Opinion by Emily Willingham
It’s a pleasure to have the abundance of choices available this year in selecting the best online places to read news and views about autism online. Some sites stand out as reliably respectful of autistic people and disability in general, and this year offered up some truly remarkable storytelling about the past, present, and future of autistic people.
I started writing online about autism more than 10 years ago. Even as the Internet and social media were emerging as a gathering place, accommodation and access point to others that autistic people had never had before, it also was a place where one could stumble at every turn onto the worst of the worst: People who brutalized children with false treatments falsely promised, news stories that infantilized, belittled and dehumanized autistic people and an incessant drumbeat of fear and paranoia about that monster, Autism.