Who This Site Is Speaking To
We don’t write to flatter our allies or to convert our critics.
We write to name the stakes — and to hold the mirror still.
Each of the groups below has shaped the story of autism, whether they meant to or not. Some of them built platforms on it. Some turned it into a profession. Some survived it. Some are only now realizing they were part of it. But all of them — every single one — has shown up when we write.
This site speaks to each of them because their choices still shape the frame:
What gets funded. What gets shared. What gets diagnosed, dismissed, pathologized, or passed off as support.
Some will recognize themselves and keep reading.
Some will recognize themselves and close the tab.
Both are useful.
Because clarity doesn’t require agreement. It requires that we stop pretending silence is neutral.
We write this because we’ve been all of these people. Some of us still are.
So if you’re here, read your part. Then ask who taught you to call it care.
Autistic People Outside the "Neurodiversity Movement"
You’ve seen too many slogans and not enough truth. You’ve heard “different, not less” shouted over you while your actual needs went unmet — or worse, ignored because they didn’t sound empowering enough. If you’ve ever walked away from a neurodiversity panel feeling lonelier than before, you’re not the problem. The frame is.
Autism Answers Back exists because we were done waiting for someone to say it straight: not every autistic person wants to be folded into the movement built without us. Some of us don’t need inclusion. We need interruption — of the frames that write us out, the policies that call us noncompliant, the movements that flatten us into slogans. Interruption looks like this: refusing euphemism, refusing pity, refusing to translate ourselves into stories that make others feel generous. If that resonates — stay.
“I always thought it was just me — too negative, too much, too far. But this sounds like how I’ve always felt. Just said out loud.”
Disillusioned Autistic Advocates
You’ve done the work. You’ve sat in rooms where you couldn’t say what you were thinking because the coalition came first. You watched clarity get called divisive. You stayed in the tent even when the tent had a door for funders and a wall for everyone else. You sat through the breakout session while they reshaped your story into a bullet point. Then asked you to smile for the donor photo. You told yourself it was strategy. But it tasted like silence.
This space isn’t here to attack what you built. It’s here to write what couldn’t be written while you were still carrying it. We don’t need you to renounce. We just want you to exhale — and tell the truth again, like you did before you learned how to behave. There’s more than one way to do advocacy. This is one of them — and you don’t have to file it through a nonprofit.
“I spent years softening everything I wrote so I wouldn’t lose access. And I did it thinking it was strategy. But maybe it was fear.”
Critical Disability Scholars
You’ve done the reading. You know the language. But theory isn’t a refuge when you’re still citing frameworks that frame us as burden. If you call for access in your syllabi but still treat autistic cognition as a research problem to be solved, we notice. We read footnotes. We see who’s missing.
You don’t have to be perfect to be useful. But if your work can’t hold autistic ways of knowing without translation, then you’re not deconstructing power — you’re performing next to it. You can write differently. But only if you’re willing to risk being read by the people you’ve been writing about. We’ve seen it done — research that doesn’t just cite us, but starts with our framing. That’s the bar now.
“If I’m honest, I’ve cited work I don’t believe in — because it was published, because it was safe, because I needed the job.”
Neurodivergent Parents Who’ve Left ABA
You didn’t need another blog post telling you ABA was harmful. You already know. You lived the slow unraveling — the moment when you stopped seeing your child as a project to be fixed and started listening like they were a person with their own language.
We’re not here to make you feel guilty for what you didn’t know. We’re here because you trusted your kid over the experts — and that’s the beginning of real solidarity. Read alongside us. Not as a parent “ally.” As someone who chose dignity over obedience, too. The harm didn’t end when you left ABA. But neither did your role. Solidarity means listening to autistic adults — especially the ones who sound like your child.
“I used to think I failed my kid by pulling him out. But I think the real harm was staying in as long as we did.”
ND Influencers Chasing Alignment
You built something careful. Clean. Shareable. You post about systemic harm without naming systems, because you’re trying to stay fundable. You choose palatable stories over sharp ones, because deep down, you know visibility can be revoked. We know that pressure too.
But if you’re only sharing what won’t threaten your position, you’re not amplifying — you’re curating. And the people left out? They're still here. Still hurting. Still writing truth you won’t repost because it might cost you access. That’s not safety. That’s strategy. And it’s time to name it. You can change your strategy. But you’ll have to tell the truth about why it used to work.
“I don’t post the hard stuff because I know who follows me. But I know exactly which lines I’m avoiding — and why.”
