Thank you Shircara for your feedback. I fully accept and understand your position as-is and without modification.

Regarding “mansplaining” — guilty as charged. My wife would have loved that comment and I laughed when I read that. It’s so true :-) In fact, I might be about to do some more of that…

As a severely behavioral and learning disabled person who grew up in special education for his entire schooling and was told that I would never do anything more than work in a factory if I was lucky I think I’ve done pretty well. I struggled massively through college and was really very blessed to even be accepted to any university.

I’ve been called “retard” for over half of my life to the point that I once asked some high-school classmates, in front of the class during a presentation, “what’s my name” and they didn’t even know. The presentation was called, “what’s my name” and it was about filters vs. facts. I got a D. The class and the teacher all missed the fact that I was only “retard” to them. I was so invisible to them, so entrenched as the “retard” that they didn’t even get the point that none of them knew my actual name even though the teacher had called it a few minutes before. As an adult I struggled very hard against both limited opportunities and my own self-perceptions. The internal battle was by far the most difficult.

I did not add these details to my reply because they don’t define me, any more than gender, color, height, weight, faith or partner preference define anyone. I add it here in my reply to you simply because these facts may help you to understand my position and to point out that as you said, “I don’t know you personally” so I thought maybe you would like to know a little more about me, even after already defining me with the very labels you try so hard to eschew. I think “entitled white male” might fit your comments.

I have largely moved past re-telling my history and instead tend to focus on speaking my future. I hope you can understand that for the same reason you wanted to stand up next to your brave sister, I needed to stand up for myself a little bit here and share a small piece of my own story. If you think that devalues the experience of your brave sister, or even your own reply then I apologize again for possibly devaluing your reply by adding my personal context. I have found personally that holding on to the valor of the past and the depth of the current struggle makes for a small world plagued by scarcity of new and disruptive ideas.

I have a phrase that helps me deal with that stuff even now and it is this, “Even though all of that may be true, I dismiss it now and instead choose…” It has saved me from some very bad decisions and helped me to move past my old story and helps me write a new one. Thank you for being a part of our shared story today.

Friends?