questions regarding autistic shirts

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I have a 3 autistic shirts, but none of them actually say i have autism, just either say about autism, or the one i recently got was "be nice i bite", but we were are court today, and everybody knew i was mentally handicapped, i guess you could say even the police officers were doing extra accomodations for me, including the stares, omgosh, the stares, and heard many comments like i think shes mentally ret*d, i also heard shes mentally challenged. Well i was also wearing my "be nice i bite" shirt, and people read it and smiled, at the bottom of it, it says autismbites, and people were actually saying "i think she has autism" for once and not staring as much. Now today one of the bankers who took my boyfriends money saw the pin my friend got that says autism awareness in sign language and in english, and said, it sucks when the autism is so severe like hers. Wow, now i was nonverbal all day today, besides babbling, i did sign and used my pecs, i was very in my own world, so i guess it seemed severe, but im not severely autistic, its just that some people only see the severer side of me, thats why im moderate i guess.

Anyways what im asking is, do you think i should get a shirt that actually says im autistic? I mean besides that pin on my purse and my shirts saying something about autism, nobody really knows its autism i have, all they think is mental retardation. Do you think an autism shirt would help me? I don't want to parade around my autism, or the whole world to know, but I'm so sick and tired of hearing the words "mental retardation", ahh i dont know. Any thoughts or feedback would be so appreciated though!


[i]P.S. Yes i posted this on autismspeaks as well, trying to figure out what to do, my boyfriend says i should, itll be a good idea, even complete strangers told my boyfriend to have me wear a shirt that says im autistic, but im still sooo skeptic.[/i]

how about a shirt that just says: No, I'm not ret*d so back off!

Haha if there was only a shirt that said that haha especially with an autism awareness ribbon on it, would be amazing haha!

People are ignorant, and you seem very intelligent and sweet. Go to Michael's or a craft store and make yourself a t-shirt.

i have a card in my wallet that explains tantrums and meldowns for when or if my son has one and i can discretly hand it to a shop clerk or another to discretely explain the tantrum.
i think a shirt will help others to understand you.
i have neber used my card for my son but i have used ot for myself once.

Yes, make one and go back to the bank.

I don't know why you care so much. You seem intelligent and articulate (in text anyway) and anyone who assumes you're ret*d is just being a fool. Caring too much about what others think is a big problem for some.

I used to stutter a lot and I know some ignorant people thought I was ret*d or slow but it didn't bother me because I know I'm smarter than most.

The t-shirt doesn't sound like a bad idea if you think its important that people don't think you're ret*d.

I have two, for my daughter. One has a handprint superimposed over a jigsaw background, and says, "Profoundly Autistic - Ridiculously Cute". The other (which I also got in yard-sign form) says, "Yes, I Am Autistic! Feel free to stare - I'm ignoring you anyway!"

Personally, I think yeah! Why the heck not. I wish at times I had the guts to wear one. I don't do alot of eye contact, and I don't have alot of emotion on my face, so people start wondering if there is something wrong with me. Granted they don't whisper where I can hear them, but I've gotten MANY weird looks, and people have asked my partner why I'm always so angry (I am SO not an angry person, either....but I guess they see the lack of a smile as anger).

It'll make things self-explanatory. People will see it and understand (as much as they are able) without having to endure the ignorance. Not to mention, since you have raised the issue, it must affect you.

Cheers.

Age,
do what think would help self the most as it is self that has to put up with them-it is easier to say what to do if havent gone through the same thing...though even hf aspies get called ret*d so it's probably something that affects or has affected a lot of WPers here.
do think people are worth the effort in educating them [with a tshirt] when they are so quick to judge-would it be better to let them carry on being the way they are and not give them the respect or effort of being made better aware,or....are they worth the effort?
that is the way am look at it,there's a good side,and bad side to wearing the tshirt.
it could make people aware that are autistic and do not have MR,and it could get a lot more people coming up to self and interrogating.
maybe could do a trial,see what happens?


what could do is join that...cafe press? [think thats what its called] and upload a picture with the words that want to use,are then able to order a tshirt or other objects they have with that logo on.
another option is tshirt printing shops,or make it at home.

Cockney Rebel did a thread about making own autistic tshirts and she did a good one [dont know how she made it].
am made this one: http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3109/japautismhg2.jpg for the thread,am used old war hammer paints,fingers to paint it [no brushes],and after that photo was taken,got a screw driver off staff to paint around the letters with black so it disguised the messy edges.
it's the Japanese word for autism [had to look a lot for it on google] so most wouldn't recognise it [thats a lot like autism as well].

Yes. Cafe Press is what it's called. Google search should yield something.
WHo knows, you could even get ambitious and sell to others. If you wanted.

thanks everybody for their tips and thoughts, i dont have the attention span nor the mind set to make shirts unfortunely, i wanted to even talked about it with my boyfriend but i cant even sit through movies anymore, and now cant even sit on the computer longer then 5-10mins. But i however will buy one off the net, and see what sorta feedback i get as a trial period, thanks everybody!

I would probably not get an autism T-shirt like that. In my opinion it would get the impression that you are wearing your autism on your sleeve.

Age,

Identifying yourself as a member of a minority group without providing further information simply leaves you open to attacks from bigots.

It would be better if your shirts and badges identified you as having/supporting the issue but also gave a positive message. (eg: "Crouching Aspie, Hidden Genius) or something like that. Things that just say "hey, I'm autistic" in an NT society are just as bad as someone wearing a shirt that says "hey, I'm Jewish" in pre-Nazi Germany (and several other countries). - apologies if that line offended anyone.

You need to choose one of the following;
1. Don't identify yourself at all.
2. Identify without any positive message - and discover that most people are bigots
3. Identify and reinforce with a positive message - and still face the fact that some people are bigots no matter what but most people will take the positive message on board.

(Personally I'd suggest no 3) - but that might mean you have to get your own shirts printed - not necessarily a bad thing... in fact, you could make money out of it.

My shirt reads, "ASPIES, UNITE! Yeah, right - like we're gonna hold hands."

I saw a guy with a shirt that said "Autism Rocks!" last week.