The Journey From Self-Loathing to Self-Acceptance and the Forging of Identity

Cassie writes "Autistics Speaking Day 2016: The Journey From Self-Loathing to Self-Acceptance and the Forging of Identity" on Queertism, Gaytism, Aspqerqueer, Aspergay, Asperdyke: They All Mean the Same Thing, Really




Before I go into intricate details for what I want to say for my first ever contribution to the annual Autistics Speaking Day, I want to apologize for not posting the once throughout the month of October.  I wanted to do a post about the intersection of autism in particular or disability in general and queerness, but I not only could not allocate as many resources as I had hoped to find, I also had a great deal occurring in my personal life that prevented me from a regular update of this blog.  I apologize for that.

My post for Autistics Speaking Day is almost, in some manner, a continuation or an elaboration of the first post that I have ever made on this blog of mine, which was my take on person-first as opposed to identity-first language (which you can find here).  In said post, I made the remark upon how I had received the official diagnosis of "Asperger's syndrome" at nine years of age, something incredible being a female, yet in many ways not surprising due to race privilege as well as relative privilege of class.

I will admit: it was not until earlier this year, around February or March or so, that I had began to learn about neurodiversity, the neurodiversity paradigm, the neurodiversity movement, and about the social model of disability.  Every single day, I am still learning something, be it entirely new content, or reviewing what I had already read, analyzing it, and pondering upon how I could apply it to both my own life and to the work that I could do in my community to further the message of neurodiversity and of acceptance of those who are autistic and have other neurological differences, because the message must be spread to those who may not know that such an alternative to the dominant conversation about autism or about disability in general actually exists.  


Read more here!