The discussion about the #ActuallyAutistic hashtag is really annoying. It's the hashtag for Autistic people either self-indentified or officially diagnosed and if your research about the Autistic community didn't provide you this knowledge, then maybe you should do more research or ask the community before you start complaining. Who are you to criticise a hashtag that connected and empowered thousands of marginalized disabled people for years? (1/2)
Let me see... how to describe in an empathetic and sensitive way how all this erupted.
For people wondering what this is about, this discussion began about a week or more ago, when an autistic person on mastodon (who said they were going through meltdowns online due to trauma and who was lashing out because of this), made a series critical posts and comments about "late diagnosed autistics" who were allegedly acting "superior" to "early diagnosed" (in terms of age), as if they were a dominating autistic spaces online.
It was much like accusing late diagnosed as acting similar to what some autistics say about "aspie supremacy" autistics. It was suggested or implied in the discussion that "early diagnosed" (in childhood) were more autistic or more representative of autistics than the late diagnosed who were said to dominate the tag.
It came up in these discussions that some of the "late diagnosed" are also self-diagnosed, and the discussion included some misconceptions about the purpose of the #actuallyautistic tag and whether it was inclusive of self-identified/self-assessed autistics. If I recall correctly there were also criticisms of autistic "identity" as a concept.
So just as a public service announcement I posted this on my own timeline:
I did give complete details of what has happened in the past on Twitter which included some folks coming up with an alternative tag, #allautistics. This is part of the history on twitter. It's information. It wasn't a suggestion that we should no longer use #actuallyautistic. I use the tag constantly.
I suggested that we need to constantly explain that the tag is inclusive.
Thanks a lot for explaining, and also for the reference to the original announcement. Just want to let you know that this was extremely helpful for me, not only for understanding the reasons for the discussions I have been seeing recently, but also for my very own understanding of the #actuallyautistic hashtag. I also had no clue about the issues it caused. So, thanks a lot, very much appreciated.
Stray, I think you have acted with maturity and integrity all through this, and I am grateful for the documentation.
I see you as one of our strongest voices.
The moment I saw this person lashing out at MY FRIENDS on #ActuallyAutistic, I blocked them.
I'm not as mature as you!
If this person hadn't come out swinging & accusing, we could have had a good discussion and exchange.
But I'm not going to put up abuse, or my friends being abused, and it seems admins felt the same.
I agree wholeheartedly. I very much prefer dialectic vs debate.
It was more intended as a "Really, they expect stuff like that to shut people up that are this used to it?"
I applaud that. I think we're on the same side here.
I'm not super familiar with twitter. I signed up less than 3 months before Musk took over.
Then I came here. I'm somewhat afraid of social media.
I'm just trying to put in my two cents because I normally wouldn't.
The problem is, if I stop to think too much I'll never post anything.
Twitter is very combative, even more so now (though I left the day Musk took over).
This place is NOT combative, but collaborative, and I will do my part to keep it that way!
Twitter can be a horror. For a lot of different reasons. It was combative, yes, and often toxic because of that. But it was also very top-down, dominated by mostly huge accounts, with most users living in the shadows of those large accounts (if you ask me) and it was this way even before Musk, but now much worse because of his changes. It's become dominated by hate-speech. It's awful.
Yes, as I see it, the structure itself is designed to accommodate and enable the large accounts, and it wants and needs those accounts to have the most impact and influence. It's all part of the planned structure. It's built-in. A feature, not a bug.
Right, for anyone who doesn't know, admin of neurodifferent.me has hidden that account for the moment. I think they can read posts, just that the replies aren't seen?
Yes, there were others in those discussions. I did try to convey that a discussion involving several people ensued, that it was more than just one person.
I can experience hyper-empathy, so I feel badly that someone was hurting and lashing out, and was joined by others in some of the things that were said. I didn't want to hit back... I just wanted to inform people. Hard to do.
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