Lilly

Happy International People with Disabilities Day Australia!

I'm pretty sure there was a period in the 90s where I thought this too!

Sounds like a more preferable activity. Hope the call was brief and productive!

Amazing 😍 Hoping it goes really well. You'll definitely have to keep us updated 💜

To honor Alice—and all our disability ancestors—is to keep building that connective tissue she described. To love fiercely, politically, on purpose. To ensure the filaments they left behind continue to glow in us, and through us, long after the world has forgotten their names. We won’t.

Alice Wong taught us that disabled people don’t just leave memories behind—they leave infrastructure. Lineages of care. Methods of collectivity, survival. She named the connective tissue that holds our communities together, even across death, even across the losses that come too fast and too often.

Black text on a yellow background - This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing. Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

Yes, this is what I was trying to say! Sorry if it wasn’t clear (I am much better at explaining myself with long passages rather than being succinct as is needed on social media) 😊

‘A Lovely Safe Umbrella to Describe Yourself With’ or ‘Meaningless’: An Online Survey of UK-Based Neurodivergent Adults’ Views of Neurodiversity-Related Terminology - Aimee Grant, Jennifer Leigh, Moni... Background: Neurodivergence refers to people with ways of behaving and thinking that diverge from the norm. Examples include Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperacti...

📣New research

Q: What do neurodivergent people think about words like "neurodiversity".

A: it's complicated; they use it, but it has limitations and could stigmatise.

Full paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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It became very apparent to me that this wasn't a reality once I began to learn about the experiences of earlier diagnosed autistics, both those of a similar age to me, and present day.

I completely agree. I think if you're late diagnosed, it's very easy in those early days to romanticise about a life that could have been if you were diagnosed at a young age and given all the support you needed. But those supports weren't around, and generally aren't now either.

I suspect I am reading the same book. I'm not very far in, but it otherwise seems good so far.

Copyright laws to protect creatives from AI data mining Tech developers will not have a "free pass" to use creative works to train AI systems, but advocates say more protections are needed against copyright theft.

The ASA welcomes the Albanese Government’s decision to rule out a Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception to Australian copyright law, which would have allowed for AI training on authors’ work.

aapnews.aap.com.au/news/copyrig...

🥲🫂

That sounds amazing. Maybe one day there won't be so much physical distance

Autumn shares a poem:
“Nothing about us without us means all of us together
The loud, the silent, the joyous, and the somber
The future is an echo that arrives before the sound”

The first award is the Nothing About Us Without Us Award, given to self-advocates whose work fights to make sure that our community’s voices are being heard. This year, this award goes to Autumn Lauener for their tireless work supporting both the autistic and trans community across Texas.

“Most of all, we know that, whatever laundry list of activities they can and cannot do, the life of every autistic person is worth living.” – Colin Killick, ASAN’s Executive Director

“We know the world is full of autistic people, including those with high support needs, who do all those things amazingly, from nonspeaking poets, to policy experts with intellectual disabilities.”

“When the government spreads lies about autism, these lies put the autistic community in danger. They threaten our access to health care, our right to make choices for ourselves, and our right to live in the community.”

At this year’s Awards Ceremony, we will be honoring several awardees for their tireless work in advocacy, community building, and so much more. We’ll also hear remarks from ASAN’s Executive Director… 2025 ASAN Gala Awards Ceremony

ASAN’s Annual Gala awards ceremony is starting now! #ASANGala

Watch the livestream on YouTube starting NOW: youtu.be/36ZQOoLlZH8

Oh that is the worst. Our next door neighbours added another whole story to their house and it was sensory hell for six months. I hope it doesn’t last too long for you.

Yes I know! But don’t worry, the library had it back within a couple of hours of my copy arriving. I’d filled it with post-it notes marking things so had to wait for my copy to transfer them to the right spots!

I’ve already finished, it’s fantastic! I’m working on some stuff around mis/disinformation, so it’s been super interesting and really relevant. Info dumped half the book to my partner until they said they were just going to read it too. Well written and really easy to read. Brilliant work!

Conceptualizing and describing autistic language: Moving on from ‘verbal’, ‘minimally verbal’ and ‘nonverbal’ - Kristen Bottema-Beutel, Alyssa Hillary Zisk, Jordyn Zimmerman, Betty Yu, 2025

Today in Hell yes, research: "Autistic children with little to no spoken language may understand more language than they produce, which means spoken vocabulary is not a good proxy for one’s understanding of words."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #autism #autistic #neurodiversity

Haymarket Ebooks on sale for $2! At Haymarket, our mission is to publish books that contribute to struggles for social and economic justice. We strive to make our books a vibrant and organic part of social movements, and we believe t...

ALL Haymarket EBooks are 80% off through November 7th ✊🏾✊🏿✊🏽

Photo of 2 copies of the book Conspiracy Nation: Exposing the Dangerous World of Australian Conspiracy Theories by Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson. The cover is stylised with illustrations reflecting Australia and conspiracy theories in white, orange, and black. One copy displays the library's shelf number on its spine.

You know you've been taken in by a book when only a few pages in to the library copy, you buy your own.

Conspiracy Nation by @arielbogle.bsky.social and @cameronwilson.bsky.social

publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-au/books/...

100%! and I must say your garden is looking very inviting at this time of year 🍂

Happy napping and carving! I really hope your time stays protected so you get that much needed reset.

Price of poverty hurts us all, yet research reveals an easy fix In 2020, Australia massively increased welfare payments and conducted a live experiment in ending poverty, but when the subsidy was removed, many were thrown back into hardship. Leaving aside the mora...

Me talking about why eradicating poverty isn’t just the morally correct position but it makes economic sense as well www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...