Everyone makes mistakes.
As an ally, you will make mistakes.
You might hurt autistic people by accident.
Your advocacy might not work.
Sometimes, autistic people will tell you about mistakes you made.
Or, you will find out on your own.
Making mistakes is a normal part of being an ally.
It is important to know when you made a mistake.
Then, you can make it better.
You can figure out how to fix your mistakes.
You can keep trying to be a good ally.
Some mistakes will be easy to fix.
For example, you might use a word that hurts us.
It is easy to stop using that word.
Some mistakes will be harder to fix.
For example:
You might have a job that hurts autistic people
The job might try and make us look less autistic.
This makes it harder for us to be ourselves.
You might need to change your job.
Being an ally sometimes means doing hard things.
Autistic people understand that.
We have to do hard things all the time.
It is hard to live in a societyA big group of communities. A society usually has rules and people in charge. that hurts us.
It is important that our alliesNon-autistic people who want to help autistic people. All sorts of people can be allies. work hard to change that.