Following the example of the gay community and the results of the monthly meeting last night, we have decided to hold an annual autistic pride day. The idea behind this event is to show the world that we are not ashamed of who we are and to help further educate the public. Autistic pride day can also be used to help bring autistics/aspies together - we make this day our own!

It will be June 18th every year.

T-Shirt's and other merchandise will be available from the main site soon - any profits raised will go directly towards webhosting costs and any other costs directly related to AFF services/action. The t-shirt design will be available to download from the library for anyone who would prefer to print their own shirt.

Autistic Pride - Great idea!
A question - will you be making any T-shirts with just the AFF Logo ?

Thrillseeker.

We had already made some as samples which we are very happy with, we'll take a photo and post it so people can give opinions.
It will be available to buy online from the company Cafepress who allow groups to sell items through them for a small profit. That can be set by the group to keep prices reasonable.
We will also make a logo available for anyone who wants to download it print their own at home.

Are you doing a ribbon badge like so many others are?  If so what colour will it be?

Had'ne really thought about that yet, we have discussed a bracelet in the General section, you know the band type.

I don't mean to criticise the idea of an Autistic Pride Day, but I'd just like to mention another annual "day". In Australia we have Harmony Day and some kind of multicultural week in March, and it is supposed to be a celebration of cultural diversity and school kids dress up in national costumes. There are other days associated with indigenous people. I know that Autistic Pride Day is a different day, and I think the gay people do their marching around Mardi Gras, but I would love to see cultural diversity, neurodiversity and sexual diversity and any other kind of human diversity all celebrated on one big "Diversity Day". I don't think the idea of lumping the three ideas together is suspect, because if you think about autism and sexual diversity, one can't really say with any confidence that either thing is solely cultural or biological or neurological. Probably won't ever happen, I know.

I think we're more likely to get noticed if we have our own Autistic Pride day, Lili Marlene, and right now we need as much public visibility as we can get.  Society hasn't even reached the point of being aware that large numbers of intelligent and capable autistic people exist, and we know what's going to happen if we don't raise their awareness before a prenatal test becomes available.

Of course, if anyone here has the opportunity to take part in a diversity event, that would help too, but mixed events shouldn't be our main focus at this time.

We probably would get noticed more if we had our own "day" for our own issue. Those coulorful gay people would surely steal the show. :smile:

I still like the idea of a Diversity Day (to include disabled people too), though, because I think it would force everyone to realise that tolerance and understanding isn't a thing that one can have toward one group in society and not another, and still have any credibility. I know that some aspies have very rough attitudes towards homosexual people, but they ask society to accept their own eccentricities and differences. This just isn't going to work. If we had a Diversity Day, it would force people to realise that they can't expect their own ability or ethnic or sexual or neurological differences to be respected unless they reciprocate.

I disagree with a diversity day, there are too many different "Disabilities" to be considered here; the Autistics/Aspies would get lost in the mass.  It would obscure the whole idea of Autism Pride.  I think the onus should stay on ASD.

AP day is a BRILLIANT idea!! I am very glad I found this site as it shows that there are those out there who are similar to myself and that I can identify with.

A superb and positive idea. I really hope it takes off. Anything I can do to help I will.

We are currently working on an information site for Autistic pride day.
This will show people what its all about, and can tell people about various events being organized.
It will be at http://www.autisticprideday.com currently still being made.

Logged in to ask this question after finding this site via Aspergian Island -- why June 18? That is right around the time of Gay Pride Week here in North America, and since most of your graphics so far include rainbows, it is likely that any Aspie Pride t-shirts, stickers, flags, parades, and the like will be assumed to refer to Gay Pride instead of Autistic Pride. So it is possible that people won't even realize there is an Autistic Pride day.

Shouldn't we have something that doesn't seem to piggyback on the existing celebration, and that people will recognize as a unique thing and not confuse with the Gay Pride events?

Well it may be that date in North America, but I have never heard of that exact date, so it may be different in other parts of the world.
APD is a global event, so I don't think it will matter too much.

The spectrum colours are used to represent the autism spectrum. A gay symbol is also the pink triangle, I remember when that was used, and when the rainbow started to be used, it could change again possibly to something else. Most people think of autism with that horrible puzzle jigsaw thing, so we definetely need something different from that.

Using spectrum colours has been in use for a while for autism on autistic sites, not NT parent sites.

The reason we chose June 18th was it was our youngest member's birthday, he is 10. Since then we have found we have four members with the same birthday, so thats cool too. :smile:

I think the rainbow theme is great...gives me an excuse to use even more rainbows than I do already for gay pride. (By the way, the rainbow flag on my avatar was originally intended to be a gay pride flag, but I guess I could give it a dual meaning.) o_<