News & Announcements
July 26, 2022 marked the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s signing into law. To commemorate the occasion, Vice President Kamala Harris invited Lydia X. Z. Brown, AWN’s Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs, to speak at a roundtable discussion about disability and reproductive rights at the White House. Lydia spoke alongside…
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The Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, the Autistic People of Color Fund, and the National Women’s Law Center believe that all people should have control of their bodies.
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The decision upends a core value at the heart of American life and law: that we each enjoy the individual liberty to make certain personal decisions without government interference. The very lives of disabled people depend upon the ability to make personal decisions without interference – including decisions about our bodies and medical care.
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Last week, Lydia X. Z. Brown and I traveled to Albany, New York to speak at a press conference within the New York state capitol. We urged state legislators to pass New York Senate Bill 8935, named Andre’s Law for Andre McCollins, a survivor of abuse at the Judge Rotenberg Center. This long overdue bill,…
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(Washington, D.C.) Today, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) released a report, “Forced Sterilization of Disabled People in the United States,” with contributions by the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN). The report unveils groundbreaking research exposing laws across the country that allow for disabled people to be permanently sterilized against their will. These laws…
Read MoreDisability Community Letter Responding to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s comments on January 7
On January 13, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network AWN signed onto a letter by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) alongside over 150 disability organizations to Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky condemning her ableist remarks regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Her remarks, detailed in the letter below, were damaging because they devalued the lives of…
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In early September, the Administration for Community Living launched the Disability Information and Access Line (DIAL) to help disabled people secure safe and easy access to COVID-19 vaccination. DIAL was created by a partnership between the Administration for Community Living and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, the organizations have issued nearly $93 million…
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The Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN), an organization primarily led by autistic people of color, is appalled by the August 13 Today Show article, “Why there’s a war between parents of children with autism and autistic adults.” This article minimized decades of neurodiversity advocacy, platformed a known hate group, and included no identifiable people…
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The Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN) applauds the July 7 appointment of Black autistic community leader Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, PhD(c), MA, to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). The IACC coordinates federal activities concerning autism spectrum disorder and provides advice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, JD, on issues related…
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The Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network unequivocally condemns yesterday’s court ruling striking down the FDA’s ban on painful electric shock for behavioral modification on disabled people. These devices are only known to be used at one institution in the U.S. – the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Massachusetts. Since 1988, the JRC has subjected people…
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