Tag: A4A

Disability Day of Mourning: Honouring Disabled Victims of Filicide & Saying “Never Again”

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Every year in the first week of March, people gather worldwide to honour and remember people who were murdered by their parents or other caregivers. This year, Autistics for Autistics will be observing the Disability Day of Mourning on March 2nd. We will gather virtually for a Zoom presentation that will include brief remarks, followed by the reading of the names and remembering of the victims of disability filicide, with a group discussion afterwards.

Unfortunately, the legal system has typically been more lenient towards parents who kill their disabled children, blaming the disability for the murder. As well, copycat murders often happen in the wake of a parent killing their disabled child.

The Disability Day of Mourning is a way to stand up for the victims of these murders, as we continue to pressure our legal system for true justice and the right to life, safety and care for all disabled people. It is also our way of saying to victims and their loved ones: “we honour you, we remember you, and you had the right to live.”

More information on how to register for the event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/s/disability-day-of-mourning-202/1491360298995539/

Autistic Rights & Disability Rights: A4A’s Statement to the United Nations Association in Canada

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We were recently asked to contribute to the United Nations Association in Canada Toronto Region Branch World Autism Day report. While we observe Autistic Pride Day in June (not World Autism Day), we hope that World Autism Day can be an opportunity for the conversation about autistic rights and neurodiversity to advance. Following is our statement in response to their questions.

About Us: Advocacy, funding, goals

Autistics for Autistics provides support and advocacy for autistic people in Canada through activities and online social groups for autistic adults, as well as education in the broader community about autism and inclusion, and advocacy for better policies for autistics of all ages (on the city, provincial and national level).

Our organization does not rely on autism agencies, social workers or any bureaucratic structures. We are funded only by individuals’ donations. Our services are all administered by autistic Canadians from our leadership team.

We advocate for humane autism services for children–e.g., neuro-affirming speech & occupational therapy and accessibility/inclusion in classrooms and all aspects of social life. We are opposed to ABA and behaviourism in any form, for any age.

We provide education to hospitals, medical schools and employers on making their spaces accessible for autistic people (for example, through the Autistic Health Access Project).

We advocate against abusive group homes/congregate settings and sheltered workshops and we work for policy changes to open up supportive independent living for intellectually disabled adults, where they have choices in housing and recreational activities as well as fair wages for employment.

We also advocate for public funding so that autistic people can work part time or full time and have appropriate workplace accommodations, so that they can be economically independent and retain employment.

The Change We Need, for Autistics of All Ages

Structural barriers exist for all autistic Canadians, and it is wrong to state that autistic children “get more services than adults,” when in reality the majority of “services” for autistic children in Canada are based on behaviourist special education/therapy practices that are extremely traumatic and harmful.

The City and all of Canada need to immediately BAN SECLUSION ROOMS and install cameras in all special education settings to document and end the human rights abuses that are endemic in many special education classrooms. We need education programs, such as those led by the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, to give special education professionals the skills they need to manage their classrooms in a trauma-informed, peaceful way.

We also need Communication Access for all non-speaking or partially-speaking people—children and adults. There should be no delay, and no limits on access to Alternative and Augmentative tools, such as AAC devices, so that children and adults can communicate their needs, thoughts and feelings. Communication is a human right.

In Toronto, autistic adults need work opportunities that accommodate our disability (for example, health benefits for people who can only work part time, and sensory options in the office such as quiet space for work). We also need more education for employers on hiring and retaining autistic employees.

Finally, we need to end the infantilization of autistic people by many autism services professionals and replace it with an attitude of true support and confidence that we can do things like work, live independently, have families and be leaders.

Diagnosis–and Disability Rights

Diagnostic barriers are threefold. First, many people have to wait a long time to get a publicly-funded assessment, because our health care system is underfunded. Second, a private assessment (available more quickly) is cost-prohibitive for the majority of autistic people. Third, while some autism assessors promise that an assessment will lead to an easier life/services/disability accommodations, we actually do not have the right to any of these in Canadian law.

