This time on Neurodiversity News, I have gotten to interview Wolf Traverso, who is also called the Autistic Wolf. The wolf is her spirit animal and serves as a wonderful metaphor for her mission as an advocate.
Neurodiversity News: Tell me about yourself and what you do.
Wolf Traverso: My name is Wolf and I run the Autistic advocacy page, The Autistic Wolf. I am also a writer and have contributed to NeuroClastic. I also founded the concept of “Our Golden Moment,” which is a global coming out day for the Autistic community, on April 2nd, 2020. It is meant to happen every year and hopefully, we can start a trend that catches on. I work for an investment firm to pay for my lifestyle and have been at the company seven years. My role is inside sales, a career I have become expert in over the past 20 years. I’m a mother of two beautiful boys. One is diagnosed Autistic, and I suspect the other will be diagnosed at some point as well. My children are absolutely my life.
NN: How has being a parent of autistic kids influenced you as an advocate?
WT: I got into advocacy for selfish reasons, at first. It all started with a blog, which began my journey of self-discovery, reflection, and letting out my feelings and experiences about being Autistic. That blog then moved to becoming the Autistic Wolf page, on Facebook, where it took off. I went from starting the page around June 2019, to now having over 14,000 followers in September 2020. The blog and hearing from the followers, the questions they had, and being immersed in the Autistic adult community, brings me to answer your question. The more I learned about the injustice happening against Autistics (adults and kids), the more my passion grew to use my voice to make a difference. At first, that difference was for ALL Autistics, but when my suspicions that my oldest son is Autistic were confirmed by diagnosis, my passion further deepened to focus on him and his future. I care for, and love, all Autistics; I believe that since I am a good writer and orator, not always common features for an Autistic person, it is thereby my sacred duty to use my gifts with words to CREATE CHANGE. I want my son to grow up in a world better suited for him, where he is accommodated, feels safe, is loved, and appreciated by more in his life circle than those who have loved him since birth (me, his dad, etc…).
NN: Could tell me what the Wolf signifies to you and how it relates to your activism?
WT: I experience my Autistic life like a wolf in a civilized world, displaced from the forest and nature. As such, I changed my name to Wolf and frequently use the wolf analogy to communicate things to non-Autistic people, who may not otherwise understand explanations of what it feels like to be Autistic. My Autistic son has latched on to this analogy as well, and in doing so, has reaffirmed my commitment to the analogy itself and the journey of being an advocate.
If the analogy isn’t clicking for you, the reader, let me paint a picture. If you’ve ever been to a large manufacturing facility, you know there are blaring sounds, glaring lights, lots of machines moving, whirring, clanking, and people hurriedly doing their work. It can look like chaos, to the average human, or it may look like a smooth, ordered, purposeful, industrial chaos. To the wolf, it’s a nightmare. Too much sound, light, movement, too much everything. Said wolf, displaced from its natural habitat of the peaceful woods and plains, would be in a state of terror in that factory, terror from overstimulation.
That wolf is the Autistic person, living in this modern world, a world made for non-Autistics, with little to no regard for the needs of Autistic wolves, like my son and I.
The wolf analogy drives my advocacy. It fuels my language choice and gives me a platform from which to relate complicated concepts. It also has become a community driver. The followers on my page are all a pack. We support each other, ask questions of each other, share ideas, and thrive together. That sense of having a pack creates feelings of empowerment for those within the pack; I have explicitly received messages from pack members which state this. They say they feel like they belong somewhere, now. They feel safe with the Autistic Wolf Pack. As an advocate, that pack is not mine. Community and packs only exist with the influence of each member. The page has become something I did to get messages out and has evolved to become something done as a group, as a pack.
NN: What do you hope to achieve in the future?
WT: Broadly, I hope to drive more education and diplomacy between the Autistic and non-Autistic worlds. That education and diplomacy serves the purpose of creating understanding and accommodation. The non-Autistic world doesn’t see the civil rights movement happening right before their eyes. The Autistic adult community is fed up. We have seen children placed in handcuffs after melt downs, arrested, committing suicide. We have seen parents of Autistic children murder said children because of their autism. We have watched video clips of Autistic people shot by police. In NO WAY am I saying this to take away from the #BLM movement, which is and should stay forefront right now. I am saying the movement for the rights of Autistics is also simmering and brewing; perhaps quietly now, but I want to help make it louder. I want my son, and all Autistic children to grow up safely. #BLM is so important. Let me politely say: that said, the rights of Autistics have NOT been fought for in any open way to date. We have not had the visibility we need. We are still viewed as “disordered,” which I disagree with. I’d like to help eliminate the medicalization of being Autistic. The elimination of functioning labels. Better terms? Support needs. I mostly have low support needs. Some people have higher support needs. We are all Autistic. I want to see change happen. I want to make change happen. I want to work WITH other Autistic advocates, and the community at large, to start a blaze of our own freedom that will cleanse the neurotypical world of its lack of accommodation, allowing a fresh, quiet, peaceful forest of calm rise up so that each and every Autistic person, on this planet, has their safe lane to walk in as they move through life.
Have you seen the nature bridges in some countries? They are built and planted with native plants to enable wildlife to pass over freeways and other modern things. Let’s go back to the Autistic wolf analogy: I want to convince the non-Autistic world to build those bridges for US. Now. And Always.