מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

I think I found my new favorite rabbit hole. This voice actor does Shakespeare scenes in a southern accent and I need to see the whole damn play. Absolutely beautiful

if you're not from the us american south, there's some amazing nuances to this you may have missed. i can't really describe all of them, because i've lived here my whole life and a lot of the body language is sort of a native tongue thing. the body language is its own language, and i am not so great at teaching language. i do know i instinctively sucked on my lower teeth at the same time as he did, and when he scratched the side of his face, i was ready to take up fucking arms with him.

but y'all. the way he said "brutus is an honourable man" - each and every time it changed just a little. it was the full condemnation Shakespeare wanted it to be. it started off slightly mock sincere. barely trying to cover the sarcasm. by the end...it wasn't a threat, it was a promise.

christ, he's good.

the eliding of “you all” to “y’all” while still maintaining 2 syllables is a deliberate and brilliant act of violence. “bear with me” said exactly like i’ve heard it at every funeral. the choices of breaking and re-establishing of eye contact. the balance of rehearsed and improvised tone. A+++ get this man a hollywood contract.

Get this man a starring role as Marc Antony in a southern adaptation of this show PLEASE.

This man is fantastic. 💕

The thing that just destroys me about this, though -- we think of Shakespearean language as being high-cultured, and intellectual, and somewhat inaccessible. And I know people think of Southerners as being ill-educated (which...let's be fair, most are, but not the way it's said). But that whole speech, unaltered, is so authentically Southern. And the thing is: Leaning into that language really amps the mood, in metalanguage. I'm not really sure how to explain it except... like... "Thrice" is not a word you hear in common speech...unless you're in the South and someone is trying to Make A Fucking Point.

Anyway. This was amazing and I want a revival of Shakespeare As Southern Gothic.

One of the lovely things about this, and one of the reasons it works so well, is that from what we can piece together of how Shakespeare was originally pronounced, it leans more towards an American southern accent than it does towards a modern British RP.

In addition, in the evolution of the English language in america, the south has retained many of the words, expressions, and cadences from the Renaissance/Elizabethan English spoken by the original British colonists.

One of the biggest examples of this is that the south still uses “O!”/“Oh!” In sentences, especially in multi-tone and multi-syllable varieties. We’ve lost that in other parts of the country (except in some specific pocket communities). But in the south on the whole? Still there. People in California or Chicago don’t generally say things like “why, oh why?” Or “oh bless your heart” or “Oh! Now why you gotta do a thing like that?!” But people from the south still do.

I teach, direct, and dramaturg Shakespeare for a living. When people are struggling with the “heightened” language, especially in “O” heavy plays like R&J and Hamlet, a frequent exercise I have them do is to run the scene once in a southern accent. You wouldn’t believe the way it opens them up and gives their contemporary brains an insight into ways to use that language without it being stiff and fake. Do the Balcony scene in a southern accent- you’ll never see it the same way again.

This guy is also doing two things that are absolutely spot-on for this speech:

First, he’s using the rhetorical figures Shakespeare gave him! The repetition of “ambition” and “Brutus is an honorable man”, the logos with which he presents his argument, the use of juxtaposition and antitheses (“poor have cried/caesar hath wept”, etc). You would not believe how many RADA/Carnegie/LAMDA/Yale trained actors blow past those, and how much of my career I spend pointing it out and making them put it back in.

Second, he’s playing the situation of the speech and character exactly right. This speech is hard not just because it’s famous, but because linguistically and rhetorically it’s a better speech than Brutus’ speech and in the context of the play, Brutus is the one who is considered a great orator. Brutus’ speech is fiery passion and grandstanding, working the crowd, etc. Anthony is not a man of speeches (“I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man”) His toastmaster skills are not what Brutus’ are, but he speaks from his heart (his turn into verse in this scene from Brutus’ prose is brilliant) and lays out such a reasonable, logical argument that the people are moved anyway. I completely believe that in this guy’s performance. A plain, blunt, honest speaker. Exactly what Anthony should be.

