The super lovely Lydia has written an article which she posted today on her website mademoisellewomen.com all about Autistic Creatives To Support This Autism Awareness Week.
Hi everyone. Today is World Autism Awareness Day. Within World Autism Awareness Week. Within World Autism Awareness Month. (Phew that’s a lot to get your heads around!)
I’ve felt very split about doing a post centred solely around Autism Awareness Week as I am very aware of the online discussions centred around it and many people mentioning that it should be centred around acceptance and understanding rather than just ‘awareness’ of autism.
It’s a tricky one.
I love how Victoria from @actuallyasplings worded her most recent post, she honestly sums up how I feel too so I’ve pasted what her post said below:
‘This week is Autism Awareness/Acceptance Week, the one week where everyone hypes up the awareness. I’ll be honest though; we do need more awareness, but without acceptance what’s the point? I also think awareness should be all year round, not just April; and I think we should be accepted full stop.
I’ve seen so many puzzle pieces, and so much about AS, and honestly, this is not what we want or need. What we need is appreciation, inclusivity, and support. There are so many wonderful accounts striving for change, using their activism/advocacy to break stereotypes and this is what we need. People need to listen to Autistic voices, rather than try to silence our views. We are here to educate and inform, we have the lived experience and we want people to feel like they can ask questions and learn from us.
By all means, celebrate April how you wish, but please take Autistic people into consideration. Share our accounts, our posts, and more importantly listen to what we are saying’
Victoria Ellen @actuallyaspling
Victoria did such a great job of describing how I was and still am feeling about World Autism Awareness week. Yes awareness is great but we want and deserve more as Autistic people. We really do deserve acceptance, understanding and respect.
Also just wanted to say that my latest 21andsensory Podcast episode has gone live and you can listen down below! I am uploading them every two weeks at the moment.
In this episode I speak to Glenn who is the manager of Waltham Abbey Focus which is a disability and SEN football team at the top of their game! Glenn chats about all things football-related and we discuss a documentary that’s being made about the team with the intention of raising awareness of disability football, and promoting it as an inclusive sport that can be enjoyed by everyone.
21andsensory 
I agree, it should be an all year awareness, not just for one week! xoxo
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I’m not so sure. NTs need a lot of handholding to get them towards some kind of understanding of autism. Even NTs who make huge effort can struggle. As autistics, we maybe feel things are blindingly obvious that NTs really struggle with. Look at Jeremy Bentham. Haha! It’s maybe strange to say we maybe need some compassion for ignorance, but it’s probably the most practically effective way forward.
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Here’s a critical take on some of this
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/autism-awareness-is-not-liberation/
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