I can’t believe there’s now an #autismsucks hashtag from mum’s of autistic kids complaining about how much of a burden their kids are?? You know your kids are going to grow up and see all those horrible posts about them one day, right? Once it’s on the internet, it’s forever on the internet. Autism doesn’t suck, it’s my life and I’m perfectly happy being me thank you.
Someday I’m going to become powerful enough to kill all of these awful parents with my mind alone
I’ll add that it’s very noticeable that a significant swath of people ostensibly defending her feel the need to qualify it with how much they dislike Rose. Saying ‘don’t throw racist misogynistic abuse at the actress of a character you hate’ is … clearing the lowest possible bar. Apparently, it’s so difficult to simply denounce widespread racist misogyny without tacking on their seething hatred of a character her actress did not write.
I know that there are autistic people who cannot, presently, communicate in a way that we know how to understand well.
I have never and will never say that autism isn’t a disability or that no one can be profoundly disabled by autism. Never. I do not know who you think I am, but I am not one of those people. A perusal of my blog on the topics of autism or disability would’ve told you that. I consider myself disabled by autism, and most of the autistic people I know do.
I know that there are completely non-speaking people. Many of them are able to use other methods of communication, like AAC devices, letter boards, ASL, or sounds and gestures. Some are not.
I know that there are autistic people who we have not found an effective way to communicate with yet.
The key word there is “yet.” When I say “we can do better for non-verbal autistic people,” what I mean is that I consider us generally–the advocacy world, the research world–to be morally bound to keep looking for communication methods that could help those people and keep trying to understand what their specific obstacles are and how to work with them.
“Some people just can’t communicate” doesn’t cut it. We have not even come close to a situation in which all non-speaking people have access to AAC if they need it (about half of non-speaking adults do not), and in which most researchers and clinicians take seriously the capacity of many non-speaking/non-verbal people to think and communicate if their specific challenges and needs can be understood and met, or autistic-reported issues that may impact communication ability like movement disorders, exposure anxiety, and auditory processing disorder. Though oral motor apraxia is one thing that is starting to be taken seriously as a common barrier to speech in autistic people.
It’s not that you personally just aren’t trying hard enough! But when people close to a non-speaking person have already decided, or been told and believed, “this person does not communicate,” when this is a pervasive prejudice about non-speaking and non-verbal people, that puts you at risk of not seeing genuine attempts at communication as communication.
“Totally non-vocal” does not mean non-communicative.
I don’t know if you know, but every year for the past couple of years now, a tweet chat called #AutINSAR (#AutIMFAR in 2017) has been held during INSAR, which is the biggest annual conference on current autism research, to put autistic people directly in touch with researchers to talk about research priorities and goals. And something that always tops the list of priorities that autistic people wish research would pursue is better and more available AAC, and how best to enable people with the most intense communication challenges.
Instead of continuing to throw millions and millions of dollars at trying to make mice autistic.
That is what I mean when I say “We can do better for non-verbal autistic people.”
Not that it is going to be easy or magical or somehow we will be able to turn every non-speaking person into someone who can communicate conventionally and articulately.
But we can do better than writing off non-verbal people as “just can’t communicate,” and we need to.
Wow, anon is narrow minded and ableist as hell. They need to listen to more autistic people.
“When I say “we can do better for non-verbal autistic people,” what I mean is that I consider us generally–the advocacy world, the research world–to be morally bound to keep looking for communication methods that could help those people and keep trying to understand what their specific obstacles are and how to work with them.”
“Some people just can’t communicate” doesn’t cut it"
Kay Anon. Sos you thinks cause I can’t speak or understand when you blather your bullshit then I is better off dead? Peoples what cannot communicate at all are EXTREMELY rare. Is not that they isn’t trying to communicate, is that y’all isn’t paying attention. When Baby (not a actual baby, is just name cause has same name as nother person in the fambly) sreams and yells near her mother is not a tantrum – is cause communicating that the perfumes her mother uses hurt her. Is not Baby’s fault her mother is a shithead what doesn’t pays attention to the communication. Blame yourselfs for not paying attention, not us for not communicating – we is trying, you is ignoring us.
