The ABCs of Autism Acceptance

This manifesto from Autistic activist Lynn McCann presents a powerful framework for moving beyond autism awareness to true autism acceptance. The work challenges harmful narratives about autism while offering a nuanced understanding of Autistic neurology, community identity, and the systemic barriers Autistic people face. What makes this work distinctive is its unflinching examination of how awareness campaigns without acceptance actively harm Autistic people, combined with practical guidance on building genuine acceptance.

Autism Acceptance: What It Means and Why It Matters

Autism acceptance recognizes Autistic people as whole, complete human beings worthy of respect, dignity, and full participation in society. While awareness tells people Autistic people exist, acceptance tells people Autistic people deserve accommodations, support, and the right to exist as they are without being forced to conform to neurotypical standards. The distinction between awareness and acceptance is critical because awareness without acceptance actively harms Autistic people. Organizations like Autism Speaks spread fear-based narratives that portray autism as an epidemic, burden, or tragedy—language that directly contributes to violence against Autistic children. Over 70 people with disabilities have been murdered by caregivers in the last five years, a direct consequence of portraying Autistic lives as not worth living.

Autism As Neurodivergence: Difference and Disability

Autism is a pervasive neurological difference affecting how the brain processes information, perceives the world, and interacts with others at a foundational level. Autism cannot be separated from identity—it is not a layer that can be peeled away like diabetes or other conditions. Autistic people experience both inherent strengths (intense focus, pattern recognition, sensory sensitivity to beauty) and genuine challenges (difficulty with rapid social processing, sensory pain, executive function demands). The disability aspect of autism is not entirely inherent. Much suffering comes from social barriers: discrimination, lack of employment accommodations, bullying, sensory-hostile environments, and societal rejection.

Crucially, autism is legitimately a disability requiring accommodation—not because Autistic people are broken, but because the world is not designed for how our brains work. Rejecting the disability label dismisses real support needs and divides the community; acceptance means valuing Autistic people as whole human beings while acknowledging accommodation needs.

The Danger of Awareness Without Acceptance

Autism awareness campaigns often perpetuate tragic narratives that dehumanize Autistic people. The author describes being publicly mocked in a hardware store for natural body movements, resulting in humiliation and complex PTSD. When organizations like Autism Speaks describe autism as an “epidemic,” “burden on families,” or “kidnapper of futures,” they expose Autistic people to mockery, marginalization, and violence. Fear paralyzes love. Parents learning their child’s late diagnosis need hope, realism, and connection to communities of support and joy—not fear and despair. True acceptance means recognizing that awareness without acceptance is not only ineffective but actively harmful.

Bullying and the Myth of “earned” Mistreatment

Approximately 63% of Autistic children experience bullying—three times more than non-Autistic siblings. This is not a minor social inconvenience but a pervasive trauma affecting Autistic people throughout childhood and adolescence. Critically, Autistic children who are articulate or academically able face more bullying and are more likely to be blamed for it—told they “should know better” or “deserved” mistreatment. Teachers and school officials frequently side with bullies, claiming Autistic students provoked abuse or share responsibility for it.

The solution requires more than teaching Autistic children to be “less weird.” It requires teaching non-Autistic peers that Autistic people have feelings and empathy, that bullying is unacceptable, and that social differences do not justify abuse.

Intersectionality: the Invisibility of Autistic People of Color

Autistic People of Color are systematically underdiagnosed and diagnosed significantly later than white children. This diagnostic gap reflects both systemic racism in healthcare and the assumption that autism is a “white condition.” Two cases illustrate the brutal reality: Jack Robison, white, was recruited to university after a building explosion; Neli Latson, Black, was imprisoned for sitting on grass near a park. Both had autism; only one received support rather than punishment. Autistic People of Color are imprisoned at higher rates than the general population due to both autism-related vulnerabilities and systemic racism. Until Autistic People of Color are genuinely accepted and centered in leadership, no one is truly accepted.

Depression and Anxiety: Situational Roots and Barriers to Wellbeing

Studies show that 33-71% of Autistic children experience depression; one alarming study found 28 times more suicidal ideation in Autistic children compared to non-Autistic peers. However, most depression is situational rather than inherent neurology—caused by social isolation, sensory overwhelm, stigma, bullying, unemployment, exclusion, and lack of support. Evidence for this is compelling: removing specific stressors demonstrably reduces depression. For example, a child’s severe anxiety about stoves eliminated by discontinuing stove use resolved the associated depression.

