Autism News, 07/03/2018

An accidental trilogy of posts about intelligence, IQ, and oppression:

• Amy Sequenzia on why the concept of intelligence is irrelevant


• David M. Perry on how IQ test results are affected by racial bias – and how, paradoxically, prosecutors in the US are using knowledge of this bias to push for more executions of people of color


• Rachel Darnall on a couple who lost custody of their children because of their low IQs 

Other posts about disability and oppression:

• Annie Segarra and Jonathan Hume on why disabled people don’t have marriage equality 


• Matt Vasilogambros on how voter suppression affects disabled Americans


• The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Alabama still keeps hundreds of mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement despite a direct court order to stop doing so


• Rebecca Cokley on the dismantling of the Americans with Disabilities Act 


• Maxfield Sparrow on the extremely high unemployment rate among college-educated autistic adults  (CN: This article might be super depressing if you are preparing to seek employment soon. :-\ )


• Washington State was considering creating forms for the process of sterilizing disabled people under guardianship; after protest from disability rights groups, including ASAN, they have decided against it.

Elizabeth Bartmess on good autistic representation in fiction: a three-part series

• Part one: Interiority 


• Part two: Diversity in autistic characteristics and demographics


• Part three: Setting, plot, and character growth

Movie and television reviews:

• The Fantastic Autistic on neurodiversity and Doctor Who


• Maxfield Sparrow reviews “Please Stand By”


• Amanda Forest Vivian also reviews “Please Stand By” 


• Sarah Pripas Kapit reviews “The A Word” 

Posts about bad parents and their memoirs of their bad parenting:

• Lydia Z.X. Brown on how frequently bad parents get the spotlight while autistic people’s rights are ignored


• Shannon des Roches Rosa on how autism parent memoirs could be helpful – and how they usually do harm instead

Other media and reviews:

• Kate Ryan reviews “Things I Should Have Known” 


• Sarah Kurchak on how autistic headcanons fill the gaps in official autistic representation.  (I have a small problem with this article, which is that Kurchak inadvertently gives the impression that there’s less official representation than there is – many of the forms of representation she describes can also be found in books and stories I’ve reviewed! – but many of those books and stories aren’t very well known, especially among non-SFF-geeks, so, eh. Anyway, that’s a minor point, and the main points of the article are very good.)


• Kathryn Hedges reviews “The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily”

On the Parkland shooting:

• The Autism Women’s Network reminds us not to speculate about the mental health of school shooters


• Jessica Banks on why arming teachers won’t make neurodivergent or black/brown students any safer

On intersections within autism:

• Sometimes people say that neurodiversity advocates have “nothing to offer” to severely disabled autistic people (even though there is plenty of overlap between those groups). Emily Paige Ballou explains what people might mean by that, and what we do offer.


• Devin S. Turk on being autistic and transmasculine


• Francine Russo on how women mask their autism

Misc:

• Shira Rubin on autism therapy robots  (There is more pathologizing language in this article than I would like, especially at first, but it also has some interesting information, especially where it lists potential problems with the robots.)


• For Black History Month, Finn Gardiner tells the story of “Blind Tom” Wiggins, who may have been an autistic savant


• Amy Sequenzia on the difference between “independent living” and real independence

New Poem: "The Sentry"

I have a new poem out, called “The Sentry”, commissioned by one of my Patreon backers. It’s about a stuffed animal belonging to a grown woman, and it is so adorable you will get cavities.

In June, “The Sentry” will become free to the public; until then, only my $5+ Patreon backers get early access. Backers at this level also get access to many reprints not available anywhere else online.

This is the first time I’ve done this particular thing, and I’m interested to see how it goes.