Clinicians on the Fence
You didn’t go into this work to gaslight autistic people. You believed what you were taught — that behavior is data, that parents need answers, that early intervention saves lives. But somewhere along the way, you started noticing the gaps. The kids who shut down. The adults who never came back.
We’re not interested in shaming you out of the field. We’re interested in what happens when you stop pretending the system works. Read closely. Let it unsettle you. Then decide if your job is to fix autistic people — or to unlearn the frame that told you they were broken. Because how you practice influences not just outcomes, but what outcomes are even measured. This isn’t just about autistic harm. It’s about whether your profession still deserves the word “help.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the kids I ‘helped’ actually just learned to be afraid of me.”
Academic Researchers
You want to be inclusive. So you consult, you co-author, you cite a few names in the footnotes. But the study still begins with “deficits” and ends with “burden.” You know the field expects it. You also know you’ll get published if you don’t push too hard.
You say you're working with us. But if we can’t say no to the frame, it’s not participation — it’s extraction. Don’t use our names to pad your impact factor. Use your position to interrogate the design. If your methods can’t hold autistic thought without dilution, then don’t call them inclusive. Call them what they are: controlled. Because how you write about us shapes what gets funded — and what futures are even imaginable.
“I’ve said ‘participatory’ a hundred times. But I’ve never let an autistic person rewrite my study design from scratch.”
ABA Professionals and Behaviorist Networks
We know you think you're helping. We know you think you’re saving lives. But if your entire field rests on suppressing behaviors that make non-autistic people uncomfortable, then your measure of success is compliance — not well-being.
We’re not debating ethics with people who need us to sit still to be seen as human. We're not going to flatter your intentions while you defend a system built on coercion. We’re not here to reform ABA. We’re here to end it. If you're already uneasy, you're not alone. The door out is real. But the field won’t build it for you.
“If I had to do ABA in front of an audience of autistic adults, I don’t think I could do it.”
Autism Speaks–Aligned Parent Groups
You’ve been told we’re your enemy — that autistic self-advocates don’t understand your life, your exhaustion, your kid. You’ve been told to fear our voices because we don’t sound like your idea of “low-functioning.” But here’s the truth: your child deserves better than pity and behavior charts.
You say you want support. So do we. But we want it rooted in care, not control. If you're willing to unlearn the fear, there's space for you. But it won’t be at the old table — the one where autistic people were always on the menu. If you come, come ready to listen. Because how you see your child shapes what kind of world they get to grow up in.
“Everything I was taught to fear looks a lot like the kid I’m trying to love.”
ND Establishment Orgs (ASAN, AWN, Etc.)
You had your moment. You pushed doors open. You made space. But then you started policing tone, managing dissent, deciding which autistic voices were “representative.” You traded narrative sovereignty for nonprofit credibility — and we noticed.
We’re not here to take your place. We’re here because you left a gap where the unpalatable truths should’ve been. You don’t have to like what we write. But you will have to reckon with it. Because we’re not asking for a seat at your table. We’re building our own. You can come back. But not as gatekeepers. Come ready to name what the long game cost.
“We told ourselves we were playing the long game. But somewhere in there, we stopped telling the truth.”
Deficit-Framed Career Researchers
You built your careers on frameworks that pathologized us. You operationalized our speech as “nonnormative output,” our joy as “perseveration,” our boundaries as “behavior.” You turned autistic childhood into a site of intervention, not inquiry. And for decades, the system rewarded you for it — with funding, tenure, citations, and deference. Now the language is shifting, and some of you are co-authoring papers with softer terms. But the logic remains. You are not being silenced. You are being read back.
This isn’t a call-out. It’s a call to reckon — not with tone, but with epistemic responsibility. You shaped the lens through which institutions understand autistic life. That means you owe more than a pivot. You owe reflection. Refusal. Repair. If your latest paper uses “neurodivergent” while still measuring burden, we’re not fooled. If you cite autistic co-authors but never give them framing power, that’s not participation — it’s narrative laundering. You had power. You still do. The question is whether you will use it to protect your legacy or to tell the truth about what it cost.
“If I had to start over today, I don’t think my work would get funded without changing. And that scares me more than it should.”
If You Stayed
We’re not here to be legible. We’re here to be heard.
What we’re naming isn’t just bias. It’s a system of frames — of euphemism dressed as care, of silence rewarded as neutrality.
If you read this and stayed — even in discomfort — then you’re already closer to the work than you were before.
That’s not purity. That’s responsibility.