The peril of Masking Whilst Autistic.
Amidst society, countless thousands of autistic adults who don't 'look autistic' and don't 'sound autistic'. Nor do we move in noticeable 'autistic ways'.
In theory this is supposed to be an ideal.
Actually, it's hell.
About masking:

So many autistic people learn to disguise that we're autistic.
From the earliest age, taught that in nonautistic society, we have to be unnoticeable, or bad things happen.
So, we learn to disguise our natural language, our natural movement, and (often) our actual interests/

It's a matter of survival. Sometimes a trauma response in being hypervigilant for anyone noticing us as ourselves...what power do they have to take something away from us?
Our jobs?
Our families?
Our role in their team?/

[Important to note this isn't paranoia - the reality is that autistic people are so regularly thrown out of roles, no matter how accurate, honest, dedicated and skilled we might be. Endless good research on this]
At the 'extreme disguise end' of things, whole new disasters/

Team mates who should know that we're autistic, but we 'act non-autistic' so well that they forget.
And then they do things we can't cope with.
And then they get upset with us and go look for someone more comfortingly Definitely Autistic.
Usually a male in shabby clothes/

[An observation - but strangely true....]

Meantime, they convince themselves that we're Not A Good Fit for their team.

I'm glad of allies who challenge themselves.

We need to be very aware of traumatised autistic people who mask to a high level/

Ready to apply trauma-informed practices around them.
Acting with caring.
With acknowlegement of difference.
& with deep respect for the circumstances in which past trauma occurred.

Too many autistic people take their own lives with no-one ever aware there was even a problem/

We can do better than this, together.

And we must.

Thank you for reading.

...and if you are still reading, make yourself a safe person to be around.
Make it clear that you're autism-affirming.
Make it clear that you don't need us to perform either
"Zero autism" or
"Panto autism" in order to please you.
What do I mean by those terms?/

Zero Autism:
"You act just like me (at your own cost...)- therefore I like you"

Panto Autism:
"You are just the right amount of totally-over-the-top autism to be entertaining to me. Entertain me some more"

Neither of those is being an ally.

Other non-ally behaviour is expecting:

Volunteer-pay-autism:
"You can work for me - for free. Call it 'work experience', but actually, I just don't pay people like you"

Broken-autism-I-can-fix:
"Great, you can be my project. You will be 'fixed'. If not, I will drop you."

No autistic person is here to perform autism for you to your exact requirements.

No autistic person is here to be your servant, paid a pittance. Or your charity project.

Language matters, too.
Allies do not start by talking about fellow human beings as a set of Deficits.

If we made this a world where more autistic people could 'uncloak', people would be astonished.
I worked for a major broadcaster for a while.
I went through one department and recognised that the whole team was speaking autistic. It was like an oasis of autistic communication/

Everything - the body language, the voice tone, the communication pattern. Pure autism.
"Great department", said our boss. "Fantastic work. So, Ann, we'd love to employ some autistic people. We only have one at the moment in computing. What can we do?"
And I smiled..../

I'd just seen a whole department of autistic people.
And they had no idea.
None.
Every time the boss went in there, they swapped to NT communication style...

Hiding.
Afraid to disclose.

Yes, they *were* autistic. I checked afterwards/

If you're serious about improving autistic lives, be the boss who writes out to the whole company and says, e.g.
"I'm so sorry we've been a place where it wasn't safe to be out as autistic. We want to do better. We are making this a safe space. How can I help?"

And mean it.