Stigma at school, work and in health care is a daily reality for autistic people, and a diagnosis does not fix that. The only way to fix that is to fix policy by finally ensuring that autistic people included in disability rights legislation in Canada. We are advocating for this!

Autistics for Autistics follows a disability rights model based on the principles of the disability rights movement, including: “Nothing about us without us”. Through the disability rights movement, people with physical disabilities achieved a major shift in society with the concept of adaptations and accessibility legislation, legally guaranteeing them the right to access public spaces, education and employment and make their own decisions about their support. In Canada, autistic people are not included in disability rights legislation—and we should be.

Parents and families are our allies in working towards inclusion, access, opportunities and the freedom to make our own choices, with supports, whether we are intellectually disabled, non-speaking or have any other disability.

How to Support Autistic People in Canada

There are many ways to support autistic people in Canada.

  • Friends, family and supporters can connect with groups like Autistics for Autistics, LiveWorkPlay, Community Living Ontario or the Alliance Against Seclusion & Restraint (Canadian chapter) and volunteer.
  • Those with children in public schools can join the Parent Council at their school, outreach to families of autistic and intellectually disabled students and work with the school and teachers to make it more inclusive.
  • If you own a workplace or are involved in hiring, find out from autistic advocates how you can recruit and retain autistic employees.
  • If you are in the health care sector, you can take A4A’s free 90-minutes intro course on making your clinic more accessible to autistic patients and/or non-speaking patients who use assistive communication devices.

Upcoming Event: Disability Day of Mourning Online Vigil

Our next event is the annual Disability Day of Mourning on March 2, an online event that’s part of an international series of vigils against filicide, organized by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. We gather to remember disabled children and adults who were murdered by their parents/relatives. We remember that these victims were made in the image of God, their lives had meaning and they deserved to have lives filled with joy and kindness, not be treated as burdens and murdered.

Hope for the Future

We have a lot of hope for the future, because many more families are getting involved in advocacy around the human rights issues affecting autistic people. Historically, when we look at the great strides made by people with other disabilities and their families, we can see a model for change—the social model of disability—that can challenge the discrimination and stigmatization autistic people face today.

Autistic people are unique, and have unique communication and disability access needs, but we have more in common with non-autistics than we have differences. Autistic people are not otherworldly, or other at all. We’re part of the human family. By working together to end stereotypes about autistic people, to stop abuse in special education and group homes, and to ensure access to employment, health care and cultural spaces, we are shifting the landscape, so that autistic people can be valued and welcomed throughout the community.

We will continue to educate and advocate for our rights until we reach that goal.

 

Autism Speaks Canada shuts down in January. Good.

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A4A members protesting at the Autism Speaks Walk, 2018

By Autistics for Autistics

As Canada’s autistic-led advocacy group and an international affiliate of the Autistic Self Advocacy Organization, we are relieved that Autism Speaks Canada will be shutting down in January of 2025.

Autism Speaks Canada has long sponsored a pseudoscientific “autism gene” project that collected 10,000 Canadian autistic children’s DNA, without their consent, for use in a shared database by scam artists around the world to develop genetics-related products–including prenatal tests that do not truly detect autism and that lead to the termination of healthy, planned pregnancies. Their DNA boondoggle has never found an autism gene (surprised-NOT), but it has certainly promoted the idea that we don’t deserve to be born.

As well, Autism Speaks Canada held back progress on Canadian inclusion and disability access by lobbying for a National Autism Strategy that would allocate the lion’s share of federal autism funding to a consortium of less than 5 autism orgs through sole-source contracting, without any opportunity for groups to apply. This left autistic-led groups and other local agencies without a seat at the policy table, unlike the US, who include autistic groups in their policy meetings.

Shockingly, in its farewell message Autism Speaks Canada actually highlighted those two projects as their major achievements. It perhaos reveals the real reason they failed: They were never able to focus donor dollars–or energy–on the needs and ideas of the community because they were caught up in “curing” autism & keeping control of funding dollars.

