Here’s my stance on characters that are coded as autistic: unless those characters are contributing to harmful misconceptions about autistic people.... they’re hella autistic!

Why the heck *wouldn’t* you want autistic characters in the world of the play or whatever?!

They’re fictional. They can’t very well get a diagnosis now, and some autistic people never do anyway.

I appreciate when characters are explicitly said to be autistic because I do think that opens up the creators to greater accountability to the autistic community.

All too often we see quirky characters with plausible deniability that covers for the lack of collaboration with autistic creatives or not casting an autistic actor.

But a diagnosis might not always be necessary or relevant and it shouldn’t be the “catch” preventing someone

from understanding a character to be autistic. If you truly believe autistic people to be fully dimensional human beings with agency, understanding a character to be autistic shouldn’t take away from the author’s original vision at all but add another layer of understanding

cc: @hayleystjames