News & Announcements
In partnership with a large coalition of disability coalitions, NGOs, and advocacy groups, the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN) is proud to update our community on a recent multinational qualitative research endeavor conducted between May 1 – June 5, 2020. The collaborative project, conducted by the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for Sustainable…
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AWN applauds today’s long-overdue Supreme Court decision that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects queer and trans employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In the fall, the Supreme Court had heard three related cases all involving employers firing people for being gay or transgender. R. G.…
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The Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network (AWN) condemns yesterday’s announcement that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is rolling back critical protections for trans and disabled people. Adding to this devastation is that this announcement comes during Pride month and specifically came on the fourth anniversary of the deadly shooting at the Pulse…
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All women’s experiences are real women’s experiences Like many of our community members, AWN is dismayed and disappointed to learn about JK Rowling’s most recent transmisogynistic comments about sex and gender. Among other comments, Rowling claimed that she would march in support of trans people if trans people experienced discrimination. As the leading autistic organization…
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Disability Justice depends on a politic and practice of active solidarity and collective work for liberation. The Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network’s leadership, staff, volunteers, and community members share in the rage and sorrow caused by unceasing anti-Black racist violence in this nation, which directly impacts our Black leaders and community members. Many of us…
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AWN is troubled by the sudden popularity of the “Autism Challenge” dance challenge on TikTok, but where users encourage each other to film short clips pretending to dance by flapping their hands and making other facial expressions and body movements meant to imitate and mock autistic people, all set to a soundtrack making fun of…
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AWN is deeply saddened to learn of the untimely death of Aimee Stephens, a trans woman and advocate in Michigan who catapulted to national attention over the last few years when her employment discrimination case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Like many trans people, and particularly transfeminine people, Aimee faced clear and open…
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Yesterday, the autistic community, the self-advocacy movement, and humanity at large lost a titan, a leader, a visionary, a public intellectual, and an artist whose work has influenced, inspired, and forged paths forward for thousands of autistic activists and advocates for decades. Amelia Evelyn Voicy Baggs, known to friends as Mel, died in Vermont, where…
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Our world is in crisis – this is new for many people, and for many others in our communities, this is unfortunately very familiar. AWN’s board members, staff, and volunteers are working constantly to support autistic and other disabled people in many marginalized communities, while also struggling with the impact of this COVID-19 global health…
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For over three decades, the Judge Rotenberg Center has subjected autistic and other disabled people to painful electric shock torture as a form of behavior modification to punish and control those confined there. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally announced that a ban on the use of those electric shocks to take effect in…
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