TLDR: Shakespeare is my job and this is 100% a good take on this speech.

definitely one of the challenges I have with reading Shakespeare is that it sounds so weird to me. “The good is oft interr’d with their bones”?? Who talks like that?

Well,,, rednecks. Despite being Elizabethan English, none of this is really out of character for a man with that accent; southern american English has retained not only (I am told) the accent of Shakespeare, and the “Oh!” speech patterns, but also so many of the little linguistic patterns: parenthetic repetition (“so are they all - all honorable men”), speaking formally when deeply emotional, getting more and more sarcastic and passive-aggressive as time goes on, etc.

@sawasawako

@notajerusalemcricket

reblogging just so i can find it tomorrow

detransitioning stories that don’t need more publicity:

detransitioning stories that need to be boosted:

terfs prey on detransitioning people. detransitioning people are at great risk of getting sucked into terf echo chambers. we trans people need to support detransitioning people because they are not our enemies. the trauma of heteronormative gender roles can be difficult to tease apart from dysphoria, and we need to be sensitive to our fellow humans who just want to feel comfortable in their skin. we need to make it okay for people to change their identities, and try out identities to see if they work.

fearmongering directed at young trans people like “make sure you’re REALLY trans before you [medically] transition, because if you’re not it will give you dysphoria” introduces social pressure to prove to other trans people that you’re really trans, which actually increases the likelihood that a person will transition and regret it. because you’re holding validation of their current identity hostage. if someone eventually detransitions, you shouldn’t add to their trauma later by now giving them an inner “i told you so, you weren’t really trans” voice.

The fuck this las bit on bout?

How does tellin trans kids to not go on t or hrt until they’re sure they’re trans pushin them to medically transition? That’s deadass the exact opposite of what that does or at least what the goal is. Should we instead tell every 15 year old that started to socially transition last month to just go on hrt? What kinda anti educational bullshit is this? If a few assholes wanna take a common sense statement that is said to protect newly transitioned folk in what can be a confusin time an take it as a challenge then that on them. This is the equivalent of someone tellin a 15 year old that they ain’t ready to drive on their own yet then sayin that it’s that persons fault when some kid decides to prove that he can an crashes.

No one should take any kind of MEDICATION unless they are 100%, without a doubt sure they need it. If that means waitin a year or two, seein a therapist, or experimentin with your identity then that’s great. It’s healthy. It has absolutely nothin to do with bein a “real” trans person or not. It has to do with long term physical an mental health.

i guarantee that people who realized that hormones were wrong for them had already been told “don’t transition unless you’re absolutely sure it’s the right choice” by multiple people. it is dismissive and doesn’t help anyone make the right choice.

we need to build a world where people are not demonized for changing their bodies and realizing that the change was wrong for them. we need to build a world where people can honestly tell their doctors “I’m not sure about hormones but I’d like to try” without the doctor judging it as conclusive evidence that the person would not benefit from hormones.

very very few trans people who medically transition and determine it was the right choice were 100% certain it was the correct decision at the time. because we live in a transphobic society that regards any sliver of fear or doubt as invalidating the possibility of a non-cis existence.

demanding absolute certainty and punishing mistakes is not how you build a world where everyone whose life is improved by medical transition can access it.

I’ve been thinking about this more and i have more to say. (reblogging myself because the person above doesn’t want further contact from me. this is not a response to that person.)

to give a more concrete example: i wasn’t 100% certain that being on testosterone was right for me until after I’d been on it for a while and resolved my very painful cystic acne. i was very lucky in that stopping testosterone was an option for me that didn’t cut off future access. most people do not have the ability to stop or be uncertain about hormones without their provider deciding that it means they don’t really “need” hormones.

if social validation of one’s discomfort with their pre-transition existence is held hostage like that, it takes much longer for someone to realize it if hormones turn out to be wrong for them. when i say punishing mistakes, i mean adding on to someone’s distress when they realize that transition was wrong for them by giving them an internal “i told you so.”

