But I’ve also come to love my neurodivergence. It informs the depth of my artistry and my capacity to care for others. In a world that constantly frames disability as a disease—a world where a member of the U.S. Cabinet has asserted that “autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children”—loving myself fully is an act of resistance. I wish it weren’t that way.

More often than not conversations about autism are led by people who parent autistic children or care for an autistic person in their life. While these are important pathways to collective understanding, autistic people themselves can no longer afford to be left out of the discourse. If you really want to understand what it means to live with autism, read books by autistic authors. Follow conversations happening on social media platforms by searching #actuallyautistic, #autisticjoy, and #autist. Beyond just following the individuals on Love on the Spectrum, seek out content creators who are sharing their daily, direct experiences of being Black and autistic, Asian and autistic, queer and autistic, multiply disabled and autistic. Diversify where you get your information, because as another saying goes, “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”

As the Trump administration’s rhetoric ramps up, we should continue to focus as a society on accessibility and inclusion, empowerment, and understanding. Autistic people don’t need to be peddled a chancy fix or to be treated like burdens to the people around us. Instead we should receive better research, better health care, and, most of all, better representatives. We may not have control over how the White House portrays us, but we can hold on to the vision of a better, more humane future—and design our lives around the values that can make that vision possible.