Protected: Stimming
Things I don’t want to hear from allistics: The autism representation was good.
Good representation to me is accurate representation that does not reinforce harmful stereotypes or ideas about a group of people. There is probably more to good representation than this but when I consider if I am well represented this is what I think of.
Recently there has been lots of talk about representation of autistic people in Atypical. Many autists feel the representation is mixed, with elements that they relate to and other parts that are literally taken from the DSM. Other people feel that the representation is just awful and others feel more positive about it. It should be expected that there will be a range of opinions among autistic people and I think that is fine. We are not a monolith, we are not a hive mind, we are individuals with individual experiences of autism that will inevitably be impacted on by our other identities.
I think that sometimes things can be accurate but uncomfortable. Atypical is about a white male autist who wants to find someone to have sex with. Many autists have raised concerns about the misogyny in Atypical and the way that autism is used to excuse abusive behaviour. We know that there are male autists who are misogynistic, and we know that there are people who hide behind their autism and use it to excuse their behaviour. So if Atypical is about a misogynistic autistic man I would say that is pretty accurate rep.
The issue for me is not about it being accurate but about this being the story that Netflix chose to tell. BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnic) autistic people are almost never represented. I know from my day job the additional barriers to getting diagnosed that BAME autists face. It would have been wonderful if Netflix had decided to make a show about a BAME autistic person. We know that there is a misconception that only boys can be autistic. Imagine the impact of portraying an autistic girl. I don’t have stats but I’m pretty sure there is a higher proportion of non-binary and binary trans people in the autistic community but we never see them on television. There are white autistic men who are not abusive and misogynistic and they need representation too. There is no positive representation of them either and Atypical doesn’t change that.
If an autistic writer and director got together and decided to make a critical show about the misogyny in autistic communities, I would be behind that 100%. It would be uncomfortable viewing for many reasons but it would be valuable to the community. This is an issue we need to address. But that isn’t what Atypical is.
So representation is complex. I can’t write that Atypical is bad representation of autism nor that it is good. I can say that I think there are elements they got right and other elements that just reinforce stereotypes. I can say that there is ableism that they never addressed (perhaps not meaning to present it as ableism) and that allistics have clearly not picked up on this ableism.
These conversations, around representation of autistic people, should be had among autistic people. I am absolutely here for autistic people who say they identified with the main character in Atypical (as long as it’s not his abusive behaviour they identify with). I identify with Sheldon Cooper to an extent and he is all kinds of problematic. I reluctantly support parents of autistic people who feel represented by the show. I say reluctantly because a show about autism should not centre family members and if there was a show to be made for families of autists it should be made by autists and used to challenge the ableism within families. What I’m not here for is allistic people saying that it’s good representation of autism.
If the autistic community can’t agree that Atypical is or isn’t good representation, what makes allistic people think they are qualified to decide? It takes all kinds of privilege and arrogance to think that you can speak for a group to which you don’t belong. Many of the allistics I have found on Twitter claiming it is good representation do not seem to have any connection to autistic people and I can only conclude that what they mean is that their knowledge of autism is based on stereotypes and that because atypical portrays autism in the stereotypical way that they are used to they believe it to be accurate.
WriteDis Questions
- Introduce yourself! What’s your name? Are you disabled? What do you write?
- What are you working on at the moment? Does it have disabled characters?
- How long have you been writing for? What point are you at in your career? (Published, querying, still working on your first WIP?)
- Do your impairments make writing more difficult?
- Do you write/have you written disabled characters? Why or why not?
- Do you think disabled characters are more difficult to write?
- What do you do to make sure that your representation isn’t harmful?
- Disabled people-What do you want abled people to know before they write a disabled character? Abled people-any questions for disabled people?
- Is there anything in regard to disability that you think should never be written?
- How do you research impairments you don’t have? Any good resources?
- What disabilities would you like to see more representation of?
- Do you use any tools for writing that disabled (and abled) writers might benefit from?
- Are you a member of any writing groups? Are they accessible? Share good and bad experiences so that we can all learn how to make our events more accessible.
- Have you attended writing conferences? What made them accessible/inaccessible?
- Do you think the online writing community is inclusive of disabled people? What can we do to make it more accessible?
- As a disabled writing community what can we do to be more intersectional?
- Tell us about one of your disabled characters.
- Share a line from your WIP about disability
- Where do you write? How often do you write?
- Do you think the publishing industry is accessible to disabled writers? Is there anything you’ve struggled with because of your disability?
- What do you think agents and publishes can do to make the industry more inclusive of disabled people?
- What can we do to support disabled writers?
- Have you published anything with a disabled character? If not, any recommendations of books with good rep? Share links!
- Tell us about one of your disabled characters.
- Have you made any mistake when writing disability? What did you learn from them?
- Are there any disabled characters that you think are particularly under represented in fiction?
- What can non-disabled writers do to be good allies to disabled writers? What can disabled writers do to be better allies to disabled writers who have other marginalised identities too?
- How can we make our books more accessible to disabled readers?
- If someone has written/published harmful representation of disabled characters, what can they do to make amends?
- Share something positive about writing and disability- a positive experience in the writing community or industry, a book with great rep, an inclusive writing event.
- Have you learned anything from WriteDis that you want to share?
WriteDis Guidelines
WriteDis is due to start on Twitter on 1 March 2017. It will be a month long discussion on disability and writing. I will post a question every day and you are invited to respond to that question using #WriteDis. If you are new to Twitter chats and don’t understand how it works, just ask me. Questions will also be available in advance.
In order to make WriteDis as inclusive as possible, there are a few guidelines.
- WriteDis is for anyone who wants to discuss disability and writing. You do not have to be disabled to join.
- If you are disabled, you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. Share as much or as little as you are comfortable with.
- Don’t assume that someone is not disabled just because they don’t say that they are.
- Disabled people can identify however they want. Abled people should avoid using terms like differently abled, handicapped, handicapable, and special needs. Please keep in mind that generally disabled people prefer identity first language (disabled person, autistic person, deaf person, etc).
- I hope that this event will provide education for all of us. However, disabled people are not under any obligation to answer questions. If you do have questions about disability, you can use the hashtag to ask them but do not harass specific people.
- People are experts on their own experience. If a marginalised person says that something is harmful and you are not part of that marginalised group, accept what they say, do not argue.
- Be respectful. Remember that everyone is at different stages of learning.
- Try to promote the most marginalised voices in our community.
- I want this event to be inclusive. If anything is not accessible, please let me know. If anything is not inclusive, again let me know.
I hope that you will join me on 1 March for #WriteDis. You can follow us on Twitter @WriteDis
Brooke Winters 