Harmon Pope, chair of ANLFO, an Ottawa-based rights group, has been monitoring & leading protest actions against Autism Speaks for the past 5 years. “I’d been noticing their local team in Ottawa slowly losing influence,” said Harmon, who emphasized the need to challenge other autism organizations in Canada that have similar policy positions to Autism Speaks.

This is an opportunity for autistics and our families to collaborate locally to build new, neuro-affirming spaces and projects. If you are interested in this, or in helping advocate to the federal and provincial governments, please contact us here. We also welcome donations of any size, here.

As A4A Board Member Gaby put it: “It’s a Christmas miracle, Charlie Brown!” Let’s take this opportunity to undo the damage Autism Speaks has done in our community, and create something better.

–The Autistics for Autistics Board of Directors

Black, Indigenous & People of Colour are disproportionately targeted on social media: White allies need to step up to their responsibility

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Update, 2023: We have moved to Spoutible and Post. 

The below post explains the events that led to us shutting down our Twitter account in 2022.

Yesterday, a blue-check Twitter account (Erin Biba) noticed a tweet from our account discussing the challenges some people with anxiety face returning to public life after the pandemic. It also criticizing conspiracy theories about the CDC, along with other health disinformation, as being unhelpful to people with anxiety in particular. While our tweets were describing a real problem, Biba labeled A4A as “right wing” in a series of quote tweets where she encouraged A4A’s donors not to donate. She also shared our email address with her 65,000 followers.

Within minutes, scores of Biba’s followers were swarming A4A’s account, as they’ve swarmed other accounts and relentlessly trolled individuals as a sort of group-bonding activity. (You can learn more about this phenomenon here.)

We are an international affiliate of ASAN whom “someone” contacted to report us as being “Covid deniers” and we had to explain the situation to them, which was exhausting.

One of our members, a person of colour, was told by one of Biba’s followers that he was going to be reported to the college where he is a student.

Thanks to Biba’s quote-tweet, another one of her followers directly doxed another A4A member, again targeting a person of colour and telling the person they were going to screenshot and share the person’s identity with all of Twitter, then did so against their wishes. Despite outreach, Biba’s follower kept the tweet going and wrote disparaging comments, harkening the racist rhetoric of calling non-white people who speak to power “uppity”.

Sadly, acts like this are a regular occurrence on Twitter. In fact, racism is perpetuated against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour so often on social media that it has become normalized.

White people often refuse to acknowledge the racism in acts like this. Their ignorance and refusal to act is in itself a form of racism. BIPOC are continually disappointed and hurt when white friends and colleagues ignore racism or “shy away” from calling out other whites for their actions.

Whites have to do better at allyship. BIPOC endure daily acts of racism–yet how often do their white colleagues and friends really have their back, or take even a nominal risk of feeling uncomfortable for a bit, to support BIPOC?

First steps to doing better can include reaching out to the person who was harassed–not just to say quietly “that sucked,” but to ask the person “How can I help?” Here are some other ways to help when a person has been doxed or personally harassed:

  1. Report the doxer/harasser to the social media platform—and to authorities where applicable
  2. Confront the doxer/harasser on social media (including confront-and-block)
  3. LISTEN to the victim. Don’t weigh in with abstractions or comparisons. Just listen.
  4. Follow, learn from and share content by BIPOC accounts. Decentre yourself and share their content instead of your musings or selfies all the time!
  5. If you make a mistake that offends or harms, don’t make excuses. Say you’re sorry and learn from it.
  6. If you’re part of the autistic community, learn about the work of the Autistic People of Color Fund here.

There are no excuses for Biba or her followers to harass and dox our little group. There are no excuses for Biba’s follower to personally dox one of our members, a racialized and multiply marginalized person. White people need to do better to ally with BIPOC to stop harassment and racism, online and offline. The platforms need to do better, too.

Thanks to all our members who were supportive this week.