How Do I Cope with Anti-Autistic Bias?

Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can submit questions or suggest future entries in the series <a href="https://drdemonprince.tumblr.com/ask" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">via my Tumblr ask box, linked here</a>. <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/drdemonprince/723304963803103232/readinghearing-about-the-research-around" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Today’s question</a> comes from Tumblr user <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/localpussyboy" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">localpussyboy</a>, who is concerned by the research showing that non-Autistic people have a reflexive dislike of Autistics, even (or especially) when we are trying to mask our Autistic traits: <img alt="Reading/hearing about the research around neurotypical’s biases towards autistic people even when we mask makes me pessimistic and disheartened about meeting new people honestly, like I can’t take the thought that I’m playing with the cards stacked against me. Do you experience this? if so, how do you cope with it?" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:522/1*rVjJidaWSynbAwoVy6OouQ.png" style="height:335px; width:652px" /> Localpussyboy (what a joy to get to write that in a column), I so relate to the concerns you are describing. I have often been preoccupied with worries that the people I meet won’t appreciate the real me, they’ll only see the ways in which my Autistic traits and mannerisms mark me as the “other” — and that no matter how hard I strive to speak the language of the neuro-conforming, I’ll have lost people’s interest before I even try. <a href="https://medium.com/autistic-advice/how-do-i-cope-with-anti-autistic-bias-5c42d9481c7b">Visit Now</a>