Key barriers to wellbeing include:

• Unpredictability and lack of control
• Social isolation (only one-third of Autistic people report feeling adequately supported)
• School refusal (one-fifth formally excluded, two-fifths informally pushed out)
• Employment barriers (61% of unemployed Autistic people want to work, yet only 15% have full-time employment)

Empathy Reconsidered: Theory of Mind, Alexithymia, and Affective Intensity

The persistent claim that Autistic people lack empathy is demonstrably false but dangerous—it has been used to justify dehumanization. Empathy consists of two components: cognitive empathy (understanding others’ feelings) and affective empathy (sharing or feeling with others). Autistic difficulties primarily involve cognitive empathy—not because we lack theory of mind, but because reading facial expressions and body language requires real-time processing we don’t perform instantaneously.

Approximately 50% of Autistic people have severe alexithymia—difficulty identifying and naming emotions—compared to 10% of the general population. Affective empathy may actually be heightened in Autistic people. Intense World Theory suggests autism creates supercharged neural connectivity, making others’ feelings overwhelming and sometimes leading to emotional shutdown as protective mechanism.

Facilitated Communication and Supported Typing

Facilitated communication—physical support for typing—is often dismissed as fraud despite extensive evidence supporting its validity. Many non-speaking and minimally-speaking Autistic people communicate effectively through methods including hand-on-shoulder support, wrist support, letter boards, and RPM. Evidence of legitimacy is striking: individuals who began with full facilitation now type independently without voice changes or personality shifts—proving facilitators were not “puppeting” but providing necessary motor support.

The distinction between motor skills and communication skills is crucial: someone skilled at painting or making coffee may still need support focusing during typing because the demands are entirely different.

Autism Symbols and Community Identity

Symbols chosen by Autistic people differ significantly from symbols imposed upon us. The giraffe emerged from Autistic resistance to a defamatory song; it symbolizes Autistic power, joy, and community. The infinity symbol (especially in rainbow spectrum form) represents diversity within the Autistic community and broader neurodiversity. “Walk in Red” provides an alternative to Autism Speaks’ blue, which was specifically chosen to represent boys over girls—making it inherently exclusionary. The puzzle piece is deeply offensive to most of the Autistic community because it symbolizes something “missing” from Autistic people. True allyship means listening to autistic culture about our own representation rather than deciding for us.

Healthcare Access: Provider Bias, Communication Barriers, and Trauma

Autistic people face three systematic barriers to adequate healthcare: provider bias (devaluing Autistic lives and assuming our lives are not worth saving), communication difficulties, and provider ignorance about Autistic neurology. Examples of bias-driven harm illustrate the severity: Mel Baggs was pressured to “go home and die” rather than receive a life-saving feeding tube for gastroparesis; Paul Corby, a 23-year-old Autistic man, was refused a heart transplant based on his autism diagnosis alone.

Communication barriers include rushed appointments without sufficient processing time, sensory overload from fluorescent lights and medical equipment noise, unclear questions from doctors, and oral-only instructions with no written record.

Identity-First Language: Recognizing Autism as Core Identity

The distinction between “Autistic person” (identity-first) and “person with autism” (person-first) reflects profound differences in how autism is understood. Autism is not a layer atop a non-Autistic person; it is pervasive brain architecture shaping perception, processing, and interaction at neurological levels. Capitalizing “Autistic” as a proper adjective—similar to how Deaf and Black communities capitalize these terms—affirms community and identity. Autistic people experience both challenges and profound gifts that are inseparable. Removing autism would eliminate both struggles and joys.

Bodily Autonomy: “no Means No” and the Foundation of Safety

Autistic children are subjected to systematic violation of bodily autonomy in the name of therapy and early intervention—forced repetition of meaningless commands, ignored protests that manifest as head-turning, walking away, crying, or aggression. These protests are labeled “non-compliance” rather than recognized as legitimate boundary-setting. Yet sexual abuse rates among disabled people are shockingly high: studies show 25-50% of disabled people experience serious abuse. Autistic children taught that their “no” doesn’t mean “no” are primed for victimization.

