Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People

If autism is being presented as a curable or preventable negative trait, something to “[s]ave our children & their future[s]” from, then what incentive do non-autistic people have to respect their autistic children as human beings?

The fact that abled white cisgender straight generationally well-off men comprise the vast majority of those who are deemed “qualified” to prosecute and practice in courts across this stolen land should be indicia enough of the problems inherent in our legal system. Attorneys,

Indeed, dreaming is among the most difficult and brave kinds of advocacy work. Its value cannot be overstated. When we create space for ourselves and others to dream, we embody recurring hope, active love, critical resistance, and radical change. We are reminded that those who came before us dreamed of that which no one thought could exist—that the

Disavowal tells us that we only get to move ahead or get more rights or be more included or get an opportunity if we do so at somebody else’s expense. It reinforces capitalist scarcity politics by saying that only so many people can be included or have rights, and that in order to include or give rights to some people, somebody else must still be e

The idea of autism as undesirable defect is so widespread in society, but if somebody says that, they will be yelled at for being self-hating.

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But we’ve quite undeniably built up a mythology that there’s a linear progression in activism. And in reality, that myth is itself ableist, classist, racist, and capitalist because it implies that we’re all on an upward progression - the same language that white supremacy uses to say colonialism needs to civilize Brown people.

The point is, that it can be simultaneously valid for many of us to be triggered by and unable to engage with conversation about cure, while others find discussion of cure to be deeply validating.

our own unexamined trust in and overreliance on current institutions,