Late last month I noticed an electronic billboard in Grand Central Station notifying me that it was the time of year when we accept autism.
Autism Acceptance Month can trace its roots to 1970 with the establishment of Autism Awareness Month. (Its rebranding, starting around 2011, came out of a frustration with messaging that presented autism as a scourge, rather than simply an example of neurodiversity.) Since 2022, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has observed the month, initially partnering with a non-profit called the Autism Transit Project, and since 2023 with a disability-advocacy group called IncludeNYC.
As advertised by the billboards, the MTA honored Autism Acceptance Month with a change in color scheme at the Grand Central and Penn Station LIRR terminals. They also played subway announcements recorded by autistic children in about a dozen subway stations around the city—a program that brings a good deal of joy to its participants.
Which is why I suspect I might be a bit of a Grinch to wonder if a public transportation agency should be devoting time, energy, or money to a program that, popular though it may be, does not really have anything to do with transporting the public. As I would learn while producing this video, the MTA’s participation in Autism Acceptance Month is of a piece with its observance of other “months,” including LGBT Pride Month in June and Disability Pride Month in July.
Around 75% of NYC’s subway stations don’t have elevators; around 100% of them are filthy. The PA speakers, while improving, still broadcast incomprehensible announcements in stations throughout the city. Particularly if we are concerned about making the MTA maximally accessible, should we not devote all the energy we can to mitigating these issues before celebrating people for their neuro- and sexual diversity?
Perhaps that is a facile argument: it is much cheaper to rename Christopher Street or install some blue light bulbs than it is to bring an elevator to a single train station. Also, in preparing this story I came across this furious Post article from earlier this year, when it looked for a moment like the MTA would discontinue the program. It unsettled me to think that when it comes to a publicly administered program for disabled youth I might be to the right of the New York Post.
Tormented by the moral complexity of giving joy to autistic children, I took to Penn Station last week and talked to my fellow New Yorkers about the MTA’s Autism Acceptance Month programming.
Here you go.
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