🩷 ASAN February Update 🩷

February 28, 2025

ASAN February Newsletter

Dear friend,

Our communities have been overwhelmed the past few weeks with harmful policies, dangerous nominations, and threats against our rights. We are dealing with it too, and it can feel like there is nothing left to do — but there are still actions we can take and work we will keep doing. We’ve been working on planning programs, creating resources, and making sure our community has the knowledge and skills they need to keep up the fight. Check out what we’ve been up to this month, and how you can get involved!

Tomorrow, Saturday, March 1st, the disability community will gather virtually across the world to remember disabled victims of filicide – disabled people killed by their family members or caregivers. We hold the Disability Day of Mourning vigils to draw attention to the ways people with disabilities are not valued and to honor the lives of victims. We hold Day of Mourning to demand justice and equal protection under the law for all people with disabilities. Our site coordinators have been hard at work planning virtual events that bring their local disability community together safely and significantly for this important day. Everyone is welcome at our Virtual Vigil, or click here to see a list of all vigils. Feel free to choose one local to you, or plan to join one whose time or platform works best for you.

There’s only 9 days left to apply for the 2025 Autism Campus Inclusion (ACI) Leadership Academy! The ACI summer leadership training prepares autistic students to engage in disability advocacy on their college campuses. ACI participants learn about making student groups, understanding disability policy, and talking to people in power. After the Academy, students get help from ASAN to meet their advocacy goals at their college. This year’s program will be held virtually from July 14th through 20th, 2025. We especially encourage students of color, LGBT students, low-income students, students with intellectual disabilities, AAC users, and students from other marginalized communities to apply. Learn more and apply today!

The past few weeks have been hard for our communities. That’s why we wrote a Plain Language explanation of some of the tough things that are happening. We also talk about ways you can act now to protect our rights. We talk about how President Trump put out some dangerous executive orders. Executive orders are instructions by the President about how the government should follow a law. We also talk about how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS is the part of government in charge of rules about health care in the U.S. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks vaccines cause autism. Having him lead HHS could be very dangerous. You can see ASAN’s statement here. Then we talk about some actions you can take this week!

As a part of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s 2024 gala, we have the honor to share and uplift our remarkable awardees’ words and their service to the self-advocacy and disability community. This month we were excited to share remarks from Pauline Bosma, founder of the Rainbow Group with Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong and recipient of the Creating Community Together Award Remarks.

Social media is a powerful tool for our community to connect, organize, and educate, but we need to be prepared to combat misinformation! Misinformation is when people share things that are not true. People can share misinformation on purpose or by accident. Knowing how to talk about the issues that matter to us is an important skill. That’s why ASAN held a webinar on Social Media and Effective Debunking earlier this month! This webinar talks all about how to spot misinformation and explain the truth.

As we move through this month, we recognize and honor the holidays, celebrations, and important events that hold meaning for our community and beyond.

Ayyám-i-Há
Imbolc
Laylat ul Bara’at
Parinirvana
Promised Savior Day
Ramadan
St. Valentine’s Day
Tu BiShvat

We know there are more holidays that we didn’t know to list here. Whether this month brings moments of joy, reflection, remembrance, or connection for you, we wish you peace and fulfillment. We hope this month brings opportunities for growth, kindness, and support.

This month saw many challenges on our rights, but it also saw work from all over our community — creating resources, building community, keeping one another safe as we continue the fight for all of us.

With warm wishes,

The Team at ASAN

As a part of the Consortium of Constituents with Disabilities (CCD), we denounced Trump’s baseless blaming of the deadly crash on disabled federal workers.
ASAN endorsed the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which protected people from ICE inside some places, like hospitals, schools, and churches
We signed onto a letter from the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics’ about protecting and preserving public access to federal data.
As a part of the CCD Education Task Force, we set our expectations for the next Education Secretary.
We signed onto a statement from the National Coalition on Accessible Voting expressing our disappointment with the rescission of the Biden Voting Access Executive Order.
ASAN opposed the reintroduction of a school voucher bill.
We signed onto a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposing DOGE’s compromise of sensitive federal data.
ASAN signed onto a letter from the Center for American Progress against cuts to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As a part of the CCD Disability and Aging Collaborative (DAC) and the Health and Long-Term Services and Supports Task Forces, we urged Congress to reject the FY 2025 budget resolution passed out of committee.
ASAN signed a letter asking for no cuts to programs that keep kids out of foster care altogether or make kinship placements feasible.