Big Woof Bud.

I imagine it's not only the fence but the stair balusters (which nearly gave Derek a heart attack when he had to dive across the room to catch their kid).

For example, I’m white and neurodivergent, and I was talking to a Black neurotypical friend about masking, and how I feel like I have to change the entire way I present myself in order to not be considered weird in public. She responded with “Oh, some of that sounds kind of like code-switching— how I have to switch away from using AAVE in white-dominated settings in order to be accepted.” And then we bonded over how frustrating and ridiculous it is that AAVE and stimming are both considered unacceptable in “professional” settings.

Another time, a straight Jewish friend was telling me about a book she had just finished reading, which was written by a Jewish author and had a Jewish main character. She was saying that it was really nice to read a book written by a Jewish author, because even when gentile authors do their research and write a pretty accurate Jewish character, they never quite feel Jewish— you can always tell the author was a gentile. And I said “Oh that sounds kind of like when I read queer characters written by straight authors— you can always tell the author was straight even if they do their research and get things fairly right. So even though I’m happy when any book features queer characters, it’s really especially nice to read queer characters written by queer authors.” And we bonded over this similar experience, and we were both excited that the other understood even if we were coming to this experience from different angles, and then we swapped book recommendations. This conversation is also a great example of when that internet attitude DOES apply— when someone outside of a particular group is trying to understand that group’s entire experience well enough to accurately write the world as seen through their eyes. They’re never quite going to get it right, and that’s ok! It just means it’s important to also have Own Voices authors writing those types of stories also.