The Bullseye Moment
Every news cycle feels like a new dart thrown at autistic people. One day it's a federal memo freezing research grants; the next, a state legislature padlocking diversity offices; by Friday, a Fortune 500 quietly axes its neuro‑inclusion team in the name of "efficiency." None of these blows land in isolation—they triangulate. Together they form a precise, deliberate bullseye.
Research: Lights Out in the Lab
In January, Reuters tallied a 26 % collapse in autism‑research dollars—$147 million sliced to $116 million in just four months, after President Trump's order purging "DEI & gender ideology" from federal science according to their investigative report. Projects tracking late‑diagnosed women, gender‑diverse teens, or environmental triggers were first on the chopping block.
A lab calendar I saw in Cambridge still shows sample collections scheduled for March—frozen in time because the freezer electricity was literally cut when their grant evaporated.
Campus: Hallways Gone Hollow
Florida's SB‑266 didn't just fire thirteen DEI staffers at UF—it ripped out every disability liaison housed in that unit, leaving autistic students to email a dead mailbox as reported by the university newspaper. Two weeks later, Texas copied the script: ≈60 diversity staff at UT Austin were escorted out to satisfy SB 17 according to KUT Austin. A quiet graveyard of empty offices now echoes where social stories and sensory‑friendly study rooms used to live.
Workplace: The Mask Tightens
When Fortune and Understood polled neurodivergent staff this spring, 70 % said stigma at work has intensified in the past year according to their joint survey. The same survey found only a third of employers still fund neuro‑inclusive policies. Less support means more masking; more masking means more burnout. Colleagues vanish into "voluntary" resignations that aren't voluntary at all.
Federal Pink Slips: The Model Employer Unmodels
The federal Schedule A pathway once fast‑tracked disabled talent into stable careers. Now entire cubicle rows of Schedule A hires face mass layoffs as AP News reported last month. When Uncle Sam stops modelling inclusion, the private sector takes the cue.
Why This Convergence Terrifies Me
Cut the lab dollars and we stall the search for adult‑focused therapies. Close the campus liaisons and we strand autistic freshmen 500 miles from home. Crank up workplace stigma and we shove skilled analysts, developers, and nurses out the side exit right when labour shortages bite hardest. Fire the federal trailblazers and the whole talent pipeline kinks shut.
It's not a budget tweak or culture‑war collateral—it's a co‑ordinated choke point, squeezing autistic lives at every milestone: diagnosis, education, employment, citizenship. A system can survive one artery severed; all four at once and the body goes hypoxic.
What Now?
- Document everything—paper trails outlive political seasons.
- Apply early to the funding pots politicians forgot to slash (Autism CARES quietly renewed through 2029).
- Shame loudly—budget line‑items sound abstract until you say what they amputate: the second‑grade aide who teaches a non‑verbal kid to spell 'Mom'.
- Link arms across conditions; lawmakers dismiss single‑issue constituencies, but a united disability block can jam the gears.
Autistic people aren't statistical noise—they're the canaries. When we silence canaries, the mine fills with gas.
Walk safe,
-T