Sensory Overload and Overwhelm: Neurology, Not Psychology

Autistic people experience sensory overload through sensory input, emotional overwhelm, and executive function demands exceeding capacity. Triggers vary by person and context; support needs are dynamic, changing minute-to-minute, day-to-day, year-to-year. The author describes her experience at a coffee shop on a Friday night: high-pitched shrieks, multiple musicians playing different songs, sensory pain (vestibular hyperacusis—a synesthesia-like condition translating sound into motion and dizziness), yet she forced herself to keep working rather than honor her body’s distress signals. The result: four days of lost productivity due to needing sleep and recovery. These experiences are neurological, not psychological—reflecting a nervous system with different sensitivities and different thresholds.

Stimming and “quiet Hands”: Essential Neuroregulation, Not Behavior to Suppress

“Quiet hands”—demands to stop fidgeting, flapping, stimming—reflects a goal of making Autistic people “indistinguishable from peers,” not of actually helping us. This goal is largely unattainable; even when achieved by a tiny fraction, the stress of attempting it causes long-term damage to body and self-esteem. Mel Baggs describes “burnout” from years of “faking normal”: prolonged functioning in emergency mode to appear non-Autistic can result in loss of skills and eventually a sudden, dramatic shutdown.

Stimming—hand flapping, rocking, making sounds, fidgeting with jewelry, rolling on the floor, spinning—is not meaningless behavior meant to annoy; it is essential neuroregulation. Many non-speaking and minimally-speaking Autistic people can only communicate if allowed time to stim between typing.

Poverty, Employment, and Systemic Economic Barriers

Disability and poverty are deeply intertwined. In 2013, while general U.S. Poverty fell to 14.5%, poverty among disabled people rose to 28.8%—nearly double. Unemployment among disabled people was 12.8% versus 6% general unemployment. For Autistic adults specifically, statistics are worse: only 17% of Autistic young adults (ages 21-25) live independently versus 34% with intellectual disabilities; in the UK, only 15% of Autistic adults are employed full-time and one-third have neither employment nor access to benefits.

Job support is promoted as “evidence-based,” yet often focuses on low-wage work or assumes all Autistic people should pursue tech/computer work—a damaging mythology given that many Autistic people have dyscalculia or learning disabilities unsuited to tech.

Trauma, Compliance Training, and the Roots of Distress

Many symptoms attributed to autism—affect dysregulation, anxiety, behavioral challenges—may actually be trauma from growing up Autistic in a non-accepting world. Autistic people experience both Type I trauma (single intense events like abuse) and Type II trauma (chronic lower-intensity repeated stress like daily bullying, sensory overload, or correction for natural behaviors). Compliance-based therapies, particularly ABA, intentionally break down and rebuild individuals, teaching that others’ wants matter more than personal autonomy and that resistance is futile. This “compliance training” creates victims by destroying boundary awareness and teaching learned helplessness.

Violence, Victimization, and Exploitation: Disproportionate Risks

Autistic people—especially women and those with intellectual or communication disabilities—face disproportionate rates of sexual abuse, assault, and exploitation. Research shows 49% of people with intellectual disabilities experience sexual abuse or assault 10+ times in their lifetimes; 83% of women with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted at least once; disabled people are 3+ times more likely to be assaulted than the general population. Some predators specifically target Autistic people because they’re easier to manipulate, often have weak support systems, and have been trained through compliance training to accept abuse as normal.

Autistic Parents and Invisibility: Expert Knowledge Devalued

Autistic adults who become parents—especially Autistic people parenting Autistic children—are largely invisible in discourse and support systems. Services exist for Autistic children and for non-Autistic parents of Autistic children, but supports for Autistic parents are nearly absent. Autistic mothers and fathers possess irreplaceable insider knowledge: they understand Autistic neurology from direct experience, can identify and help solve sensory processing issues, recognize stress signals, and model self-acceptance. Yet non-Autistic parents of Autistic children receive vastly more media attention and platform.

Autistic Women and Gender Diversity: Intersecting Marginalization

Autistic women are dramatically underdiagnosed due to reductionist diagnostic checklists attempting to define a monolithic “female Autistic” when none exists. Autistic women are enormously diverse: some wear makeup, some don’t; some are mathematicians, some are poets, some are both; gender and sexuality exist across the full spectrum. Gender diversity among Autistic people is significant. Autistic people are LGBTQ+ at rates equal to or possibly higher than the general population, reflecting the broader diversity of Autistic identity.