EDIT: Yeah, I knows my words get worse when I get mad.
it rly is weird how theres this culture in progressive spaces where like you can be as mean, as CRUEL even, as you want as long as youre not being explicitly bigoted towards any marginalized group of people and still be seen as a really good person with good morals who nobody is allowed to have beef with bc theyve never done anything racist or homophobic
this culture enables actual abuse. ive seen progressives engage in gaslighting, guilt-tripping, stalking, harassment, witch hunts, death threats, rape threats, and suicide baiting. these abusers are protected by the idea that marginalized people cannot be abusive and that any criticism of the behavior is “problematic” or tone-policing. the behavior likely emerged as a reaction to tone-policing, respectability politics and moderate liberalism, swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme of aggressive callout culture and groupthink. i also think many progressives are marginalized + disempowered in mainstream society and cope by replicating the same patterns of abuse in a microcosm where they have clout
Addendum: you can also be horribly bigoted toward other marginalized people, so long as you use the ‘correct’ language and attack a marginalized group that is already a popular target of lateral / intra-community aggression (or, as I like to call it ‘I’m too chickenshit to do anything that requires effort or sacrifice, so my activism is screaming at other marginalized people and blaming them for all my issues’).
This is very visible on Tumblr, with a rotating cadre of people (bisexuals, pansexuals, ace/aro people, nonbinary people, intersex people, trans people who don’t subscribe to transmedicalist stances) being the revolving Targets du Jour for some truly vicious hate and smear campaigns, by individuals *who should know better* (but don’t, because they enjoy the thrill of soft, easily reachable targets upon which to vent the rage caused by non-marginalized society). Fundamentally, this is what happens when one’s activism revolves around seeking VENGEANCE (and a completely misplaced one at that!) rather than justice.
Good post but I wanna add another example: people are literally allowed and even encouraged to be as mean-spirited and cruel towards people who exhibit autistic traits, so long as they never actually use the word “autistic.”
I know we’re all terrified by America right now, but you need to know what is happening in Britain, there’s so much shit going on, but here’s some of the highlights:
The UN have condemned the British government for “grave” failures regarding disabled people’s rights. [x]
There are over half a million people using food banks, because they cannot afford to eat. [x]
The benefits system is declaring people fit to work, ignoring the opinions of their doctors, and refusing them money unless they spend 35 hours a week actively looking for work. These include people with severe disabilities, mental health issues, and people who are literally dying. In fact, around eighty people a month die within six weeks of being declared fit to work by this system. [x]
16.7% of the population is living in poverty, with a further 30% at serious risk of slipping into poverty [x]
Children are suffering from such severe malnutrition they’re having to be treated for rickets. [x]
It’s currently estimated that 1 in 200 people in the UK are homeless. [x]
This is just a tiny snapshot, and I won’t even go into the NHS crisis, because that deserves it’s own massive post.
We’re now deporting people who’ve lived and worked here for decades. We invited a load of commonwealth citizens over, starting in 1948, with the arrival of HMS Windrush, and they became known as the Windrush Generation, but though they were given indefinite leave to remain we didn’t give out any damned paperwork until after 1971 so we’re kicking them out now that they’re old and not paying taxes, despite the fact that most of them came over as children, and that they made lives here, and worked to support this goddamned racist backwater of a country for decades. [x]
the worst part is that people with mental illness are like twice as likely to be victims of sexual assault – like if he WERE mentally ill, that wouldnt make him any less likely to have suffered a sexual assault soooooo
It’s also anti Black too. Reminds me of when Black activists during the Civil Rights movement were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I saw that one advert supporting autism $peaks that said sth like “it costs $60,000 more per year to care for a person with autism” and let me tell you.
those figures only made me feel like a burden on my family. my first thought wasn’t “this is something in support of autistic people!” it was “do I really cost my family that much?”
it’s not like the advert gave legitimate sources for that statistic. it’s not like they made it clear what the donations going to autism $peaks would be used for. it mostly just made us out to be a burden.
that advert wasn’t “help autistic people”, it was “give sympathy points to caregivers who have to deal with an autistic person”.
it didn’t read like “we’re here to help people!”. it read like “look how awful it is to deal with an autistic person”.
it didn’t paint us as people, it painted us as problems.
that’s the issue present in all adverts published by or in support of autism $peaks. the goal isn’t to help us. it’s not about the autistic people. it’s about the caregivers. it’s about making sure the general public thinks society is better of without autistic people.
it’s “look at this poor caregiver! their life wouldn’t be like this without that nasty autism!”
to support autism $peaks is to support the idea that autistic people are not people, but problems.
we are not a problem to be fixed. we are autistic people, and we don’t need autism $peaks to speak for us.