it doesn’t help people get their needs met to claim that absolute certainty is required before starting hormones. it’s an impossibly high bar for most people, and it creates social pressure to deny any doubt, which actually makes it harder to realize if hormones were wrong for them. it backfires, regardless of your good intentions.

i think I’ve met literally one trans person who was 100% certain about hormones before receiving them. and countless other trans people who were a little unsure about hormones when they started but became certain after starting. it’s typical to worry whether you’re making the right decision whenever you start a medication or otherwise make a big change in your life!!

hormone providers (and anyone) who divide the world neatly into “absolutely certain about wanting hormones” and “doesn’t ‘need’ hormones” help create a society where most people who would benefit from hormones can’t get them without lying, and where people who do detransition feel worse about themselves.

Doctors and other providers are even adopting these ideas. I thought procedures that would fall under “detransition” were completely off the table for me when they’re not, and my doctor even told me that the language in informed consent models and the like to access care are changing to accommodate the spectrum of identities to provide better gender care.

Doing all these things that op explained helps everybody! I wouldn’t even know about what I just mentioned if a bunch of people in my community hadn’t unanimously told me to ask my doctor about it, even though no one was really even sure what the standards were for care in that regard. It’s been encouraging for me as a person who still considers themself to be trans, and I’m sure it would be much the same for someone who figures out they were cis all along.

detransitioning stories that don’t need more publicity:

detransitioning stories that need to be boosted:

terfs prey on detransitioning people. detransitioning people are at great risk of getting sucked into terf echo chambers. we trans people need to support detransitioning people because they are not our enemies. the trauma of heteronormative gender roles can be difficult to tease apart from dysphoria, and we need to be sensitive to our fellow humans who just want to feel comfortable in their skin. we need to make it okay for people to change their identities, and try out identities to see if they work.

fearmongering directed at young trans people like “make sure you’re REALLY trans before you [medically] transition, because if you’re not it will give you dysphoria” introduces social pressure to prove to other trans people that you’re really trans, which actually increases the likelihood that a person will transition and regret it. because you’re holding validation of their current identity hostage. if someone eventually detransitions, you shouldn’t add to their trauma later by now giving them an inner “i told you so, you weren’t really trans” voice.

The fuck this las bit on bout?

How does tellin trans kids to not go on t or hrt until they’re sure they’re trans pushin them to medically transition? That’s deadass the exact opposite of what that does or at least what the goal is. Should we instead tell every 15 year old that started to socially transition last month to just go on hrt? What kinda anti educational bullshit is this? If a few assholes wanna take a common sense statement that is said to protect newly transitioned folk in what can be a confusin time an take it as a challenge then that on them. This is the equivalent of someone tellin a 15 year old that they ain’t ready to drive on their own yet then sayin that it’s that persons fault when some kid decides to prove that he can an crashes.

No one should take any kind of MEDICATION unless they are 100%, without a doubt sure they need it. If that means waitin a year or two, seein a therapist, or experimentin with your identity then that’s great. It’s healthy. It has absolutely nothin to do with bein a “real” trans person or not. It has to do with long term physical an mental health.

i guarantee that people who realized that hormones were wrong for them had already been told “don’t transition unless you’re absolutely sure it’s the right choice” by multiple people. it is dismissive and doesn’t help anyone make the right choice.

we need to build a world where people are not demonized for changing their bodies and realizing that the change was wrong for them. we need to build a world where people can honestly tell their doctors “I’m not sure about hormones but I’d like to try” without the doctor judging it as conclusive evidence that the person would not benefit from hormones.

very very few trans people who medically transition and determine it was the right choice were 100% certain it was the correct decision at the time. because we live in a transphobic society that regards any sliver of fear or doubt as invalidating the possibility of a non-cis existence.

demanding absolute certainty and punishing mistakes is not how you build a world where everyone whose life is improved by medical transition can access it.

