I’m glad you made room in this article for a variety of different view points on autism. I am autistic, but also have worked with a variety of autistics as a special Ed teacher. The narrow and limited views of many high functioning autistics really annoy me because they often don’t own or understand their privileges and perspectives. This article clearly has space for different autistics to feel differently. I’ve had people tell me my own autism is just a personality type and the world should just accept me more. While I do understand that perspective, for me personally, there is more going on than that, a lot more than people see.
With my autism, I have very intense sensory issues, they’re considered quite severe, even for a person on the spectrum. Yes, I do wish society was more accepting of different types of clothing and shoes (that would help me out a lot) but also, these sensory issues go beyond society. The sensations that exist on my skin from just the air, water (when cleaning), and any type of touch are traumatic, and they make just existing tough. That, in my opinion is a disability, not just society forcing a square peg into a round hole. I do feel I am disabled because of my sensory issues, that’s not a personality, that’s a ducking condition that I don’t enjoy and don’t have control over.
Another part of my condition with sensory is difficulty with vestibular senses. This has made motor activities s such as walking, running, athletics things much more difficult for me. Yes I know, we often see clumsy people like me as rather cute and funny. People often label me as quirky and cute when I run it to objects or struggle at athletic tasks.
I’m sorry, but this clumsy ness is not “a part of who I am”. It’s beyond my control and it isn’t fun. I’m glad people don’t think less of me because of it, but I do feel it does disable me and again not just the friction of society and my different brain. I don’t like how hard things are for me, that’s the autism, it’s not me.