If you’re following the whole Hans Asperger debacle:
You can find that article here. It provides a detailed look at the matter. This piece, as well as Steve Silberman & Maxfield Sparrow’s Tweet responses, add important nuance and autistic voices to the discussion.
Maxfield Sparrow talks about the impact of this news about Asperger, giving advice to fellow autists/aspies, and asks the question “Why was the first printing of “NeuroTribes” so kind to Asperger?”.
Silberman’s reply to that is extensive. Still, it is important to know for anybody telling others to just “read NeuroTribes”. Part of it reads:
“The reason I didn’t attempt to overturn that consensus was that I didn’t have access to the data in Sheffer’s book and Czech’s paper, which they deserve credit for uncovering. It was widely believed that Asperger’s case files had been destroyed during the war, but Czech found them in a municipal archive in Vienna. That’s where a lot of this new information is coming from.”
Through no fault on Silberman’s part, he did not have access to the full information. And Silberman states that Hertig Czech did not give him the same information about Asperger as he gave the author of “In A Different Key”. Czech had refused to provide the details that came out in that book because “he wanted to first publish the information under his own name”. Which is messed up, in my humble opinion. Later in the article, Edith Sheffer is displayed as having misrepresented Lorna Wing’s attitude to the term “Asperger’s” during her book’s epilogue. It goes to show what a grey area all this research and publishment can be. Everybody appears to have a bias (Silberman included) and this affects their speech. To gain a clear view, all talkers must be examined.
Maxfield Sparrow also makes a valid point here:
“One good thing that came out of reading Sheffer’s book was that it brought me a step closer to understanding and embracing Autistic Pride. I struggle with being okay about being Autistic and often Autistic Pride seems just a bridge too far. But seeing more clearly that we have always faced the barriers we face today has stirred some pride in being part of a people who survive against the odds. Seeing non-compliance pathologized by Nazi doctors makes me proud to belong to a people who resist oppression. And realizing that so much of what passes for therapy and accommodation today would be wholeheartedly embraced by Nazi doctors reminds me that the monsters who killed Autistic children 80 years ago were also human beings with families and friends and loving relationships. It reminds me that otherwise good people today could also be monsters.”
Honestly, I encourage you to read the whole piece, even though it’s lengthy. Don’t leave this at the quotes I picked out as they cannot give the entire picture. It must be viewed fully. Because then you can form your own opinion on the article fairly.
Maxfield Sparrow and Steve Silberman have a reciprocative discussion, both asking and answering questions, delving much deeper into it than “Hans Asperger isn’t the problem!” vs “Hans Asperger is the Devil!”
Their conclusions:
“[Maxfield Sparrow:] When the chips are down, I will always join with my neurotribe. So I want to officially state that, while I still don’t personally want to be called an Aspie, I am ready to fight on behalf of my Autistic siblings who do connect with that identity—not as a euphemism for high functioning, but as a cultural marker of their understanding of themselves and the world we live in. No, you cannot take away the identity of thousands of Autistics! Asperger had deep flaws, but the identity that has grown around his name is valid and the people who identify with Asperger’s have the right to decide for themselves whether to keep his name or not.
Steve Silberman: I agree. I think autistic people should be leading the response to this new information and determining what happens to the phrase Asperger’s syndrome. One of the best things that could come out of this is a wake-up call, because concepts like eugenics reassert themselves in every historical era—whether it’s Nazis talking about “life unworthy of life,” geneticists in Iceland talking about “eradicating” Down syndrome through selective abortion, a presidential candidate mocking a disabled reporter from the podium while bragging about his “good genes,” or autism charities framing autism as an economic burden on society. Resisting institutionalized violence requires perpetual vigilance.”
Rush's tumblr archive 