AutismSpeaks is coming to my town!! ! Please help!! !

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(I think I have the correct forum here. This does fall under Activism). I can't stand it! I love my city! But I guess even we Aspergians in the Seattle area are not free of a certain evil organization that I really cannot even stand to type without getting ill. So if any of you out there happen to come accross this, and happen to be from the Western Washington State area. I need your help.
So, on Saturday, the 19th of September, 2011, their walk will be at the Seattle Center, and I think specifically by the Science Museum. Opening Ceremonies (yuk!) begin at 10:00AM. So I will be there wearing bright orange and giving them a piece of my Aspergian mind! If any of you could join me then and there, that would be great.
And even if you cannot make it or are not from the Western Washington area, you can still help me by replying with some ideas for slogans and posters. Let us stand up for our right to live and live as we are! Thank you all. -Nat

Wait it's Saturday the 17th. Still; be there!! ! Thanks. Bye.

I suggest you use the butyric acid, it has a very rancid smell.
That'll disperse them.

Slogans like:
Aspie power!
We can talk for ourselves
Autism Speaks doesn't speak for us
Go neurodiversity!
Accepting, not curing.

For symbols you could use the ribbon - http://thesituationist.files.wordpress. ... ribbon.jpg

Maybe you could get some media attention by means of interview in papers, radio, TV. Try local ones atleast. I suggest planning this upfront.

You might want to first pay a retainer to an attorney.

Or just don't get caught

You could always go for plausible deniability.

Awesome! Thanks guys!

You generally want to co-opt their event. They're going to try and co-opt your participation. Dont' let them. You be the one to co-opt them.

(And believe it or not, I mean this in a playful way. I mean this in a positive way. We have every right to be part of the trapestry of life. And we should not allow ourselves to be pushed to the side.)

Keep doing exactly what you're doing here, which is talking up your alternative approach. Maybe trying to start a group in your area on Meetup.com (unfortunately have to pay if you're the group leader)? Or maybe some kind of free Internet want-ads your local paper?

And once you meet some local people who self-identify as Aspie / Autism Spectrum, you've just got to ask them. And that's the hard part. You have to ask them respectfully and where it's okay for them to say no. Any kind of parade with signs, seems to have a high threshold and people just need to mull it over a long time before they feel comfortable doing it, and that just seems to be the fact of the matter.

On the positive side, you might find five other people with a lot of energy for an alternative to the regimented, parents-centric, defined-from-above approach (actually I want a political movement where both parents advocate from their children and adults on the spectrum advocate for themselves. I think that is potentially a very powerful combination.) Or just three people, you and two other people with the energy and the ability to spend 5 to 10 hours a week. Well, people move on, they get a boyfriend or girlfriend, a job starts taking more time, personal issues they feel they need to attend to. My advice, don't hold people to other than a specific short-term like next week commitment. Let people move on. Then when they have more time or wherewithal, they can come back.

And the fun part, when you talk to people give yourself permission to be nonperfectionist (and brief! I tend to be much too long)

I'd love to be there. I'll see if I can make arrangements. I know someone who knows the city of Seattle well and I'll see if her and my best friend will be willing to dress in orange and take part.

What about the ones who can't really talk for themselves like you can? Aspie power over who? Down with that power over the disadvantaged on the spectrum. Face it, you're not going to get them to stop the research they do.

It's about making people aware of the other sides of the spectrum. Yes there are the very severe cases which can't really talk for themselves but that doesn't mean that the ones who can to be seen the same way in general. There are gradations within autism.


This is about empowerment and positive reinforcement of aspergers' qualities in people with AS. There are ofcourse the disadvantages we all experience, but this doesn't mean you put this under a magnifying glass and solely shed a light on this - purely to stay positive and don't get pessimistic and thus wither.
People on the autistic spectrum who can't seem to speak for themselves aren't better of with people who don't know a rats ass what autism is about and still claim they do.


Unlikely I will on my own, but with others and in time it could happen.

It's unlikely they're not aware of that.



They're not going to be better off with you restricting the path that would be in their interests, which includes research.


Where is the consent of others on the spectrum for stopping it?

Sure, I'll be there. I think I'll wear that shirt that says "Autism speaks can go away. I have autism, I can speak for myself." Do they still make that shirt? If people question that I really have autism, I'll produce the papers that declare my diagnosis.

We need to make people aware that there's more then one side to this story.

A good start might be if parents could view stimming as "time and place" and not the worse thing in the world. And some parents do! And this is one conversation we can contribute to.

Alright, some suggestions:

"I worked at JC Penney's over Christmas!"

"I have a 3.2 GPA."

"I play guitar!"

"I have a wife who I love!"

"I know how to dance the waltz."

"I take dancing classes."

.

.

That is, we let people know what we do well. So, when people consider or meet someone who is different, they will be more likely to presume competence, rather than presume incompetence.