This is somewhat inspired by the Chuggaconroy - Lady Emily situation and specifically this possible explanation for it that someone brought up, but its not really about that (but if you want to discuss this specific instance, feel free, im looking for some moral clarity on if anyway). Its a thought ive been having for a literal decade
I think nd advocacy and feminism do not intersect cleanly. I dont want to get into details, but i have been in the position of harassing someone without realizing i was doing that multiple times in my life. I think autistic men do often fuck up socially with women in a way that is recieved as harassment.
And i do think the autistic man is still acountable for that and needs to learn better in the future.
But i also wonder a lot about how to best deal with the intersection.
There are other issues as well. Like making the world more accessible and safe for people with Rejection-Sensative Dysphoria, but also protecting a woman’s (and people in general’s) right to say “no”. And connected to this, de-stigmatizing ND behaviors while protecting women’s right to social autonomy and trust their “creep-dar”. (Because i think sometimes ND behaviors can sometimes ping someones creep-dar even if the ND person means no harm at all, because lf the stigmatization).
Im also aware there is a body of writing by Autistic women feminists criticizing the behavior of many autistic men, but im not totally sure how to incorporate that.
This feels pretty ableist honestly. It’s something caused directly by a disability, would you say someone in a wheelchair should be held accountable for taking up more floor space? Or someone with tourettes should be held accountable for saying slurs? It’s effectively saying an autistic man can never fully unmask around a woman.
If you want a space to be truly inclusive for ND people, it needs to be inclusive of freaks, weirdos, and, yes, “conventionally creepy” people.
At the same time all people should feel safe, and in many ways it feels the underlying problem is that a lot of the time they aren’t safe. If people are genuinely safe then they have less need to rely on knee jerk reactions to “conventionally creepy” people. (how you achieve that I guess is the hard part)
Yeah my point is if you “accidentally harass” someone as an ND person you should still apologize (if they are still comfortable hearing from you). I dont think the “accidentally harassed” person has a responsability to continue with a dynamic that made them uncomfortable.
So what i mean is “accountable for the bad feelings caused”.