Stop Using Puzzle Piece Autism Representation - Blog Posts

Back from the dead to reblog my own year-old post.

Wanted to add that if you're autistic and want to reclaim the puzzle piece, that's perfectly fine! But it's good we advise people to stay away from websites and organizations that use it since most of them are still ableist.

Since it's Autism Awareness Month, here's

Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community

[Large text: Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community]

Unfortunately, the most commonly used symbols to represent autism are all puzzle related, like the ones bellow.

These symbols and similar ones are typically used by Autism Organizations that are run by allistic people rather than autistic, Autism Speaks being the best-known example across the internet, but not the only one.

I'm not going to go deep into how bad Autism Speaks is, but just to leave you with the tip of the iceberg, know they used to put out ads that demonized autistic people (and even one in which one of the organization's leaders spoke about wanting to drive herself and her autistic daughter off a bridge).

Autism Speaks, and many others, attempt to "teach" people about autism, without hearing what actually autistic people have to say, and that's their biggest (but not at all only) problem.

Now, stay with me as we dive into history...

The puzzle piece was first used as a symbol for autism in 1963, by UK's National Autism Society, later on being adopted by Autism Speaks, which made it more popular.

Back then, autism awareness campaigns were viewed as being similar to, for example, cancer awareness ones, because autism was seen as an illness, a disease (which it is not).

As I've made clear before, the puzzle piece is heavily associated with organizations that spread misinformation about autism, making it, of course, already a bad symbol to represent us, but there's something I personally feel bothers us a lot more, and that is the symbolism of the puzzle piece.

The puzzle piece represents an idea of "mystery" and — you guessed it — being "puzzled".

And us, autists, don't really appreciate being called confusing.

Not only that, these words were often used to describe autism offensively in the past (and still are). And, on top of that, most times, when you find a puzzle supposed to represent autism, it is incomplete.

Isn't the message clear enough?

We're people, not puzzles that have to be worked out. We're not incomplete and we're not "puzzled".

So

Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?

[Large text: Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?]

The infinity rainbow symbol is common for all neurodivergent people, while the golden infinity is specific for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder, in case you didn't know the acronym).

The infinity symbol represents the complexity and vastness of neurodivergence and autism.

Autism is less about "severity" and more about different struggles in different topics and areas (though not a lot of people seem to understand that, unfortunately). After all, autism is a spectrum, not a scale.

And if you're interested in why golden is the color of choice for us, that'd be because the periodic symbol for gold is Au, which I think is very clever, haha.

Some people also like to use red or plain yellow, I don't know a lot about that, but I'd recommend you research it.

And since we're on the topic of color, just a warning: in the Autistic Community we kind of avoid using blue to represent us, especially because it is heavily associated with Autism Speaks' "Light It Up Blue" movement.

Blue is seen as a representation of feelings like sadness, as well as being commonly associated with boys (this is important because women and other AFAB are often misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed because many people still think autism is only found in boys, and because many traits are viewed as "normal behavior" in AFAB people).

This isn't to say you can't use blue in the title of your PowerPoint presentation about ASD, it's just a thing we try to avoid.

Well, that should be all.

I decided to make this post because I've seen many people post about which symbols to use for Autism Awareness Month, but no one explaining why.

Thought this could help some poor lost soul understand it, lol

Happy Autism Awareness Month, my beloved Yippies, and a thank you to everyone who stopped to read <3 (heart).

Now I'm gonna go clean my search history and my gallery, just reading "Autism Speaks" gives me the ick.

Since it's Autism Awareness Month, here's

Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community

[Large text: Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community]

Unfortunately, the most commonly used symbols to represent autism are all puzzle related, like the ones bellow.

These symbols and similar ones are typically used by Autism Organizations that are run by allistic people rather than autistic, Autism Speaks being the best-known example across the internet, but not the only one.

I'm not going to go deep into how bad Autism Speaks is, but just to leave you with the tip of the iceberg, know they used to put out ads that demonized autistic people (and even one in which one of the organization's leaders spoke about wanting to drive herself and her autistic daughter off a bridge).

Autism Speaks, and many others, attempt to "teach" people about autism, without hearing what actually autistic people have to say, and that's their biggest (but not at all only) problem.

Now, stay with me as we dive into history...

The puzzle piece was first used as a symbol for autism in 1963, by UK's National Autism Society, later on being adopted by Autism Speaks, which made it more popular.

Back then, autism awareness campaigns were viewed as being similar to, for example, cancer awareness ones, because autism was seen as an illness, a disease (which it is not).

As I've made clear before, the puzzle piece is heavily associated with organizations that spread misinformation about autism, making it, of course, already a bad symbol to represent us, but there's something I personally feel bothers us a lot more, and that is the symbolism of the puzzle piece.

The puzzle piece represents an idea of "mystery" and — you guessed it — being "puzzled".

And us, autists, don't really appreciate being called confusing.

Not only that, these words were often used to describe autism offensively in the past (and still are). And, on top of that, most times, when you find a puzzle supposed to represent autism, it is incomplete.

Isn't the message clear enough?

We're people, not puzzles that have to be worked out. We're not incomplete and we're not "puzzled".

So

Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?

[Large text: Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?]

The infinity rainbow symbol is common for all neurodivergent people, while the golden infinity is specific for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder, in case you didn't know the acronym).

The infinity symbol represents the complexity and vastness of neurodivergence and autism.

Autism is less about "severity" and more about different struggles in different topics and areas (though not a lot of people seem to understand that, unfortunately). After all, autism is a spectrum, not a scale.

And if you're interested in why golden is the color of choice for us, that'd be because the periodic symbol for gold is Au, which I think is very clever, haha.

Some people also like to use red or plain yellow, I don't know a lot about that, but I'd recommend you research it.

And since we're on the topic of color, just a warning: in the Autistic Community we kind of avoid using blue to represent us, especially because it is heavily associated with Autism Speaks' "Light It Up Blue" movement.

Blue is seen as a representation of feelings like sadness, as well as being commonly associated with boys (this is important because women and other AFAB are often misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed because many people still think autism is only found in boys, and because many traits are viewed as "normal behavior" in AFAB people).

This isn't to say you can't use blue in the title of your PowerPoint presentation about ASD, it's just a thing we try to avoid.

Well, that should be all.

I decided to make this post because I've seen many people post about which symbols to use for Autism Awareness Month, but no one explaining why.

Thought this could help some poor lost soul understand it, lol

Happy Autism Awareness Month, my beloved Yippies, and a thank you to everyone who stopped to read <3 (heart).

Now I'm gonna go clean my search history and my gallery, just reading "Autism Speaks" gives me the ick.