I’ve been thinking about this more and i have more to say. (reblogging myself because the person above doesn’t want further contact from me. this is not a response to that person.)

to give a more concrete example: i wasn’t 100% certain that being on testosterone was right for me until after I’d been on it for a while and resolved my very painful cystic acne. i was very lucky in that stopping testosterone was an option for me that didn’t cut off future access. most people do not have the ability to stop or be uncertain about hormones without their provider deciding that it means they don’t really “need” hormones.

if social validation of one’s discomfort with their pre-transition existence is held hostage like that, it takes much longer for someone to realize it if hormones turn out to be wrong for them. when i say punishing mistakes, i mean adding on to someone’s distress when they realize that transition was wrong for them by giving them an internal “i told you so.”

it doesn’t help people get their needs met to claim that absolute certainty is required before starting hormones. it’s an impossibly high bar for most people, and it creates social pressure to deny any doubt, which actually makes it harder to realize if hormones were wrong for them. it backfires, regardless of your good intentions.

i think I’ve met literally one trans person who was 100% certain about hormones before receiving them. and countless other trans people who were a little unsure about hormones when they started but became certain after starting. it’s typical to worry whether you’re making the right decision whenever you start a medication or otherwise make a big change in your life!!

hormone providers (and anyone) who divide the world neatly into “absolutely certain about wanting hormones” and “doesn’t ‘need’ hormones” help create a society where most people who would benefit from hormones can’t get them without lying, and where people who do detransition feel worse about themselves.

If you had to be 100% certain to make a decision instead of like 90% certain, nothing would ever get done! People are always going to be wondering “is this the best car/house/spouse/tattoo for me?” before making a decision, before deciding that a few minor worries are inconsequential and making (hopefully) the right decision and realizing “yep this was the right one for me”. And even then, who doesn’t wonder “what if things were different?”. I was a tiny bit worried literally as a I was going under for top surgery, that maybe getting rid of the boobs that had caused me so much disgust and had literally self harmed on a few occasions. But then I woke up and was so fucking elated those endorphins played a role in the reduction of post-surgical pain. Even when my entire chest area hurt, I was happy. The standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” used in criminal cases, which is often described as “being 100% certain” still permits the possibility of jurors holding unreasonable doubts.

Also “you should be 100% certain that a medication is for you before you take it” is utter bullshit. Especially for mental illnesses, what you’re often prescribed by a doctor is what is most likely to work in your situation, but it could very well not. I started on an SSRI on Saturday specifically because serotonin sensitivity runs in my family. I could very well end up vomiting and incapacitated because SSRIs are incompatible with my neurology. Follow up appointments are primarily so a doctor can ask “so how are the meds? Are they working? What about side effects?” Someone starting on HRT and then becoming dsyphoric and stopping is probably a safer risk to take than giving people SSRIs or hormonal birth control, something that is incredibly routine.

detransitioning stories that don’t need more publicity:

detransitioning stories that need to be boosted:

terfs prey on detransitioning people. detransitioning people are at great risk of getting sucked into terf echo chambers. we trans people need to support detransitioning people because they are not our enemies. the trauma of heteronormative gender roles can be difficult to tease apart from dysphoria, and we need to be sensitive to our fellow humans who just want to feel comfortable in their skin. we need to make it okay for people to change their identities, and try out identities to see if they work.

fearmongering directed at young trans people like “make sure you’re REALLY trans before you [medically] transition, because if you’re not it will give you dysphoria” introduces social pressure to prove to other trans people that you’re really trans, which actually increases the likelihood that a person will transition and regret it. because you’re holding validation of their current identity hostage. if someone eventually detransitions, you shouldn’t add to their trauma later by now giving them an inner “i told you so, you weren’t really trans” voice.

The fuck this las bit on bout?

How does tellin trans kids to not go on t or hrt until they’re sure they’re trans pushin them to medically transition? That’s deadass the exact opposite of what that does or at least what the goal is. Should we instead tell every 15 year old that started to socially transition last month to just go on hrt? What kinda anti educational bullshit is this? If a few assholes wanna take a common sense statement that is said to protect newly transitioned folk in what can be a confusin time an take it as a challenge then that on them. This is the equivalent of someone tellin a 15 year old that they ain’t ready to drive on their own yet then sayin that it’s that persons fault when some kid decides to prove that he can an crashes.

