How William Shatner Betrayed Autistic People’s Trust
If this were an episode of Star Trek, Kirk would have learned an important lesson by now.
April is Autism Awareness Month, the traditional time for awareness campaigns to go terribly — and painfully — off the rails. Autistic people have learned not to expect much from these efforts on our behalf; often, we dread finding out what well-meaning allistics have cooked up for our benefit. This year, though, the betrayal was especially keen: none other than William Shatner, the original James T. Kirk from the much-beloved-by-autistics Star Trek, has been boldly going where so many backhanded “awareness” advocates have gone before.
It started on April 2, styled as World Autism Awareness Day. Shatner tweeted a graphic that featured a puzzle piece inside of a light bulb on a blue background, along with the caption “#NewProfilePic #lightitupblue #WorldAutismAwarenessDay.” The Light It Up Blue campaign and the puzzle piece image are both the products of Autism Speaks, a charity that is almost universally loathed by actually autistic people. If we’re being polite, we might say that we take issue with the fact that the organization’s name is presumptuous, that they only recently allowed autistic people into positions of any power, that almost none of their operating budget goes to…
