Your reminder that EVEN women you personally find annoying can be victims of abuse.

Glammed-up autistic woman to revert to usual scruffiness any minute now An autistic woman who dressed up for a glamorous work event is ready to revert to her usual unkempt appearance any minute now, it has been revealed. PR manager Chi-Young Lee, 34, has had her hair and…

PR manager Chi-Young Lee, 34, has had her hair and makeup done professionally to attend an industry awards ceremony, but she is reportedly beginning to feel the transformation back into her true self begin to take hold.

(Inspired by the new women's health strategy, which at the time of writing *is not out yet*. But it's certainly not limited to this policy or this Government)

A general reminder:
- Most early-morning "Government announces great policy!" headlines are based on govt press releases, with the actual policy only becoming available later
- "Cautiously welcome" is often code for "we need to see (/have enough time to read) the actual policy but haven't yet"

When we talk about people being 'neurotypical' it just means that they're *treated* as being typical. They may never have a pressing need to think about how their processing differs from other people's.

That doesn't mean it doesn't actually differ!

It means they fit with neuronormative standards.

One of the stranger objections I see to the idea of neurodiversity (or neurodivergence) is that it implies most people are actually neurotypical.

No!

It started as a reaction against the idea that the majority are normal, while outliers are wrong and disordered. It's founded on rejecting that.

UK working on major plan to prepare country for war Head of the armed forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, tells Sky News the war plan will require British people to think differently about resilience.

to save you the rabbit hole, the actual story is "Sky News partnered on a defence conference, while they were there they asked the head of armed forces about a Cold-War-era strategy, he confirmed they're giving it a much-needed modern update, add a clickbait headline"

news.sky.com/story/uk-pre...

I saw the "we're totally definitely all going to war really for real" post, put a short version of it into Google, clicked the first article, read the first paragraph and got the gist of the actual story.

This took me less than 20 seconds. It is okay to delay your repost by 20 seconds.

Autistic woman’s customer service complaint riddled with apologies An autistic woman has reportedly caused confusion after writing a customer service complaint buried in layers upon layers of apology. Niamh Callaghan, 43, says she thought long and hard about…

Niamh Callaghan, 43, says she thought long and hard about emailing a supermarket chain to complain after she found a live frog in a bag of salad.

Top tip: You can sing this whole headline and it scans perfectly

Join @thedailytism.com's Patreon and you too could be in with a chance of receiving a weirdly personalised earworm one day, I guess!

🟦 CLEAN FEED | Channel 4 unusually including a clarification within the programme title text in the official EPG data.

2am: "Countdown (film, not game show!)"

All that supremacist stuff about autistics being inherently more honest than everyone else etc. was always going to end here.

Next week’s disability cuts will make people destitute – and you might not understand how bad they are until it’s too late | Frances Ryan If new claimants don’t meet strict criteria, they’ll lose half of the health element of universal credit. Don’t ignore that: in life’s lottery, that could easily be you, says Guardian columnist France...

“That the universal credit cut will affect new claimants says the quiet part out loud: anyone can become disabled or ill. And every time governments slash the safety net, we can’t know if it’ll be us, a loved one or stranger who will fall through it.”

Today’s col www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Independent review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism: interim report Interim report outlining progress on the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism.

In a worst case scenario, it's in Govt's interests for us to uncritically believe the media narratives about what the review recommends.

The interim review was published at 4pm on the 31st. That doesn't scream "we want people to read this" to me.

So here it is again:

www.gov.uk/government/p...

In particular:
- The "incentives" in question are getting your basic needs met
- "Self-identify" in context means "self-reporting" (e.g. to the GP Patient Survey, which doesn't ask for proof), not "self-diagnosis". Many included in these stats will in fact have a formal clinical diagnosis.

Independent review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism: interim report Interim report outlining progress on the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism.

Rather than reposting and spreading a deliberately inflammatory headline, I'd recommend at least skimming the executive summary (7 pages) of the autism/ADHD prevalence report itself.

It's not beyond criticism, but it's also not saying what The Times etc claims it does.

www.gov.uk/government/p...

The review itself uses "self-identify" to mean "self-report" (in this case to the GP Patient Survey). Many within that group do in fact have a formal diagnosis. But in everyday parlance it's used to mean "self-diagnosis", and the Times knows that makes for great ragebait 🙃

It is striking how little media appetite or interest there has been for the Covid inquiry's conclusions

Versatile! Autistic girl branded emotionally immature or old soul, depending on what's convenient Image of awkward teenage girl taking selfie

Mary Walker, 13, who has a neurodevelopmental disability that makes her come out with gems of sage advice while still not quite understanding how anything works, has been branded the “perfect scapegoat” by literally everyone who’s ever met her.

www.patreon.com/posts/152685...

A statement on the IOC's decision to reintroduce mandatory sex testing for women. Please share widely. Alt text follows in the following posts.

This is utterly glorious. It's long but compelling. Go watch it. Seriously. It's worth your time.

I recently found out, thanks to this investigation by @indexoncensorship.org, that my book, Queerly Autistic, was caught up in a mass book ban in a Greater Manchester school. I’m furious that the librarian, who is autistic, was harassed by the school for providing my book to autistic young people.

👀

I was struggling to understand my autistic son - until we watched an episode of Doctor Who A combination of autism and ADHD caused outbursts, confusion and stress that my son couldn’t understand – until he saw David Tennant behaving the same way

I was struggling to understand my autistic son - until we watched an episode of Doctor Who

Photo of a black pillow in a black chair. Two slightly angry looking cat eyes stare out from the pillow’s lower half

the vengeful pillow

by Edward Gorey

Watched this via Patreon last week - really powerful stuff and well worth the two hours, especially if you're any kind of policy-adjacent

Oh wow, @ftw.bsky.social really does look different without the beard

Key final decisions on SEND Tribunal already made, government admits Position at odds with education secretary’s statement that consultation happens 'before any final decisions are made'.

This is outrageous: The government admits plans to strip the SEND Tribunal of its most significant powers are non-negotiable. The Law Society Gazette says a government response showed it won’t consider feedback on this critical aspect of its SEND reforms. www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/ke...

The government has admitted that decisions on changes to the powers of the SEND Tribunal and proposals to shift the legal duty to secure provision in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) from local authorities to schools have already been made.

rookirwinsweeney.co.uk/gover...

Yesterday ago, there was one extant episode of Doctor Who featuring Katarina. Today, there are three. If the number of Katarina episodes continues to triple every day then there will be well over seven hundred sextillion Katarina episodes by the end of April. This growth is unsustainable.