because it wasn't 'legally' a wedding.
That shit meant something important, then more than ever, and it doesn't downplay modern queer couples or 'firsts' to acknowledge how fucking important and needed and wonderful that shit was.
The year before the act passed was brutal, the never ending consultations were brutal, the media debates were brutal, the campaigns were brutal, the air was brutal, and we had no guarantee that we'd have anything changed at the end of it. A big gay soap wedding was everything.
Read 6 tweets

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