”savant Syndrome” and “splinter Skills”: Language That Dehumanizes

The term “savant” originated as “idiot savant,” describing intellectually disabled people brilliant in one narrow area. The term predicated worth on societal utility. The “autistic savant” concept is recent, largely popularized by Rain Man (Dustin Hoffman’s 1988 portrayal modeled after two non-Autistic people: Kim Peek and William Sackter). Calling someone a savant says: you are incompetent except in this one area; your value is contingent on this skill; you are a “freak,” a social outsider; those without a savant skill are not valuable. The phrase “splinter skills” similarly fragments people into “splinters” of worth and worthlessness. Instead, Autistic people have talents, abilities, and passions.

Toe-Walking, Physical Health, and Strategic Intervention

Toe-walking is common in autism and typically resolves naturally by age 5 in non-Autistic children but persists in many Autistic individuals. While it feels natural and comfortable to Autistic people, prolonged toe-walking combined with certain conditions (like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) can cause lasting physical damage—shortened tendons, chronic pain, and injury vulnerability. However, the psychological trauma from constant correction can be equally damaging. The author’s approach: pick battles carefully. Skip correcting harmless stimming like hand-flapping or toe-walking in preschoolers, but gradually work on flat-footed walking in school-age children using reasoning and explanation when possible.

Sleep Disorders and Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome

Approximately 51-87% of Autistic people struggle with sleep-wake disorders (compared to 21-29% in the general population)—Autistic people are 3+ times more likely than the general population to have these conditions. The author has Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome, where the brain’s circadian rhythm conductor (suprachiasmatic nucleus) is not properly synchronized to 24-hour cycles, resulting in free-running sleep-wake times. Standard treatments conflict with Autistic neurology: melatonin can trigger severe depression; bright light therapy is painful sensory assault for many autistics; rigid sleep schedules worsen the condition rather than help.

Autism Acceptance and Community Unity Across Marginalized Groups

Autism acceptance demands unity with the larger disability community and all marginalized people. The Autistic community is often isolated from disability advocacy, missing crucial lessons from history (Willowbrook, Pennhurst institutions; disability rights pioneers like Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann). Within the Autistic community itself, divisions persist around “Asperger’s” labels and “functioning labels,” which create hierarchies and exclude those who cannot pass as non-Autistic. The phrase “different, not disabled” is harmful because it dismisses real accommodation needs and damages community unity by erasing those who genuinely need substantial support.

Presuming Competence While Building Community Protections

True autism acceptance means presuming competence while acknowledging vulnerability and building community protections against predators. Autistic people are not incapable, but we often operate under incomplete information and have legitimate vulnerability. Competence is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Someone may excel in mathematics while struggling socially; may type intelligently with facilitation; may have fine motor skills for art but need support for handwriting. Presuming competence means providing supports without shame, listening when Autistic people say they need help, and believing them about their own experiences.

Trauma Memory, PTSD, and Yesterday Living Today

Autistic people tend to form stronger, longer-lasting memories than non-Autistic people, and many carry PTSD from growing up Autistic in an unwelcoming world. The past is not past for traumatized autistics—triggers reactivate old wounds through stress hormones that damage the nervous system. What seems like a trivial trigger to others may activate intense distress rooted in years of accumulated trauma. Autistic people need environments where they feel safe to heal, not constant pressure to “toughen up” and tolerate discomfort.

Truth-Telling, Lying, and Survival in Unsafe Worlds

The myth that Autistic people cannot lie is false—we can and do lie, though many of us struggle with it due to stress and discomfort with deception. However, repeated punishment for behaviors beyond our control drives many Autistic people to develop deception skills as survival mechanisms. When constantly corrected for natural behaviors, Autistic people may resort to masking or lying to avoid further reprimand, creating a life that feels like “one big lie” centered on avoiding trauma triggers. This compounds trauma and damages mental health.

The “x Factor” Myth: Why Spiritual and Outlier Comparisons Harm

Autistic people are often compared to famous outliers (Temple Grandin, Stephen Wiltshire, Albert Einstein, etc.) with the implication they should achieve similar success. This is cruel and dismissive—equivalent to asking a local chef why she isn’t Julia Child or expecting all Black runners to match Jesse Owens’ speed. Additionally, the “spiritual X factor” narrative—claiming Autistic people are spiritually evolved, Indigo Children, or the next stage of human evolution—is equally othering and dehumanizing. It sets unrealistic expectations, creates pressure to be superhuman, and ironically makes it harder to access accommodations.