2023 Update

This is a personal blog started in 2011. It is no longer active, updated, or maintained. Unfortunately, it appears that I've also irreparably broken some of the links by accident.

05 November 2012

Protesting Autism Speaks

Trigger Warning:
Good amount of profanity, ableism, lots of ableist quotes, and extensive discussion of ableism. 
Summary of 95%* of the People from the Protest of Autism $peaks
*number metaphorical, not scientific
Lydia Brown, Autistic Hoya
Monday, 5 November 2012



Protesting Autism Speaks

Saturday morning, I spent about three and a half hours in the forty degree (that's about 5 degrees Celsius) weather on the National Mall with several other Autistics in a protest of the Autism Speaks National Walk Now for Autism sponsored by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. We held beautiful, hand-painted signs and staked others in the ground, informing passerby of the financial irresponsibility and ineffectiveness of Autism Speaks while asserting our right to be heard and respected for who we are, as we offered copies of the ASAN "Before you donate to Autism Speaks, consider the facts" flyer to anyone who would take them. My hands and legs went numb within the first half hour (inadvertently leading to my phone irreparable breaking because I couldn't tell what I was doing with it, and it went flying over the sidewalk), but a considerable number of people did take our flyers.

Before the walk began, a pair of fellow Georgetown students passed by on their way to the beginning of the walk. (I hope they didn't recognize me or know who I am.) I felt literally ill upon seeing people from my school, a school that I'm proud to attend, supporting an organization that would love to see a future in which I and people like me no longer exist. (It's a great way to be accepting and inclusive, fellow Hoyas.)

Later, after the walk had begun, I saw a man with an adorable dachshund and stooped to pet the visibly happy puppy. Immediately he noticed I was with the protest and shouted tersely "Don't you touch my dog!" Katie Miller, one of ASAN's Board members who was also there (and who had directed our sign-making on Friday), did the same, and he yelled at her, "Don't you fucking touch my dog! Don't even look at my dog!" She said that she recognized his voice from previous protests as someone who apparently enjoys screaming profane, hurtful, insulting things at Autistics who dare to voice opinions against Autism Speaks.

At one point, I saw a man I know and with whom I've conversed in the past as an ally. I thought I could trust him, because he seemed in the past to understand that the role of an ally is to do everything you can to amplify the voices and presence of Autistics and to support Autistics in letting us lead our own movement. And yet there he was at the walk, and he had the gall to tell me that while he knows I and others have serious problems and misgivings with Autism Speaks, he was there anyway. I had no words to say to that.


The worst were the people who didn't take them.



In the beginning of the protest and walk, a pair of young women, likely high school or college students, passed us, glancing at our signs, and one of them declared vehemently, "That is fucked up." What's "fucked up" is the deliberate erasure of Autistics from conversations about us, but I guess "well-meaning" non-Autistics have the luxury of picking and choosing whom they'd like to hear from and whom they'd just like to go away.


Then there was a man with autism (that's how he identified himself) wearing a baseball cap with the Autism Speaks name and puzzle piece, who got into my face and told me, "I have autism and I support Autism Speaks." When I tried twice to politely offer him our flyers, he proceeded not only to accuse me of "furthering the anti-abortion Republican agenda" and propagating "big lies" about Autism Speaks, but to repeatedly emphasize his own wish to be "cured of this disease" and to make sure no one else "has to have it ever."

Internalized ableism has tragic consequences.

But the worst, the absolute worst, was the most common response. We asked dozens and dozens of people "Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

And dozens and dozens of people either gave polite smiles or frowns and said "No" or "No thank you" and kept walking.

Think about that.

"Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

"No."

I don't think anything I can write can underscore the dehumanizing, erasing tactics that Autism Speaks uses more than that. To be at a walk ostensibly in support of Autistic people -- loved ones or strangers -- and then to say, explicitly, to Autistic people's faces, that no, you don't want to hear from us, thank you, and walk away without so much as looking at us reeks of ableism and silencing.

And it hurts.

"Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

"No."


For people who often talk about how they wish non-speaking children would learn to use speech to express themselves, this is pretty damn appalling and egregiously hypocritical.


"Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

"No."

For people who claim that one of the "core deficits" of autism is in social and communicative skills, this is pretty damn rude and unapologetically so.

"Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

"No."

For people who claim to love us, accept us, and support us, this is about as unaccepting as you can get.

"Would you like to hear from Autistic people?"

"No."