Gatekeeping: When someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity. –Urban Dictionary A good friend made this statement the other day: “My God, it’s like people are gatekeeping autism!” I haven’t heard a more true statement in a long time.
My friend said this after I told them about neurotypical people who have commented on autism articles, written by autistic people, stating that they don’t agree with the autistic person, so they will continue thinking/doing what they do, even if the autistic community member has voiced that they feel it is harmful.
For example, I wrote an article a few months ago about why functioning labels shouldn’t be used and why a lot of autistic people
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