A plea to our media

Don't hurt our kids with ableism and transphobia

Friday is usually home to Friday Night Chats and it still will be. But I felt really compelled to write this and share it today because my heart hurts and I know others are feeling it too. This will replace one of next week’s newsletters and I’m sorry if it’s annoying to get two newsletters in day - I hope you’ll forgive me and understand why I had to, today. Thank you x Emily x

CW: Suicide, ableism, bullying.

My little boy writes constantly. He wrote before he could speak. Before he could properly hold a pencil. Back then it was almost impossible to read his writing but he persevered - he understood what he was writing, and he desperately wanted, needed, us to understand too.

For a long time he was “non-verbal” the word used so often, or “minimally verbal”. I found it a strange, frustrating term - he was an expansive communicator. He showed us how he felt with his hands, with his movements, with his eyes and with his heart.

We did more than a year of early intervention therapy and one day words just came. They erupted out of him, a most incredible display. Still, when he is tired, his words slow, slur, and are too hard to find. He walks around and around in circles to pluck the right words from the air and we quickly realised that when we said “stand still so we can hear you” he could no longer hear or find those words.

He wrote and wrote and wrote.

He once wrote a story called The Black Hole.

There was once an alien boy. The alien boy came to Earth.

The children on Earth talked fast.

The alien boy tried to talk fast.

But in his head it was like a black hole.

He tried to talk about his home planet but the words went into the black hole.

And the Earth children kept talking fast.

The Earth boy felt sad and bullied.

He wanted to go home to his home planet.

And then an Earth girl listened and helped get the words.

He told her about his home planet.

She told him about Earth.

And they were happy.

The End.

I think about The Black Hole a lot. I think about it when I see him grip his hands together, hide his face, shove his hands in his pockets to stop them dancing in front of others.

To be a neurodivergent child in a society that hates divergence from the norm is painful and exhausting. I see this in his face every day - I see it in every part of his body.

I see him trying to understand why everyone insists things must be done like that when it makes so much more sense for it to be done like this.

His father and I try to make home the safest place for him. A place where he can truly be himself. His brother does the same. We try to paint the world around him, a splash of colour everywhere we go to try to cover the stains of ignorance around neurodivergency.

We want him to feel he can be himself because himself is incredible.

We don’t want him to have to pretend to be someone else. We don’t want him to slice off the best and softest pieces of himself to fit in with violent societal norms.

And I know, I know, I know other people don’t want that for him either.

I know the people who know our boy are better off for knowing him. I know neurodivergent children, without even trying, are educators, leaders, and guides. They are kaitaiki of humanity. And for that - they are ridiculed, criticised, forced into tiny painful boxes, bullied, abused and harmed.

A Canadian survey found 77% of autistic children were being bullied. Autism is the top risk factor for bullying among all neurodivergency.

Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children indicates bullied children have a four-fold increased risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts among 14 to 15 year-olds.

Autistic people are six times more likely to attempt death by suicide. They are seven times more likely to die by suicide – compared to those who are not autistic.

Autistic women are 13 times more likely to die by suicide than women who are not autistic.

I am terrified of this as a mother. I am so afraid that I will not be able to protect my precious child from the cruelty of an ableist society.

Parents of neurodivergent children tell me constantly that they share this fear.

We need everyone to help us to keep our children safe.

Part of that is joining our voice when we beg media to stop using autistic and neurodivergent children to harm other children.

The story about the child who identifies as a cat has been shared everywhere as a violent dog whistle against trans and gender diverse children. It has rightly been called out as a lie - used by transphobic people to spread hate against already vulnerable children and adults.

I want to say as well - it’s harmful to our neurodivergent children. It is using children already suffering to inflict more suffering on their peers.

It is cruel. Beyond cruel.

And I AM BEGGING media here not to reprint the awful Murdoch media bullshit about it.

We know little about the family, except that someone related to them went to the media in an awful betrayal of privacy and care for this little one.

As parents of neurodivergent children we all have relatives who don’t get it. Who revel in their ignorance. It is a nightmare to imagine one of them going to media to ridicule and exploit our child.

My heart is with this girl and her parents.

Bruce

I want to say this in solidarity, in support, in love and care:

My son meows. My son loves to “be a cat”. He has a cat named Bruce who he loves more than anything. When he gets home from school he goes straight to Bruce. He rests his head on Bruce’s tummy, he whispers to him that he loves him, his whole body calms in Bruce’s presence.

To our son, Bruce is the purest, kindest, best thing in this world. Bruce never yells at him, never confuses him, never demands more than he can give. Bruce’s love for him is unconditional.

So when he’s exhausted he meows instead of speaking. He’s so tired that the words are gone. The struggle to exist in this world that is so ableist, that is so against divergence, that so demands we each fit in a box and stay in it - it’s too much for him.

I know you are trying to make the world safer for him.

I am so sorry that others have shown you just how vigilantly they will maintain a world where neurodivergent people aren’t valued and loved.

We will stand with you, beside you, and say we’re not giving up - no matter what people say. No matter how many unthinking media regurgitate painful ableism against our tamariki. We will keep saying: NO.

No, you can’t do this to our kids, our people.

We won’t let you.

We will stand against it and we will stand with our kids.

We do not want our world to be a black hole for anyone.

My husband and I talked this through with our little boy. We left out parts - about suicide and bullying - but shared with him what we’d written about his experience. He said: “Do you know the girl who is a cat? She would be a very good friend and we could play cats together”.

I would also like to send love to autistic and neurodivergent adults. It’s painful to see stories that ridicule and harm the community and reinforce the ableism that is so profound and widespread. I am with you and send all of my love.