Quotes by Famous Autists: Happy Autism Awareness Month

"A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it." - Michelangelo

“If my story means anything, it is that people are very often too quick to judge a person by the way they look or by their quirks of behavior. I may not have quite the same sense of humour as other people, but at least I do have a sense of humour, and I've needed it! As a society, we seem to have very tight restrictions on what is considered "normal.” - Susan Boyle

"Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties." - Benjamin Banneker

"If you see what it’s like
To not know at thirty
What they knew at three

But to know things
And to see things
That nobody else can see

Then maybe, just maybe
I can see you
And you can see me." - Mel Brooks

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

"We must join with the tens of millions all over the world who see in peace our most sacred responsibility." - Paul Robeson

"My message to you all is of hope, courage and confidence. Let us mobilize all our resources in a systematic and organized way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and discipline worthy of a great nation." - Muhammed Ali Jinnah

Rejected Princesses

I just love this Tumblr blog and it's great for Women's History Month. Yes, the author (a straight white man) is incredibly privileged, but he still seems to be an awesome feminist and ally to women. So, yep, read it because it's awesome.

Quotes on Womanhood by Women

Happy Women's History Month!

“It’s the fire in my eyes, 
And the flash of my teeth, 
The swing in my waist, 
And the joy in my feet. 
I’m a woman 
Phenomenally.” - Maya Angelou

“Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.” - Virginia Woolf

“I will never be scared to love me.
I am a force to be reckoned with.
I am beautiful.” - Alexandra Elle

“The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity” - Julia Serano

“The start of empowering women comes with acknowledgment of thought that every born child is equal irrespective of its sex. ” - Nikita Dudani

“For my relationships with men to change, I needed to change my relationship to myself as a woman.”  - Gloria Ng

“In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes fro unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world." - Julia Serano

“A woman with opinions had better develop a thick skin and a loud voice.” - Anya Seton

“Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.” - Brene Brown

“I want to be strong and empowered. I want to shock everybody.” - Vanessa Hudgens

“I'd rather be thought of as smart, capable, strong, and compassionate than beautiful. Those things all persist long after beauty fades.” - Cassandra Duffy

“Books make dangerous devils out of women.” - Yxta Maya Murray

“Like other women who sought equality, the amount of trouble I cause is inversely proportional to my physical size.” - Cassandra Duffy

“Our mothers were largely silent about what happened to them as they passed through this midlife change. But a new generation of women has already started to break the wall of silence.” - Trisha Posner

“A woman brings so much more to the world than birth, for she can birth discovery, intelligence, invention, art, just as well as any man.” - Shannon Celebi

“The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.” - bell hooks

"I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior." - Audre Lorde

"Before I die, I will see our community [the queer community, but specifically trans women] given the respect we deserve. I'll be damned if I'm going to my grave without having the respect this community deserves. I want to go wherever I go with that in my soul and peacefully say I've finally overcome." - Sylvia Rivera

Can You Learn Your History?

I wrote this when I had to call out an ignorant, overprivileged conservative who decided liberals didn't know history. You know, the history when white Christians saved the world and rescued immoral pagans of color from depravity...yeeaaaah, I can't even type that with a straight face.

Can You Learn Your History?

Can you learn your history? You know, the history in which interracial marriage was banned, LGBT+ and pagans were burned and hung by evangelical Christians, Black people were lynched for...existing or something, slavery was legal and enforced, women couldn't vote, segregation was legal and enforced, Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps, neurodiversity was just "laziness", and everybody except for rich straight cis white Christian able-bodied neurotypical men was (and still are) systematically dehumanized?

Can you learn your history? The history that has continued today, in which a woman's worth is contained in her uterus and her relation to men, five transgender women of color have been murdered in 2015 alone, unarmed unsuspecting Black men are shot by racist police officers and then denied justice, Christian values dominate a government which is supposed to be religiously neutral, Black women are told that their natural hair is unprofessional and ugly, proms can still be segregated, intersex children are operated on without consent, queer couples can be denied service in restaurants, teenagers can be proselytized while on public school property, women are expected to be sexy but punished for being sexual, LGBT+ rights are compared to bestiality, and oppressed minorities are told they are bullying the people of a country which claims they are free but doesn't treat them that way?

Oh, yeah, we have freedom of speech. But if it hadn't been for social justice, for Malcom X, for Rosa Parks, for Harriet Tubman, for Harvey Milk, for Alice Paul, for Lucy Burns, for Sojourner Truth, for Cesar Chavez, for Rosa Parks, for the Brown Berets, for the Black Panthers, for the Underground Railroad, that free speech and equality that you benefit so much from would be denied to anyone who dared to speak out against injustice.

Can you learn your history?