What does it mean to love a Black autistic woman fully—without managing, silencing, or fragmenting her? Lovette Jallow writes on what it truly means to love a Black autistic woman without control, translation, or erasure. This isn’t softness. It’s structure.
How do I love this piece? I can't begin to enumerate the ways. The illumination of how societal White supremacist systems cost Black women in general, and how that is amplified for one who's autistic, was so clear, raw and visceral. As a man, I can't know firsthand what it's like, yet reading your work helped give as much first-person sensation as one can get without living it. Thank you for expounding so comprehensively and eloquently.
I understand and respect that this piece speaks specifically to the needs of Black, autistic women and it is rightly and importantly so. However, I couldn't help but notice something. The appeal for understanding, flexibility, sensitivity, space, situational adaptability, the importance of giving your partner exactly what they ask for or demonstrate that they need that moment and more, sounds like great relationship advice altogether. It seems applicable whether you're partner is neurotypical, autistic, Black or in another demographic.
I pondered the following thought. I tried to imagine society that did a better job at teaching the importance of honoring another person's needs in a given moment in general. What would it be like if the default position in society was belief; giving your partner what they need without casting doubt, making argument, gaslighting, challenging or insisting on "helping" in a way they don't want? How much better would relationships be overall? Furthermore, how much better prepared would this world be from that baseline to readily give autistic Black women love that supports and accepts all parts of them, just as that they deserve? I need to give this and the partner piece you published later that day another read and further contemplation.
Thank you for sitting with the essay so intentionally. I can feel the care in how you received it and the questions you’re holding are ones I hope more people begin asking.
You’re right: much of what’s named respecting needs without resistance, attuning to lived reality instead of projecting over it should be the baseline of love. But as you noticed, it rarely is. For Black autistic women, the absence of that baseline doesn’t just lead to miscommunication it becomes another site of erasure, another space where we’re gaslit into disappearing ourselves to maintain the connection.
So while yes, this kind of relational integrity would benefit everyone, the urgency hits differently when your very personhood has historically been denied. The hope is that by naming it specifically, with clarity and boundaries, we’re not just speaking to others we’re reminding ourselves that we’re worth the effort it takes to be loved well and rejecting what doesn’t but masquerades as it even when it’s from other Black people.
Thank you again for reflecting so deeply. I truly appreciate your presence here.
I thank you for sharing your work and insight! Reading your essays not only reassures me that I am not alone in my experiences, but reaffirms that it is possible to live and create as authentically as I want to.
I dont know you but i can safely say I’m grateful my essays resonate with you. You deserve to live and create on your terms, without apology. Keep choosing that. It’s not always easy but it’s yours! And only yours so please yourself if its one things you pick a day include you. 🩷✨
I am utterly devastated, floored and gutted by this. Every sentence of this was like a violent rearrangement of everything in me that has felt chronically mishandled and misunderstood but I excused it with, "maybe we are the problem and we need to change, need to adapt better to the way the world functions"
I'll leave it right here.
And say, thank you! Thank you for the depths of yourself that you had to go into to bring out this textual piece of medicine. May all the love and care that the world withholds find you amongst people and spaces that see you in your fullness.
That “violent rearrangement” you named? I know it well because I’ve lived it too. For years, I thought: maybe it’s me. Maybe I just haven’t adapted well enough. But what I finally learned, and what I want all of us to carry, is this: adapting to erasure is not resilience. It’s self-abandonment and we deserve better.
Thank you for receiving the work with your whole chest. For not turning away. For meeting the words where they came from.
Writing this cost me something but hearing that it gave you clarity means it wasn’t in vain.
May the world make room. And if it doesn’t we’ll keep writing the architecture ourselves.
Amazing work. I truly appreciate how you capture and articulate the otherness that comes with existing as an intersectional being. Often we become the villain in a story simply because our needs are different. We become neglected because those who ‘love’ us cannot be bothered to do the work of loving us properly. We learn to neglect ourselves because we move through the world being loved in pieces. This is powerfully written and I cannot complement you enough. Thank you for your perspective and voice. 🧡
You’re seeing it exactly. That shift from being unmet to being miscast is the quiet violence so many of us live through. To be called “difficult” simply for needing care on our terms. Today, I’m unleashing some truths. Two essays in fact. Because we deserve to be loved whole, not in fragments. Thank you deeply for witnessing this.
I love you as a whole person unconditionally. Thank you for everything you share, and through that, all that I have had the privilege to learn from you. You are such an amazing human!
Thank you. That’s exactly it true relationship requires seeing the full person, not just the parts that feel convenient or affirming. Too often, what’s labeled “connection” is really just tolerated access to fragments of us access that disappears the moment we assert boundaries or complexity. Whole-person care isn’t optional. It’s the only kind that doesn’t erode us. 🙏🏾🫶🏾
“Respecting a boundary isn’t about your intention. It’s about whether you can honor the limits we’ve named, especially when you don’t understand them. And if you need constant softness in order to listen, what you want is compliance—not relationship.
This is where many relationships fracture. People claim to value authenticity until it confronts their entitlement. They want the depth of our empathy but not the conditions that protect it. They want access to our insight, our presence, our care—but without the scaffolding that keeps us safe enough to offer those things freely.”
I love this so much. No more chopping ourselves up into pieces for people to pick and choose from. Love and support the whole person. That’s true relationship.
Thank you. That’s exactly it true relationship requires seeing the full person, not just the parts that feel convenient or affirming. Too often, what’s labeled “connection” is really just tolerated access to fragments of us access that disappears the moment we assert boundaries or complexity. Whole-person care isn’t optional. It’s the only kind that doesn’t erode us. I’m grateful this part resonated with you.
