{"id":2114,"date":"2021-04-08T13:54:22","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/autisticme\/?p=2114"},"modified":"2025-01-11T16:54:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T22:54:30","slug":"avoiding-autism-symbols-of-group-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2021\/04\/08\/avoiding-autism-symbols-of-group-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding Autism Symbols of Group Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Facebook follower asked why I do not use \u201cAu\u201d after my name to indicate I support the Au manifesto<\/a>, the Autism Union statement of ideals. Do I not support the 10 points? Do I not like the community members? Is there something wrong with Au?<\/p>\n

What does the \u00c2\u00fb after my name mean?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I am Autistic. [or] I support those who are Autistic.<\/li>\n
  2. I embrace my Autism as a very significant part of my identity.<\/li>\n
  3. I embrace those who would sacrifice to protect all Autistic life.<\/li>\n
  4. I embrace the belief that Autism does not need any “curing”.<\/li>\n
  5. I embrace the self-advocacy goal of “Everything about us, with us”.<\/li>\n
  6. I embrace the definition of Autism as a neuro-social difference.<\/li>\n
  7. I embrace measures directed at protecting Autistics from attack.<\/li>\n
  8. I embrace a person-centered approach to all Autism issues.<\/li>\n
  9. I embrace rigorous scientific approaches to co-occurring conditions.<\/li>\n
  10. I embrace Autistics leading their own welfare organisations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    The Au notation serves as a bright sign, a neon gold sign, that proclaims, \u201cI am proudly autistic.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s not a proper reading of the meaning, but that\u2019s how I perceive it. Autistic pride is something I have called for in place of autism awareness. We should have Autistic Pride Month<\/strong>, not Autism Awareness Month.<\/p>\n

    Yet, I\u2019m not \u201cproud\u201d of myself, not autistic me nor any other me.<\/p>\n

    For me, the \u201cAu\u201d suggests an emphasis on the autistic identity. That\u2019s not me. It\u2019s an important aspect of my life, obviously, or I wouldn\u2019t blog as The Autistic Me<\/strong><\/em>. Still, I am not C. S. Wyatt, Autistic Writer. Please, no. I\u2019m not C. S. Wyatt, Autistic Parent, either. I don\u2019t want to be judged as a writer or educator or parent based on being autistic.<\/p>\n

    Including \u201cautistic\u201d as a qualifier suggests somehow any critique of my writing, teaching, or parenting must be weighted with some sort of autism bonus points. Of course, that\u2019s another meaning of \u201chandicap\u201d \u2014 giving a few points extra to someone, or shaving a few strokes from a golf score. I don\u2019t want the benefit of an \u201cautistic handicap,\u201d some pity points for being neurodiverse.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou\u2019re ableist, like a colonized member of a tribe,\u201d another autistic informed me.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m not going to change the opinion of such an advocate. My explanation is for other readers.<\/p>\n

    Judge my writing without regard for the author. Judge all my creative works by the same standards applied to other artists. Don\u2019t condescend or infantilize me. If my works don\u2019t win a blind peer-review process, so be it. (Thankfully, my plays have won such contests, so I am confident of my abilities.)<\/p>\n

    I don\u2019t normally add my academic titles, either, and I worked hard to earn those. I do use the academic titles when it seems appropriate to the topic on which I am writing or speaking.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve also been asked about the symbols I don\u2019t use when promoting The Autistic Me projects. Why are there no infinity symbols? Where is the rainbow? The colors gold and red?<\/p>\n

    It is an interesting coincidence that I attended two universities with gold and crimson red as their colors. USC and the University of MInnesota both use colors I\u2019d consider close enough to the autistic pride colors. The Golden Gophers and the Cardinal and Gold of Troy. (I did not choose the schools because they matched colors, but that is convenient.)<\/p>\n

    The infinity symbol and M\u00f6bius strips are cool. I like them. But, I\u00a0think of the infinity symbol as \u201cbelonging\u201d to some autistic-led groups. The rainbow flag represents the LGBTQ+ community and belongs to them.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m uncomfortable using the infinity or the rainbow as a group identifier.<\/p>\n

    Another autistic complained that I have used the puzzle symbols for blog posts. That\u2019s somewhat accurate.I do use puzzle piece imagery when I critique the shape and its implications, but I don\u2019t have the same passionate opposition to the symbol that some younger autistics express. I don\u2019t like it, but it doesn\u2019t traumatize me.<\/p>\n

    The puzzle piece annoys me.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A Facebook follower asked why I do not use \u201cAu\u201d after my name to indicate I support the Au manifesto, the Autism Union statement of ideals. Do I not support the 10 points? Do I not like the community members? Is there something wrong with Au? What does the \u00c2\u00fb…<\/p>\n

    Continue ReadingAvoiding Autism Symbols of Group Identity<\/span> <\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":201,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,812,13],"tags":[77,82,322,364,376,580,585],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy","category-parenting","category-writing","tag-autism-awareness","tag-autistic-pride","tag-gold-au","tag-identity","tag-infinity-symbol","tag-puzzle-piece","tag-rainbow","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2023\/12\/Podcast-HD-1920x1080-comp-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivLC-y6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3554,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/3554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}