Embedded Files
Autism Hub Buttons
There were several different button designs used to declare that you were a member of the Autism Hub blogosphere. Artist unknown.
[Image description: From left to right, a button with a white background and an indigo blue gradient. There is blue indigo text that says "Autism Hub" and white text below it that says "blogger", with a near identical button next to it that says "Autism Hub Autism Blogs". Another button with a dark blue top half and an orange button half, with "Autism Hub" in white text and "member bloggers" in dark blue text. A near identical button next to it says "Autism Hub Autism Blogs". There is a smaller, thinner button that says "The Autism Hub", "The" being blue text with an orange background and "Autism Hub" in white text with a dark blue background. There is a gray rectangle with two V shapes, one dark pink and one lighter pink, with "AutismHub" next to it, Autism in light pink, and Hub in dark pink. There is another gray rectangle with a green gear with a tiny dot in the center and the words "Autism Hub" in black and in all caps.]
Autistic Pride Greeting Cards
Autistics.org had greeting cards. You could email them to a friend in celebration of Autistic Pride Day. Greeting cards were very common in the early days of the internet. Artist(s) unknown.
Content note: Use of Asperger's and Aspie
Autistic Liberation Front Buttons
On Autistics.org, there were buttons for sale. They had various sayings on it, including "Autistic Liberation Front" and "I am not a puzzle. I am a person".
Autistic Liberation Front was an idea taken from Gay Liberation Front. It was never an organization or website. Showing that button signified your commitment to liberation of autistic people. This is the earliest instance of objection to the puzzle piece as a symbol for autism that I have found.
The third button to the right is referencing the Autism Society of America. The Autism Society of America is an organization. They were not started by autistic people. It features their infamous puzzle piece ribbon for Autism Awareness. The Autism Society of America designed this ribbon.
The Real Meaning of "Autism Prevention"
Content Note: Blood, gore, eugenics, obscene imagery
A user on Autistics.org made a graphic that meant to show what autism prevention would mean in practice. The graphic is also a play on words. The trash can has a double meaning, referring to both a trash can and the acronym for Cure Autism Now. Cure Autism Now was an organization. They wanted to find a cure for autism. They later became part of Autism Speaks. Artist unknown.
Curebie Bingo by Mel Baggs
Mel made Bingo cards that have several phrases that curebies often say. Curebies are people who want to cure autism. Mel defined them as
"a person who wants nothing more than to teach child autistics to speak and adult autistics to shut up".
Sie made three different versions. I only found two. There is a version for non-autistic curebies. There is also a version for autistic people who support a cure.
Seclusion meme
Content note: Seclusion
A user on an Autism Hub blog made this graphic. It was a dark humor joke about seclusion. Seclusion is when someone gets locked in a room for misbehaving. A teacher or caregiver defines when it is misbehavior. It happens to autistic people often. It also happens often to people with other disabilities too. I found this on the Autism Diva blog. Artist unknown.
How Many Researchers See Autistics
Camille made this graphic as a metaphor. It was a metaphor about how researchers treat autistic people. They often treat them like lab rats. One example of this is the American Psychological Association (APA).
Katie McCaron Tribute
Content note: Filicide
Katie McCarron is an autistic girl who was murdered by her caregivers in 2006. A user on an Autism Hub blog made this graphic to honor her life. Artist unknown.
Autistic Adults Picture Project
Two people started a website. Their names are Janet Norman-Bain and Camille Clark. Janet is a non-autistic parent. Camille is autistic. It hosted the pictures and profiles of several autistic adults. This was a way to show that autistic adults existed. Many people thought autism was something only present in childhood. Many autistic people are in this gallery. This includes prominent advocates such as
Savannah Logsdon-Breakstone,
Phil Schwarz,
Kassiane Asasumasu,
and Mel Baggs. The website can be found here: http://www.planetautism.com/AuSpin/a2p2.htm
Aspies For Freedom user Amy Nelson wrote a statement on November 16th, 2004. She asked that the United Nations declare Autistic people a minority group. It was not a successful campaign, but it is still a fascinating little piece of autistic history.
Something About Us was a twenty minute documentary by Dinah Murray and Jes Benstock. They worked with Autistic Self-Advocacy Network on it. It showed the positive aspects of being autistic. This was in contrast with how popular media portrayed autistic people.
Unmasking the Face is a game created by Kathleen Seidel. It takes after Paul Ekman's book on nonverbal communication of the same name. You can play it in the link above.
Second Life is a multi-user virtual reality game from the late 90s. Several disability communities gathered on Second Life. It was beneficial for many of them. This article in the link above gives a rundown of what those interactions were like. More info can be found here.
Amy Nelson of Aspies For Freedom created several banners to use that are related to Autistic Pride and neurodiversity. Many of them can be found in the link above.
Alt.support.autism was an email list. An email list is a group that all gets the same emails. Alt.support.autism was active in the early 2000s. It had had a website with general guidelines and frequently asked questions. It also has general information about autism and several resources.
This is a New York Times article from 2004 that talks about neurodiversity. It mentions the Autistic Adults Picture Project.
This is an article from The Guardian. Emine Saur published it in 2007. It mentions Aspies for Freedom and Jim Sinclair's Don't Mourn for Us.
Harvey Blume was an author from the New York Times. The New York Times is a news website. He wrote an article in 1997. It discusses the ways autistic people communicated with one another through e-mail forums. He wrote a lot about InLv in particular.
This is an article by Andrew Solomon. It is from New York Magazine. The article talks about
The Ransom Notes Campaign
Kathleen Seidel's Neurodiversity.com
WrongPlanet
ABA
Temple Grandin
Jim Sinclair
The "Autism Wars"
There is some outdated language.
Autism site buttons
MAAP Archive
More Abled Autistic People (MAAP) was an organization. It was started by parents of autistic people labeled "high functioning". This means their kids are able to fit into society with little accommodation. It is a functioning label. Functioning labels are not supported by the Neurodiversity Movement. Their archived site features letters to their director, Susan Moreno. Some of them are from autistic people. The letters and responses were given different sections depending on the topic. One of them was "The Autistic Adult". Another was "Living with HFA/Asperger's/PDD from the inside". It includes some of the oldest content uncovered for the archive.
Language of Us/Them is a poem. It describes the way autistic people often behave. It compares it to how neurotypical people behave. The way autsitic people behave is considered bad. The way neurotypical people play is considered good. It's supposed to show how there is a different standard given depending on the type of brain.
Allism or allistic is a term used often in autistic spaces to describe someone who is not autistic. This is the first use of the term. It is a parody of how autism is often described by professionals.
This is an article from Telegraph UK from 2005 that mentions the Autistic Liberation Front
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