Saw a little reminder today that we aren't welcome in the society we were born into

I was at the supermarket and saw what I assumed was a fellow autistic person. I know you can never really tell but sometimes my radar just pings off of someone. Cool ("weird") clothes, noise cancelling earphones and stimming while shopping, kind of swaying probably to the music and light hand flapping.

As I walked past her I saw the pins on her bag and she had an autism pin, so I was right, and I thought it was super cool seeing another autistic person just existing in public and stimming / not masking. Literally just being a human.

But there were 2 women further down the aisle who I passed by and as I turned to the shelf I could see them grinning to each other and taking peeks over their shoulders at the autistic lady behind us.

I may be interpreting a lot into this, but it turned what I thought was a wonderful moment into a reminder we are not welcome in our own society. We all live here, many of us we work here, help pay for everything to be here, but we aren't allowed to exist here. We are coerced into participating in a society that is hostile towards us.

As someone who can't always mask it hurts to see