No one should take any kind of MEDICATION unless they are 100%, without a doubt sure they need it. If that means waitin a year or two, seein a therapist, or experimentin with your identity then that’s great. It’s healthy. It has absolutely nothin to do with bein a “real” trans person or not. It has to do with long term physical an mental health.

i guarantee that people who realized that hormones were wrong for them had already been told “don’t transition unless you’re absolutely sure it’s the right choice” by multiple people. it is dismissive and doesn’t help anyone make the right choice.

we need to build a world where people are not demonized for changing their bodies and realizing that the change was wrong for them. we need to build a world where people can honestly tell their doctors “I’m not sure about hormones but I’d like to try” without the doctor judging it as conclusive evidence that the person would not benefit from hormones.

very very few trans people who medically transition and determine it was the right choice were 100% certain it was the correct decision at the time. because we live in a transphobic society that regards any sliver of fear or doubt as invalidating the possibility of a non-cis existence.

demanding absolute certainty and punishing mistakes is not how you build a world where everyone whose life is improved by medical transition can access it.

I’ve been thinking about this more and i have more to say. (reblogging myself because the person above doesn’t want further contact from me. this is not a response to that person.)

to give a more concrete example: i wasn’t 100% certain that being on testosterone was right for me until after I’d been on it for a while and resolved my very painful cystic acne. i was very lucky in that stopping testosterone was an option for me that didn’t cut off future access. most people do not have the ability to stop or be uncertain about hormones without their provider deciding that it means they don’t really “need” hormones.

if social validation of one’s discomfort with their pre-transition existence is held hostage like that, it takes much longer for someone to realize it if hormones turn out to be wrong for them. when i say punishing mistakes, i mean adding on to someone’s distress when they realize that transition was wrong for them by giving them an internal “i told you so.”

it doesn’t help people get their needs met to claim that absolute certainty is required before starting hormones. it’s an impossibly high bar for most people, and it creates social pressure to deny any doubt, which actually makes it harder to realize if hormones were wrong for them. it backfires, regardless of your good intentions.

i think I’ve met literally one trans person who was 100% certain about hormones before receiving them. and countless other trans people who were a little unsure about hormones when they started but became certain after starting. it’s typical to worry whether you’re making the right decision whenever you start a medication or otherwise make a big change in your life!!

hormone providers (and anyone) who divide the world neatly into “absolutely certain about wanting hormones” and “doesn’t ‘need’ hormones” help create a society where most people who would benefit from hormones can’t get them without lying, and where people who do detransition feel worse about themselves.

I have OCD and generalized anxiety.

I’m not 100% sure about anything. Ever. That nagging doubt that you rely on to tell you if maybe you’re about to make a bad decision? I get that with all decisions where the end result in permanent or very difficult to change.

If I listened to my brain, I’d simply never do anything worth doing. Because my brain’s alarm system is broken.

I have spent time caught in a vortex of anxiety reading detransition stories and one thing that I’ve finally had to take away from it at the end is “You can never be 100% sure.” It was a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the reality.

The idea that if you have bad dysphoria medical transition is guaranteed to be right for you and if you have no dysphoria medical transition is guaranteed to be wrong for you is a myth.

I can’t tell you how many detrans stories I’ve read by people who thought they were 100% sure at the time and who had (and sometimes even still have) bad gender dysphoria.

On the flip side, I’ve seen a not insignificant number of thriving, post medical transition people who have expressed that they had little to no gender dysphoria before they transitioned and still don’t.

