Over the years, many challengers have arisen seeking to take the crown of the definitive autism colour. However, few have succeeded, leaving the throne still vacant. While I myself have my own preferences, which will become clear soon enough, here is a slightly unbias rundown of the bookies’ favourites:
Blue
Maybe it’s because old habits die hard or maybe it’s because all the pre-bought blue autism merch can’t be refunded, but it seems that when it comes to assigning a new autism colour, some people have taken the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach – despite the reality being that blue is almost certainly ‘broke’ as a colour (but let’s not repeat ourselves).
Red
Put forward in 2015 to stand as a direct contrast to Autism Speaks ‘light it up blue’ campaign, red is a striking colour often used for raising awareness of the neurodiversity movement. With heavy ties to passion and love, two things which autistic people are often misaccused of being incapable of, red has become a fast favourite, despite being held back by its connections with rage and anger – associations which don’t do it any favours, especially when the colour was originally intended as a protest above all.
Gold
Used by those who want to see a move away from autism awareness and on to autism acceptance, gold is a colour commonly associated with wisdom, enlightenment and optimism. Chosen due to the periodic symbol for the element gold: Au, gold may be much rarer than most other colours on this list, but it’s inoffensive nature and clever origin make it a strong contender for autism colour.
Purple
The iconic colour of the U.K’s National Autistic Society, purple is a natural progression away from blue, due to having the same hues as the colour but better connotations, such as imagination and being the most powerful wavelength of a rainbow (which in itself is a spectrum). Purple is also considered rare in nature which could be seen as a negative, due to making autism seem a lot less prominent than it actually is. However, it has also been seen as a colour for royals, which makes it perfect to take the aforementioned autism colour crown.
Taupe
Used to highlight the somewhat ironic nature of the Light It Up Blue campaign, which features dazzling lights and overwhelming publicity events to raise awareness of a community who suffer from sensory processing issues. Tone it down Taupe may not be the most obvious choice for autism colour but, since 2013, it’s underdog nature makes it an exceptionally endearing alternative, when all other colours are blitzing skylines on April 2nd (and hey, it’s coincidentally quite close to my site’s colour – so it gets my vote!).
Rainbow
Why settle for one colour when you can have them all? Used to portray the autistic spectrum in its full diverse entirety, the use of a rainbow (usually not far away from an infinity symbol) is a great solution to the autism communities indecisiveness and its connotations with joy and optimism make it a welcome one at that. One major concern with the use of this, however, is that the use of a rainbow could easily be confused with the same colours used by the LGBTQ community means that, even when your answer to ‘What colour should represent autism?’ is ‘All of the above’ there is still room for contention
