We aren’t your scapegoats. End of story.

Chavisory chavisory.wordpress.com I am oh so glad to see the anti-vaccination movement finally seeing some serious public blowback, and very, very sorry that it has taken a lot of sick kids to do it. And alternately thankful at writing like this (Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism, But That’s Not the Point. Stop Being Ableist.) being all over my Facebook feed, and ambivalent about some of its logic. (It is still well worth reading.) If vaccines caused autism, even in some tiny percentage of vaccinated children, then whether the tradeoffs were worth the risk might be an ethical discussion worth having. (In which I would still give a hell of a lot of weight to “Measles encephalitis will straight up kill you, autism won’t.”) But it isn’t. Vaccines don’t cause autism, period. A hypothetical situation: If there were some form of medical treatment that carried a risk of turning me non-autistic, I…

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Why Acceptance Versus Awareness?

Photo © Danny Hope | Creative Commons / Flickr [image: Small blue flag with lighter blue text reading, “YAY!”]   Richard Davis I see lots of campaigns to raise “awareness,” but very few to raise “acceptance.” Some issues you may just want to raise awareness about, like signs and symptoms of certain diseases, when to see a doctor, etc. When people become “aware” of something, it is not an act or a choice. They just get information and become “aware” of it. “Acceptance,” on the other hand, is more personal. People may be “aware” of autism, but may not be “accepting” of Autistic people for who they are (hence, assuming the need to “cure” them). People may be “aware” of LGBT/Queer people, but they may not “accept” them, especially being “openly gay” in public spaces. (Guess how many times I’ve been called a ‘faggot’ just for holding hands on a date??) “Acceptance” involves a…