As if people aren’t put on fucking benzos without the doctor or patient being even 80% sure they’ll work as intended? Health care is trial and error. There should be more information available, not more moralizing.

most medications and procedures are prescribed without the doctor and patient being 100% sure they will help, and that’s why informed consent is so important in any instance of medical care—this is especially evident with psych meds and meds for complex bodily conditions like autoimmune diseases and cancers. (this is not an invitation to compare transness to cancer.)

trans surgeries also have a drastically lower regret rate than any other surgery, even among other potentially lifesaving surgeries. But a medical thing need not be lifesaving for it to be experienced as improving quality of life—people shouldn’t be required to be at absolute rock bottom before being permitted to access medical transition, period. if people were not required to demonstrate abject suffering in their assigned gender to be allowed transition, they would be more likely to be honest with doctors about any uncertainty—because medical transition won’t be immediately eliminated from their options.

Yes, exactly. I bristle every time I see someone say that you shouldn’t attempt medical transition unless you literally cannot live without it.

I do also feel the common narrative in some groups of, “You have to transition in order to be trans or else you’re a faker.” puts a lot of pressure on people to take steps they may not have necessarily actually wanted for themselves just as an attempt to validate themselves.

I remember reading a story from a trans woman who felt regretful after vaginoplasty because she realized she’d only really done it because it was considered ‘the next logical step’ in transfem transition and she had actually been fine with what she had before.

Community pressure towards people, whether that’s to transition or not to transition and in what ways, is horrible and really needs to stop.

Not to mention!! Like it’s kind of been said, but I want this to have its own point:

Not everyone’s transition goals are the same.

Some trans men love their tits. Some trans women love their dicks.

Some trans people don’t care about /passing/, they just want to change certain aspects of their body.

Some trans people are not going to pass pre HRT and forcing them to “test it” or “try it out” can harm them or their health.

NOT ALL TRANS PEOPLE HAVE DYSPHORIA

Forcing trans kids to socially pass is more often than not just going to give them dysphoria and force them into more medical transitions that THEY MIGHT REGRET.

(Speaking from experience as a transmasc, I used to be a euphoria trans, like ahaha your flimsy gender roles have failed you, for I am not a man; but now that I’ve been given the freedom to socially transition, it terrifies me. I walk out every day hoping I pass enough to use the bathroom. I’m so conscious of my body at every given moment, that sometimes I can’t even wear my own clothes around the fucking house. Am I “sure I’m trans” maybe not but now I hate going outside because I know I’ll be labeled as something I’m not. I spend five minutes standing in front of the bathroom door, hoping it’s empty and no one will ask me about my choices. I’m still not in a place where I can start HRT, and it’s honestly crippling sometimes. Is that “better for me”? Because I’ve /affirmed my transness/ now that I can barely look in the mirror without feeling like an impostor?)

Back to the point,

Some people only have certain types of dysphoria like vocal dysphoria, facial dysphoria, so on and so forth, and they don’t require or really want a full social transition.

“Passing socially” is not the goal of being trans.

Being trans is literally about having more autonomy over our own bodies and people are still trying to gatekeep that.

Transgender Identity and Autism Intersection

I am researching the intersection of autism in transgender people, so any autistic trans people, please take this survey! I am an autistic trans person, and I can censor quotes so feel free to be blunt and curse if you feel the need in text-fill questions.

DM me for the link to the survey!

accessibility aids don’t have to be useful to abled people for them to matter and be made available

ah yes the priviledge of masking, the priviledge of being raised to ignore all your needs, act in ways actively harmful to you for the comfort of allistics and pretending to be neurotypical to the point of burnout (heavy sarcasm here)

being able to mask shields a person from some forms of ableism (forced institutionalization, some forms of ableist bullying) but not others (invalidation, ableist microaggressions, other types of ableist bullying), and comes at great personal cost. generally the only people I’ve seen describe it as privilege are people who have suffered ableist violence due to being unable to mask, so while I don’t use the word privilege myself, I see where they’re coming from

So this is isn’t personally to you necessairily, because I’m sure you have good intentions. I totally get the frustration of having to deal with ableism. Not being able to mask undoubtedly comes with its own issues that I’m not trying to downplay.

But it’s no reason to claim some other autistic people have some sort of priviledge because we face slightly different issues on some levels (as long as we keep doing something that’s actively damaging our mental health.)

