Monthly Archives: April 2019

"You Do You": You do you,/Even if it's blue,/Even if it's green,/Go ahead & be seen./Want to wear yellow,/Awesome, my fellow!/Or maybe red, instead./Feeling BOLD? Go gold!/To make them go woah!/Embrace the Rainbow./You do you. —Patricia George-Zwicker Editor, Autistics Aloud

Blue and Red: Shaming in April #ActuallyAutistic

So, this past week I was in Ottawa, at the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance Leadership Summit (as those of you who follow me on Twitter probably already know!). Unlike the previous two years (though I didn’t write any blog posts for the 2017 summit), I wasn’t speaking at a panel, but I still wanted to go for the contacts and to meet new autistic advocates (there were thirty-four who expressed interest this year, as CASDA received a grant specifically to invite those with first person lived experience, and they had keynote speakers each day with lived experience).

Now, I say that up front… because this isn’t the post about the summit. (That’s coming later.) This is about something else, that got raised in a panel and in talking to one of my close friends (Patricia) the first day of the summit (which happened to be April 2nd – yes, that’s on purpose).

Every year in April, since I first started learning about Light It Up Blue and Autism Speaks, I have consciously chosen to not wear blue (unless I’m going to be at home all day). I have encouraged friends and relatives to not wear blue on April 2nd (and preferably wear red or taupe instead). And that is my personal choice.

Read on about the problems with shaming.