Devon this is truly a great article.

Your ability to call out the inequality in the autism diagnosis is amazing. You did an amazing job articulating the lack of focus on actual autism, and rather but how the neurotypical perceive autism.

I have a concern though I would like to address though. I don't always agree with other autistics and their beliefs around my autism. I have literally had other autistics tell me how I should feel, address myself, talk, and think about my own autism as well as the autism of my students (I have worked for well over a decade with autism professionally). I don't always agree with everyone, we don't always agree with each other. I think that's to be expected in any group.

I'm honestly afraid of people self-diagnosing, and then using their title of autistic to make claims about autism, and insist they speak for all of us. I see this already happening with autistics who have more privilege than other autistics, and claiming they speak for us all. I see this all the time with level one autistics, making claims about autism, who lack the understanding of what other people who are more disabled and less able to speak up for themselves (for example nonverbal, people with severe motor function abilities, etc) . I even got into a bit of a fight with someone here on medium, who pretty much told me that sensory issues aren't a part of autism (they clearly are) and me saying my sensory issues are not something I enjoy was ablest and enforcing stereotypes around autism (It's literally a part of my diagnosis). They flat out told me I am confusing autism with sensory processing disorder.

I've read articles by autistics who claim that learning not to stim or having replacement behaviors is wrong. While I agree to a point, I think stims should be acceptable in public and even celebrated, I happen to have stims I can't control, and have lead to serious self-injury and I would like to stop or at least have more control over them. I had a student once who was not able to drive a car, because his constant involuntary stims prevented him from keeping his hands on the wheel. The same student was not able to write, type, and was barely able to feed himself. He was verbal, but not verbal enough to express his complex thoughts and ideas and badly wanted to learn to type so he could express himself, but his stims were so severe he couldn't keep his hands on the keyboard for very long. He wanted to learn how to control his stims, yet this autistic I found was pretty much saying him wanting that was ablest and any such support for him is immoral. I felt she was ablest, because she had no idea that her ability to hold in her stims or even mask is it's self is a privilege.

For some of us it's involuntary, and we would like control at times, and it's not wrong to seek out support for that.

With self diagnosis pretty much even a nuerotypical can claim they are autistics, make the narrative about them, and speak over all of us. I already see this happening with autistics who are more privileged than others including with a number of writers here on medium, who don't realize autism is bigger than their own experience. Throw anyone who simply thinks they are autistic and then we risk nuertypicals claiming they are autistics and making assumptions about us. I already feel that many autistics are gatekeeping autism voices from me and other members, and I'm concerned it will get worse.

Of course, I don't really have a solution either. I guess I just think there needs to be more research, and move autistic voices here. I wish more of my fellow autistics would remember the old saying, If you meed one person with autism, you've met one person. We are extremely divergent with diverse experiences, ways of thinking, and abilities.