Even the “positives” of it only hold up as long as you’re able to keep up with masking. Which btw, most people can’t do consistently 24/7 anyway. Getting a burnout and lashing out has gotten many people forcebly institutionalized. Masking in school, work, etc comes with extreme stress of worrying about being “found out” if you slip up, aside from the fact that masking in itself is very draining, even for people who are “good” at it. Besides the fact that we shouldn’t have to mask in the first place. It also makes it so much harder for us to get the help and support we need because we “don’t look like we need it”, even if we do.

I say this as someone who was medium good at masking and got a lot worse at it after an autistic burnout that was mostly caused by having to constantly mask.

We don’t need any infighting about who has it worse, that’s recycled “high function vs low functioning” all over again. We can have different issues without one having to be labelled as “worse” or “better.”

I'm sorry, i wasn't clear in my earlier reblog that i do agree that privilege is the wrong word for describing any possible benefits of masking, for precisely the reason that it doesn't shield someone from ableism and it has great personal cost.

i realized just now that i made an assumption that didn't make sense in my earlier reblog. ability to mask doesn't neatly correlate with the arbitrary functioning labels put on us, and i was equating lack of ability to mask with being labeled low-functioning. but... i can't mask, and I've never been labeled low functioning. so my whole first reblog should be scrapped.

for me, as someone who isn't coercively labeled low-functioning, the consequences of not being able to mask have mainly been being viewed as "weird," being socially ostracized by peers, and being unable to present myself to a job interviewer as a good candidate. i bodystim in ways that aren't handflapping and rocking, so my bodystims get interpreted as fidgeting due to deliberate inattentiveness or boredom. if i were a cis man, there would probably be fewer consequences because verbal white cis men sometimes get to be considered "eccentric" if they have idiosyncratic speech and special interests and are good at math and science; for me as a child assumed to be a girl and as a nonbinary adult who was "good at" math and science, I've instead been regarded alternately as unladylike, unfeminine, awkward, immature, annoying, rude, [the r slur], and (when strangers think i'm a man) too feminine.

it's not unusual for an autistic person who is otherwise labeled low-functioning to mask on some occasions, either. being nonverbal tends to mean getting labeled low-functioning, and it's not strange for a nonverbal person to successfully mask in situations where they don't have to talk while out in public, like buying something at a store with self checkout, walking their dog, being in the audience at a theater, or riding public transit.

i think the biggest problem with people calling masking a privilege is that they're assuming it neatly correlates with what functioning level category someone's been forced into and the disparate treatment that entails. a thing which i did in my first reblog... because i literally forgot somehow that I'm not able to mask, while still remembering that I'm not at risk for the kinds of ableist violence faced by people labeled low-functioning, so i made a bunch of claims that just didn't make sense wrt my actual lived experiences. (lol? today hasn't been a good braining day for me)

Asking in good faith, can anybody tell me what the “autism level” stuff means? (eg, autism level ½/3).

I was diagnosed young so maybe it’s a new thing they’ve brought out?? Or is it an american thing?? Or was it something created by the internet??

I tried a google search but all I found were posts tagged with the “levels” but none explaining what they meant.

Also, iirc wasn’t labelling your autism (high/low) seen as a bad thing? How is this different?

Thanks. 👍

current DSM 5 diagnostic criteria, in places that use the DSM (mostly the u.s.), uses levels 1 to 3 to refer to how much support/accommodation an autistic person needs. level 1 is some support, 2 is moderate support, and 3 is high support. i like that level 1 explicitly does not mean requiring no support. (here's a direct link to the DSM 5 autism criteria on my google drive)

the fifth edition eliminated the separate Asperger's and autism diagnoses and includes both under the general label of Autism Spectrum Disorder. so someone given an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis in the past would be given an autism level 1 diagnosis if evaluated now.

