Been thinking about this quote of Stephen Silberman in a paper I read early this morning:
“ The shocking levels of premature death and
suicide among people on the autism spectrum
should be a wake-up call to governments and
service providers worldwide: dramatic proof
that bullying, lack of support, inadequate
health care across the lifespan, insufficient
allocation of resources to create options
for housing and employment,
transness, autism
I love the explanations from trans autistic people of why there some correlation between someone being diagnosed with ASD and being trans.
It's like, when you're autistic, society can be quite unkind to you sometimes. Gender rules are already weird and messy and don't make a lot of sense...
So like, if there's this incongruence with you trying to be your AGAB and you feel any measure of relief by exploring a gender identity away from that, then it's kind of hard for society to deter your from transitioning. They certainly try, but you already see their rules as flawed, bullshit, and they weren't very kind to you anyways. Might as well live as your authentic self 🤷♀️
2. Probably almost every adult autist has at least suffered from PTSD for some period of time in their life. Probably very few ever get the support and resources needed to recover from that.
3. We are at greater risk of PTSD because our sensory experiences are more intense and our reactions to that are more intense.
4. That the world continues to become faster, louder, and providing relentless and multiple sources of stimulation make it harder for us to find respite and repose.
Every year I write a blog post for #InternationalWomensDay about women in folktales.
This year's theme is: Folktales about women who slay monsters! 🐉 ⚔️ 👸
People often criticize traditional stories for having "passive female characters." So, I made a list of tales and legends about women who are definitely active. In defeating dragons, ghouls, and giants.
Read it here:
http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2023/03/folktales-about-women-who-slay-monsters.html
#women #WomensDay #folklore #folktales #storytelling #GirlPower
plurality
We're still building. We think it's an important part of being human. But, we've started going about it with so much more understanding and planning than we ever did in the past.
plurality
We didn't just learn as we grew. We had to build the mental structures necessary to approach situations with wisdom and maturity. This must have been real work that took a great deal of time and energy, even if we didn't know we were doing it.
plurality, dissociation/derealization
Belle posted this somewhere else and we feel it's important enough to cross-post:
We were told that it's common for plural folks to experience some dissociation all the time, and it sort of makes sense of how so many seem to maintain denial even in the face of compelling evidence. We're not sure where this comes from, but there's a part of us that feels we're not really part of the world at all, and it's just a story or a game or a performance.
"You know portal fantasies?" my colleague says at lunch.
"When someone goes adventuring in another world?"
"Exactly! Now, why don't they write about someone from a fantasy land coming to this world?"
I think of the crimson tentacle forests of my home.
And sip my coffee. "Mhm."
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories
“The reason most public transportation is seen as ‘losing’ money is precisely because it charges for trips. If you don't charge fares, suddenly it can't ‘lose’ money. It just costs money, the same as the roads.”
This random comment has given me my new favourite argument for removing fares from public transit.
Last night the 11yo broke down the Google Slides middle school Chatroom for me:
1. At first they used a Google doc but the infinite scroll was too chaotic
2. In the slide deck each new slide is one “post”—some all text, some images, some both—
3. They use slides’ comments feature to “reply” to each other’s “posts”
4. This allows participants to easily flip between posts using the slide thumbnail navigation, so they can find the conversations they care about easily
5. He owns the file & if anyone spams it, deletes other people’s posts, or gets nasty, he can revert the file to its previous save state & remove the spammer’s access
6. He did share the file with me on purpose, I think because he was proud & wanted me to see what he’d made
Essentially they’ve created a chatroom with moderation in Google Slides, so they can get around the school’s ban on platforms like Discord. It’s kind of brilliant