How do I love this piece? I can't begin to enumerate the ways. The illumination of how societal White supremacist systems cost Black women in general, and how that is amplified for one who's autistic, was so clear, raw and visceral. As a man, I can't know firsthand what it's like, yet reading your work helped give as much first-person sensation as one can get without living it. Thank you for expounding so comprehensively and eloquently.
I understand and respect that this piece speaks specifically to the needs of Black, autistic women and it is rightly and importantly so. However, I couldn't help but notice something. The appeal for understanding, flexibility, sensitivity, space, situational adaptability, the importance of giving your partner exactly what they ask for or demonstrate that they need that moment and more, sounds like great relationship advice altogether. It seems applicable whether you're partner is neurotypical, autistic, Black or in another demographic.
I pondered the following thought. I tried to imagine society that did a better job at teaching the importance of honoring another person's needs in a given moment in general. What would it be like if the default position in society was belief; giving your partner what they need without casting doubt, making argument, gaslighting, challenging or insisting on "helping" in a way they don't want? How much better would relationships be overall? Furthermore, how much better prepared would this world be from that baseline to readily give autistic Black women love that supports and accepts all parts of them, just as that they deserve? I need to give this and the partner piece you published later that day another read and further contemplation.
Thank you for sitting with the essay so intentionally. I can feel the care in how you received it and the questions you’re holding are ones I hope more people begin asking.
You’re right: much of what’s named respecting needs without resistance, attuning to lived reality instead of projecting over it should be the baseline of love. But as you noticed, it rarely is. For Black autistic women, the absence of that baseline doesn’t just lead to miscommunication it becomes another site of erasure, another space where we’re gaslit into disappearing ourselves to maintain the connection.
So while yes, this kind of relational integrity would benefit everyone, the urgency hits differently when your very personhood has historically been denied. The hope is that by naming it specifically, with clarity and boundaries, we’re not just speaking to others we’re reminding ourselves that we’re worth the effort it takes to be loved well and rejecting what doesn’t but masquerades as it even when it’s from other Black people.
Thank you again for reflecting so deeply. I truly appreciate your presence here.
I thank you for sharing your work and insight! Reading your essays not only reassures me that I am not alone in my experiences, but reaffirms that it is possible to live and create as authentically as I want to.
I dont know you but i can safely say I’m grateful my essays resonate with you. You deserve to live and create on your terms, without apology. Keep choosing that. It’s not always easy but it’s yours! And only yours so please yourself if its one things you pick a day include you. 🩷✨
Lovette 😭😭😭💛
I am utterly devastated, floored and gutted by this. Every sentence of this was like a violent rearrangement of everything in me that has felt chronically mishandled and misunderstood but I excused it with, "maybe we are the problem and we need to change, need to adapt better to the way the world functions"
I'll leave it right here.
And say, thank you! Thank you for the depths of yourself that you had to go into to bring out this textual piece of medicine. May all the love and care that the world withholds find you amongst people and spaces that see you in your fullness.
All my love 💛🌻
My July baby,
You already know what that message did to me.
That “violent rearrangement” you named? I know it well because I’ve lived it too. For years, I thought: maybe it’s me. Maybe I just haven’t adapted well enough. But what I finally learned, and what I want all of us to carry, is this: adapting to erasure is not resilience. It’s self-abandonment and we deserve better.
Thank you for receiving the work with your whole chest. For not turning away. For meeting the words where they came from.
Writing this cost me something but hearing that it gave you clarity means it wasn’t in vain.
May the world make room. And if it doesn’t we’ll keep writing the architecture ourselves.
All my love,
Lovette 🌹
Amazing work. I truly appreciate how you capture and articulate the otherness that comes with existing as an intersectional being. Often we become the villain in a story simply because our needs are different. We become neglected because those who ‘love’ us cannot be bothered to do the work of loving us properly. We learn to neglect ourselves because we move through the world being loved in pieces. This is powerfully written and I cannot complement you enough. Thank you for your perspective and voice. 🧡
You’re seeing it exactly. That shift from being unmet to being miscast is the quiet violence so many of us live through. To be called “difficult” simply for needing care on our terms. Today, I’m unleashing some truths. Two essays in fact. Because we deserve to be loved whole, not in fragments. Thank you deeply for witnessing this.
You are gonna make me hop a flight to Sweden to hear you speak!!!! I will simply not be able to resist. And love that for me.
I love you as a whole person unconditionally. Thank you for everything you share, and through that, all that I have had the privilege to learn from you. You are such an amazing human!
Thank you. That’s exactly it true relationship requires seeing the full person, not just the parts that feel convenient or affirming. Too often, what’s labeled “connection” is really just tolerated access to fragments of us access that disappears the moment we assert boundaries or complexity. Whole-person care isn’t optional. It’s the only kind that doesn’t erode us. 🙏🏾🫶🏾
“Respecting a boundary isn’t about your intention. It’s about whether you can honor the limits we’ve named, especially when you don’t understand them. And if you need constant softness in order to listen, what you want is compliance—not relationship.
This is where many relationships fracture. People claim to value authenticity until it confronts their entitlement. They want the depth of our empathy but not the conditions that protect it. They want access to our insight, our presence, our care—but without the scaffolding that keeps us safe enough to offer those things freely.”
I love this so much. No more chopping ourselves up into pieces for people to pick and choose from. Love and support the whole person. That’s true relationship.
Thank you. That’s exactly it true relationship requires seeing the full person, not just the parts that feel convenient or affirming. Too often, what’s labeled “connection” is really just tolerated access to fragments of us access that disappears the moment we assert boundaries or complexity. Whole-person care isn’t optional. It’s the only kind that doesn’t erode us. I’m grateful this part resonated with you.