the ICD still has separate Autistic Disorder and Asperger's Disorder categories, so my guess is that the levels in the DSM are meant to ease the transition to grouping all autistic diagnoses together while still communicating information to health insurance companies about how many support services they might need to fund for the autistic person. functioning level labels never had a clear medical or clinical definition for autism, and functioning varies day to day for everyone; level of support needed, by contrast, can be meaningfully generalized.

as a reference: i wasn't assigned a level when diagnosed because it was just at the transition stage where i was asked whether i wanted the DSM 5 or DSM IV labeling, and i wasn't pursuing any autism-related services for myself (i got diagnosed so i could get government disability benefits, because I can't work). my younger kid that was just evaluated did get assigned a level, so health insurance has an idea of why any services he gets are necessary.

services here refers to sensory integration therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and anything else a health insurance company would consider an autism "treatment."

also: the levels aren't intended for use in self identification. they're there for health insurance and other bureaucracy. i think it's a little obnoxious to self identify with a support level unless it's in a context from a disability justice perspective, like autistic people who deliberately describe themselves as "low functioning" to highlight disparities between how society treats them versus autistic people who aren't called "low functioning", and to draw attention to the coercive nature of being called low functioning. (n.b.: autistic people who self describe as high-functioning are generally not doing so for disability justice reasons.)

ah yes the priviledge of masking, the priviledge of being raised to ignore all your needs, act in ways actively harmful to you for the comfort of allistics and pretending to be neurotypical to the point of burnout (heavy sarcasm here)

being able to mask shields a person from some forms of ableism (forced institutionalization, some forms of ableist bullying) but not others (invalidation, ableist microaggressions, other types of ableist bullying), and comes at great personal cost. generally the only people I've seen describe it as privilege are people who have suffered ableist violence due to being unable to mask, so while I don't use the word privilege myself, I see where they're coming from

edit: i made this post without remembering that i am one of those people who can't mask, while remembering that I'm not at risk for the things i said people who can't mask are especially vulnerable to. please disregard this reblog lol. read this one instead: https://metapianycist.tumblr.com/post/694129246652776448/ah-yes-the-priviledge-of-masking-the-priviledge

I remember reading a study once that asked people in their 90s to rank the best to worst decades of their life, and the overwhelming majority were like “my 70s were the best” and ranked their teens and twenties as near the worst, and I think about that a lot when people act like if they’re not living their best life at 25 they’ve lost their chance. like nah, the longer you’ve had to learn about yourself, the more you can love yourself. there’s no expiration date on joy until you’re dead

…you can’t “call someone out” for beliefs they no longer hold. that is called digging up irrelevant dirt as an excuse to harass and ostracize someone. i can think of literally nothing more transparently malicious

I found a journal article that focused on Tumblr users who talk about being trans and disabled, specifically regarding neurodivergency and mad studies. Specifically with posts from 2013-2019. The authors specify that they're trans and disabled themselves.

I'd write quotes from the article but there are so many themes that are so well articulated that I feel I'll just end up writing most of the article. But the themes included:

The main stories are under part #4. If any users I @ in this post want me to remove them, I will. To keep the ability to completely erase the @ from the post, they'll be put under the keep reading line.

i am honored to have been described as someone who has done effective autistic community activism by posting about self diagnosis 💖

‘Hobby lobby stole the epic of Gilgamesh’ sounds insane and unbelievable if you didn’t already know. This was a while ago but I’ll never shut up bc this is insane.

Hobby lobby stole the epic of Gilgamesh

Hobby lobby stole the epic of Gilgamesh

Hobby lobby stole the epic of Gilgamesh

Now why did they do this? Hobby lobby is run by Christians and Christians don’t like the epic of Gilgamesh bc it also contains a flood myth that they feel causes question to the Bible

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1279996

christian fundamentalists in the u.s. are so frightened by the idea of their stories not being 100% unique to their version of christianity, and of encountering the idea that pre-abrahamic stories influenced the development of christian stories.

if you're afraid people will leave your extreme brand of christianity in response to learning that lots of ancient peoples around the world had flood stories that could have influenced the story of noah, there's something very wrong with your values and how you approach christianity.