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8 months agoUpholding the hegemony of neurotypicality as the “acceptable” way to be, and the encouraging of neurodiverse people to mask their (fine, unharmful) behaviours. Masking which actively harms them.
All this does is promote ongoing ableism. I beg that you read something about the experiences of autistic people and come to understand how marginalized and harmed they are by this continual shaming of these traits. Traits that are not harmful, or even uncommon. They’re just different, and less normalized.
I do believe that is the point of the post; however, it also implies that the kind of person it describes does not understand that they are actually engaging in bullying behaviours.
Ableism is so entrenched in society that “teasing” (thought of as playful, but is actually harmful) people for being a little different is not seen as anything to bat an eye at. Media upholds the normalization of this kind of ableism through shaming these traits in the form of “jokes” — meaning that when people in turn do it to others, they often believe themselves to be engaging in funny banter. When it is actually creating an environment that others autistic and neurodivergent people. Ie, upholding systemic ableism. All without their knowledge.
The point of a post such as this is partially for autistic people to commiserate, but also hopefully for a few people to stop and think about their own behaviour. If they are the kind of person who wishes to be inclusive to autistic people, seeing this might make them realize how they do unconsciously bully autistic people when they denigrate people with these traits. And hopefully they will stop, though it takes time to deconstruct and unlearn this kind of behaviour.