In the first couple days of Mark Rober posting #ColorTheSpectrum they raised over $900,000 & since then they only raised $30,000. It is definitely from the backlash and the fact that criticism from the autistic community dominates the hashtag. That is why they came to the table

That is amazing. We fucked up their fundraising so bad that next for autism agreed to give us a third of the profits or $1 million, which ever is greater. I hope people recognize how powerful that is. You don't change neurotypical people’s minds, you affect their bottom line

That is why they had to include the autistic community for the first fucking time ever. The community coming together and utilizing social media to advocate for ourselves is changing the balance of power. I knew they weren’t ready for us but wow. We did that in a week

Of course we have to keep the pressure on. it works. It clearly works. This is not a change of heart, it's a move to save their asses so if they stop feeling like their asses need saving they will silently exclude us again. I know some people have focused on the compromise.

It's not everything we want, of course not. Of course they hope that this will appease us and that it'll be all we want and it won't be. But, providing this actually happens on Friday, just the fact that this is happening, no matter the details & compromises, changes 2 big things

The autism industry has never recognized the legitimacy of the autistic community. This changes that. Permanently. Even if this particular organization ends up excluding us again, we will already have been acknowledged as a legitimate party in the discussion.

After that, excluding us becomes noticeable. Our exclusion isn't noticeable when nobody has noticed us. It looks very bad and becomes harder to do after we have been acknowledged. They can't keep pretending we're not autistic, they already acknowledged that we are.

The second change is that once we are in the room and once our voices are being heard, things will have to change more. Our presence and existence disprove many of their assertions about autism. even if they don't listen, even if they don't take this inclusion seriously.

Acknowledging and including us once becomes a genie you cannot put back in the bottle. The presence of a new element in any situation always changes that situation. Not overnight, but it is a material change. A new piece on the board. All of this helps us. All of it.

Even if this is chaos, even if this is a disaster, even if they try to walk back their promises the moment the lifestream is over. That will still be a better situation than we were in two weeks ago as a community. The status quo was the worst situation for us. We changed it.