Websites
Autistics.org
The first known website that was by and for autistic people for the purpose of discussing autism politics is known as autistics.org. The website was up between the years 1998 and 2011. Though Autistics.org is no longer available, most of the website’s contents can still be accessed via webarchive. Their forums and the connected IRC channel #AutFriends are not publicly accessible. Many prominent autistic advocates got their start here. Autistics.org was run by Laura Tisoncik, also known online as Muskie, as well as Mel Baggs. The Autism Information Library was an important feature of this website, and is an archive in and of itself. You can learn more about the story of autistics.org via the online textbook Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement, released in 2019 here
You can access most of what was in the final iteration of Autistics.org before its servers went down here. You can find an older version of the site here.
#AutFriends can be found here
Blogs
We Still Need to Fight Eugenics
Autism Positivity Day Flash Blog
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a social media platform. It is still around today, but it is rarely used. MySpace is like this too. There were many autistic people who used to gather on LiveJournal. They talked about a range of different topics surrounding neurodiversity. Below are some of the users and journals where users participated.
Profiles
Reports from a Resident Alien (2005-2017)
(later moved to Wordpress)
Journal Entries
Obnoxious Puzzle Symbol (May 18th, 2006)
Grrrr (October 19th, 2006)
Autistic Pride (May 5th, 2007)
Communities
Other archives
Autistic Archive is specifically an archive of Autistic Communities and the Neurodiversity Movement. It is not the only archive of this work out there and there are other archives that cover topics that this one does not that are well worth your time.
Last updated in 2008. Some of it covers the Neurodiversity Movement, but it also has more general autism information.
International Badass Activists
Has a heavy focus on the NT-led autism organizations and the anti-vaxxer movement. It also has a working timeline.
Riah’s Weird Journey: Autism & Race
Specifically archives and lists resources for Black and Brown Autistic people. While I try my best to include their work in my archive, it will never be as authentic as one that is curated by an Autistic person of color.
Covers a mixture of the parent, professional, and quackery side of things and the autistic side of things. The layout is also not the same as mine, and you may find the way this user does it appealing.
Focused on the disability community as a whole and has some stuff about autism. Much of the writing is applicable to neurodiversity, even if it’s not directly related.
Similarly to Mouth Mag, A Ragged Edge focuses on the wider disability community rather than just autism and neurodiversity.
Autistic History Month was observed in 2013, 2016, and 2017 during November. People wrote about autistic culture and shared things.
related to the Neurodiversity Movement's history.
Content note: ABA, Restraint, Aversives, Seclusion, Abuse
CIBRA was a collective founded by parents of autistic children who were abused and traumatized by practitioners of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). They wanted to expose the abuse autistic children faced (and still face) on a daily basis with personal accounts of what was witnessed in sessions. They had two different divisions: the Autism Division, which dealt with abuses happening in autism interventions, and the Mental Health Division, which dealt with abuse that took place at psychiatric treatment facilities to autistic and non-autistic people alike. Their website went up in late 1999 and their servers closed in 2015. It is still available via webarchive.
Content note: Abuse
The Autism Truth and Justice Commission was a website made to document cases of abuse and bullying of autistic people around the world and propose practical solutions. They were part of Autistic.org's network. Their servers went up in 2000 and down in 2005.
An autistic adult named Frank Klein had a website up that contained his articles, editorials, and "questionable attempts at humor". The site was up from 2001 to 2009.
Survey of Autism was a website made with the intention of surveying autistic people and their family members to see which traits of autism as described in the DSM-IV were most common among respondents as well as the perceived traits of autistic people by their family members. The servers were up from 2003 to 2016.
Content note: Asperger's
Aspies For Freedom was a forum by and for autistic people that opposed attempts at curing for autism and advocates for autism acceptance. They were the first ones to come up with Autistic Pride Day, which has been observed in June 18th every year since 2005. This is the earliest instance of the rainbow infinity symbol used in the context of autism that has been found so far. They have an instant messaging channel known as ChatAutism , which is still active to this day. There is some outdated language on their site, and Aspies For Freedom has not been considered relevant for a while, despite still being a website with servers up and active users. Their earliest home page can be found above. Their current website can be found at http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/.
Content note: Asperger's, ABA
Oddizms was a website that featured various writings about autism on Geocities. It linked to other peoples' blogs as well.
alt.support.autism was a Usenet group many people used to discuss autism in the late 90s and the 2000s. It was used by autistic people as well as parents, and contains use of Asperger's as well as parents looking for ABA services.
Content note: Asperger's
This is the old website of Liane Holliday Wiley, and autistic woman and mother. It includes articles that give advice for parents of autistic kids as well as information about herself. It gives an impression of how web design has evolved, as the webpage's design changes as you advance through the years on the Wayback Machine.
InLv
InLv, short for Independent Living, was an email list by and for autistic people created by Martijn Dekker. It was also a webpage. There is a whole chapter about it in Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement here. The links to the websites of same name can be found below.
Autinet was a free, unmoderated electronic list that mainly focused on what was then known as Asperger's. The list was owned by Peter Wise.
Autistic people are involved in autism research. Not quite as many as there are non-autistic autism researchers, but enough for it to matter. They research a number of topics often overlooked in autism research. Click the link above to learn more.
Geek Club Books was a non-profit founded by Jodi Murphy dedicated to telling the stories of autistic people. They published Zoom Autism Magazine, which is currently being rebranded. You can see all current issues of Zoom here. Geek Club Books started in 2011 and closed in 2021.
Autistic Culture was a website that contained information about the autistic community and Neurodiversity Movement. It was maintained by Amy Nelson of Aspies for Freedom. It contains some dated language
Aspergers Syndrome Info and Features (AS-IF) was a website maintained by someone named Suz. It hosted a number of information about autism. There is some dated language, including the use of Asperger's.
Celebrate Autism Now was maintained by Amy Nelson. It includes profiles of autistic people seen as role models. The name itself is a parody of Cure Autism Now.
Richard Hudson's Autism Corner was a website from GeoCities. It was the personal webpage for a man named Richard Hudson. It includes links to other websites autism and disability related.
Autism 101 contains resources for newly diagnosed autistic people and people who think they may be autistic.
BRAIN.HE is short for Best Resources for Achievement and Intervention re Neurodiversity in Higher Education. It was a London-based nonprofit website funded by London School of Economics' Neurodiversity Team and the LSE annual fund.
i-autistic is the website for Eric Y. Chen. It includes his personal writing and art.
Aspies e.V. was an autistic-run self-help organization based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 2002. They are still active. You can find their current website here.
Autism Memorial is a blog that documents the murder of autistic people-be it malpractice, lack of resource or support, or outright murder.
Phil's World was a website ran by an autistic person named Phil who lived in Australia. It included personal essays and most notably, the Phil's World ASD Awards. The categories were GAP: Great ASD Parent, GAA: Great ASD Adult, GMP: Great Medical Professional, HAP: Horrid ASD Parent, HAA: Horrid ASD Adult, and HMP: Horrid Medical Professional.
Autism Against Fascism was a website started in 2020 to stop fascism in the autism community. It included guides on fascism and how how stop fascism in autistic spaces. Most of their site was in plain language.