April marks the celebrations of World Autism Awareness Day (2nd April), World Autism Awareness Week (first week of April) and World Autism Awareness Month (April itself). This is ahead of any pride activities which fall within the summer of pride events with Autistic Pride Day typically celebrated on the 18th of June. These sets of events are almost in opposition to each other, some led by organisations and the other led by autistic people. 

History has not always shone too positive a light on the celebration of autistic life as we move in circular debates about awareness over acceptance and the staple tenet of the disability rights movement of ‘nothing about us without us’. With regards to awareness v acceptance (the rematch), as autistic people we know that others are aware of us, with autism being seen more and more in the media, both positively and negatively, we are getting to a saturation point of autism being a known concept. However what autistic people, like myself, generally want is to have our autistic differences accepted through support being put in place, understanding why we might do things differently and accepting all autistic people regardless of how we present. For these days being led by others than through the amplification of autistic perspectives, this is an issue often highlighted by messaging on WAAD, WAAW and WAAM not reflecting what autistic people’s priorities are or sharing information that could ultimately be harmful to us. 

Awareness-raising is segregated from autistic people who often don’t directly benefit from these activities, many still face bullying in education settings for autistic traits before and after diagnosis, those who can’t work are still under-supported and those in work may not feel the benefit of being under a microscope. As autistic people we aren’t the intended audience, the audience is a bit more general and aims to educate while fundraising for charities that focus on autism. While fundraising isn’t inherently bad what needs to happen is the link between “we’re asking for donations” and “we will act to make this difference to the lives of autistic people”. We aren’t here to be pitied upon for the sake of fundraising but rather should be given the mic to share what issues we want and need funds to go towards.

The argument will likely continue to circle about the best way to support autistic people on these days, weeks and months and simply put the best way to support us is to listen to us, share our work and support us. In a time of unprecedented change and consequence, this has hit autistic people and those with a learning disability disproportionately hard. We don’t need fleeting awareness, we need embedding into an understanding of what society looks like. We don’t need narrow acceptance of autistic people who ‘don’t look autistic’ because they are ‘neurotypical passing’, we need acceptance and support of autistic people with any needs they have whether ‘obvious’ or not. We don’t need to assimilate into society but for society to change and become inclusive and accessible for everyone.

These days aren’t for us but with change, they could be. Designed by us, led by us and autism ultimately framed using our words. It won’t be instant but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Further reading:

A great blog post from Georgia / @mindtheflap exploring autism awareness and acceptance.

A blog post from Teona / @tee_spoonie exploring growing up autistic but not yet diagnosed.

A piece from Josefina for Tiimo questioning why we still talk about autism awareness when they are many other issues autistic people face.