I’ve been burned by being misquoted in less sensitive pieces I’ve contributed to. This is one of the reasons I was hesitant to be interviewed for Iowa State Daily’s Monday centerpiece on autism awareness month. Diction and word choice is extremely important to me and the reason for this is the fact that I am autistic and I struggle with communication. You would think that would be respected, especially in an article about autism. Unfortunately, even given my precautionary measures, that is not what resulted.

I am extremely upset by Iowa State Daily’s lack of professionalism and invasion of my privacy. I did NOT give them permission to use my photograph in the article due to the organization’s plan to use a “puzzle-piece” themed graphic. I stated this at the time of my interview and followed up with an email within hours of the interview’s conclusion.

The usage of puzzle pieces when depicting autism is offensive, juvenile and implies that we are something to be solved or fixed. This is not true. Each autistic individual is a unique person, on a diverse spectrum, and should be viewed as such. This sentiment is shared by many autistics in the community.

I included this information in a printout of educational material. I handed this printout to the interviewer. I talked about it during the interview. I sent it in an email. It included an audio recording of the interview as an attachment. The email also clearly expressed my exact sentiments, further information, as well as a written statement not giving the Iowa State Daily permission to use my photograph.

Furthermore, the article features other offensive and problematic elements. I warned against each of these possible issues in my interview combined with provided reasonings, and sources, in the educational material. Which, as I mentioned earlier, I literally handed to the author.

The article featured person-first language, which the autistic community views as offensive. The reason for this is the fact that our autism is not something that we carry with us. We are not a human person plus a terrible disorder. We are fundamentally different. Being autistic is an integral part of who we are as people, and interacts with every aspect of our lives. We can’t be separated from our autism, and this should be reflected in the language used while talking about us. This can be done by using identity-first language. That being said, I cannot speak for the wishes of the other interviewees regarding how they wished to be referred to as; I can only promote what can be observed from the community.

The article also features a statistic taken from Autism Speaks, an organization masquerading as a charity that has harmed autistic people and spread misinformation about autism for the last 10 years. When asked about what I wanted the article to emphasize, I stated that. Multiple times. Over every medium expressed previously. On the bright side, I will be writing an article on this topic later in the month, but there is additional information in the interim available on these subjects.

The information used in the article, as well as the way in which it is written, only covers the bare minimum of what autism is. Furthermore, it focuses on stories and information that read as “inspiration porn.” This means it focuses on the interviewee’s struggles regarding being autistic, and the successes in our lives written as being in opposition of our autism. These examples show autism as being a bad thing that must be overcome in order to be successful. That is not true.

Autism is a different way of experiencing the world and it is not our fault that society is built for neurotypical people and thus puts us at a disadvantage by default. The Huffington Post, and The Crimson White each offer more information on the issues involved in treating individuals with disabilities as “inspiration porn.”

The most frustrating part is that everything expressed here was easily avoidable. I feared this outcome and took considerable precautionary measures in order to prevent it. Any of the problematic aspects discussed earlier can be found with a simple Google search. All of the sources I included were found this way. The Iowa State Daily also had the volunteering of autistic students through the Student Disability Resources Office (SDR) to utilize in order to make sure that its article was not offensive in any way. Whether or not there was an autistic staffer available to write a sensitive piece like this, they did not reach out to the community to see if any autistic individuals wanted to write something themselves and have their voice be published. All of these things could have helped prevent the issues expressed. Again, any amount of autistic-perspective-centric research would have also shown these problematic and offensive elements.

Another issue with this article is the fact that not even half of what I said during the interview, when specifically asked about what I wanted to say, was actually published. I clearly stated during the interview that SDR has experienced a 458 percent increase in new students seeking assistance, as well as a 224 percent increase of all students that need resources and accommodation, since the office’s establishment 10 years ago. Iowa State University has only hired one additional professional in those 10 years.

This academic year alone, there have been 765 new individuals seeking the assistance that the office provides. 765 new individuals represent 765 additional work hours required of SDR’s professionals at a minimum. The number of new students seeking assistance is projected to be over 900 next semester. This increase in workload runs Iowa State the risk of losing the invaluable professionals it already has, which the students heavily rely on in order to be academically successful. The fact that this issue is being ignored by the university, as well as its official newspaper ignoring the voices of students with disabilities, all goes to prove that Iowa State as an institution does not care about students with disabilities.

To continue, SDR’s current situation is an Iowa State specific issue, and would have been a great thing to include in an article like this. Instead they chose to vaguely insinuate that we need to “be more proactive” and to have a more “inclusive campus” while actively choosing not to publish solutions or present issues not only affecting autistic students, but all disabled students on campus. I find this to be a huge flaw in Iowa State Daily’s approach to journalism as a whole.

I took a chance and tried to educate, advocate for acceptance and hopefully make just a slight difference. My voice was not heard; It was actively ignored. I even warned about this across all of the mediums stated multiple times before. In fact, I emphasised on, and was quoted for, promoting a platform for autistic individuals to speak for themselves and for allistics not to speak over, or for, said autistics. The irony of this should not be lost on anyone.

All that being said, apart from the offensive elements, it is not a completely horrible article. However, it only barely covers topics that are vital to understanding and accepting autistic individuals and fighting prejudice and stereotypes regarding autism that are present in our society and that autistics, like myself, have dealt with our whole lives.

Editor’s Note: The Daily met with Widseth, Thursday, April 6, to discuss the issues she talks about in this essay. To help provide her perspective about autism she will be writing guest essays throughout the rest of April, which is Autism Awareness Month.