Dear friend,

This month we celebrated our community — as well as our love of dinosaurs — and continued to fight for our rights. Check out what we've been working on this month and what work is still to come!

We were excited to begin Autism Acceptance Month seeing the White House celebrate World Autism Acceptance Day rather than World Autism Awareness Day. The White House proclamation calls upon Americans “to learn more about the experiences of autistic people from autistic people, and to build more welcoming and inclusive communities to support people with autism.” Acceptance is about creating a society where all autistic people can have the accommodations we need and be fully included. While we want people to know about autism, the connotation of “awareness” can imply something negative, or something to be worried about. Acceptance is an action, and we look forward to future actions to improve US policy for autistic people, like ending subminimum wage and expanding Medicaid home- and community-based services.

In honor of our Dinosaur Donors, we had some prehistoric visitors this month and shared a few dino facts. We’ve enjoyed having the office dinosaurs around again this April, but they’ve found it’s a lot of work to run an office! We’re sad to say goodbye, but we had a great time celebrating Autism Acceptance Month with the Field Museum last week. We talked with Sue the T. Rex and their friends at the Field Museum about accessibility, autism acceptance, and of course dinosaurs! If you missed it, you can check out the recording here.

This April, the government finalized a lot of federal rules that matter a lot to our community. Federal rules are made by the executive branch to make sure laws are followed. Some of these rules make it easier to get and keep Medicaid, SSI, and other benefits, or make sure that the services and supports that we get are good and will help us. Some of these rules also say what the government, hospitals, or other people need to do to respect our rights and not discriminate against us. There are more federal rules that are still coming out! There are a lot of rules we expect to be out very soon that will also be very important for our community. Here are some of the important rules that have been finalized or are currently being finalized this month.

ASAN welcomes the Department of Justice’s updated voting guidance and its launch of justice.gov/voting. The website hosts a number of resources that people with disabilities can use to learn more about our right to vote, understanding accessibility protections, and how to make a civil rights complaint. We would especially like to highlight and applaud the updated guide on The Americans with Disabilities Act and Other Federal Laws Protecting the Rights of Voters with Disabilities. In this guide, the DOJ clarifies and newly states a number of protections people with disabilities have while voting because of the ADA. Here are some of the rules laid out in this guide:

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits states from “categorically disqualifying individuals who have intellectual or mental health disabilities” from voting solely because of their disability status or guardianship. States may not subject people with disabilities to a higher standard for demonstrating capacity than other voters.
• Voter registration must be accessible to people with disabilities.
• Absentee voting cannot be the only method of voting available to people with disabilities. There must be an accessible voting method available at all polling places.
• Service animals must be allowed in polling places.
• The right to assistance during the voting process includes the right to assistance from a person of the voter’s choice during all aspects of the voting process. “State laws that restrict people from providing assistance with voting, subject to criminal penalties, may chill assistors from aiding voters with disabilities and thus interfere with voters’ rights to assistance under the ADA.”
• Voters with disabilities have the right to accessible voting systems and effective communication.

Last month we launched our Teighlor McGee Grassroots Mini Grants program, which was named after former ASAN staff member and activist, Teighlor McGee. The program includes two mini grants: Affiliates in Action Mini Grant and Self-advocates Transforming Equitable Policy (STEP) Mini Grant. Both these mini grant categories are for projects focused on creating change for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the local, state, and national levels. We want to fund specific projects from either self-advocacy groups or individual self-advocates! Earlier this month we held a webinar to talk about this exciting new program and answer questions about the application process, what projects ASAN wants to give money to, and important dates for this program — check it out here.

Our community has been fighting to #StopTheShock for many years, and we have an opportunity to stop it now! The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a proposed rule that would ban the electric skin shock torture being used on some residents of the Judge Rotenberg Center. Right now, we need people to submit public comments to the FDA in favor of this rule. Anyone can submit a public comment! Even if you have never written a public comment before, our plain language toolkit will tell you everything you need to know. We also held a webinar all about writing a public comment on this rule — check it out. Once you have written your public comment, you can submit it here. Make sure to submit your comment and help us #StopTheShock for good!

Thank you for continuing to fight alongside us to make our community better for all autistic people! We’re honored to advocate alongside all of you all year round.

Sincerely,

The Team at ASAN