autisticrevolution:

Beware the autistic headcanons

I know Tumblr absolutely loves to claim various characters for certain groups (LGBT, certain disabilities, etc). Even if there’s absolutely nothing in a character’s official canon to support a certain conclusion (i.e: the character never demonstrates any traits that are characteristic of the group claiming that character), it doesn’t stop people from claiming them. Hell, I myself have done this with Ice Bear from We Bare Bears.

But we need to be careful about the potential exploitation of the creators of certain characters.

Take JK Rowling for example: for years, she claimed that Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series was gay. But once gay issues were no longer trendy enough to make her look good for making a gay character, she dropped his homosexuality. She casted Hermione as white in the Harry Potter movies, but suddenly decided to make her black so she could profit from the controversy surrounding the play in which Hermione was played by a black actress.

Long story short: she doesn’t give a fuck about representing any minority groups unless it puts her in the spotlight and gets her even more money.

Be careful about claiming characters who we have no reason to believe are autistic; the creators of these characters will take all the money they can from the popularity and then jump ship when autistic characters are no longer trendy and profitable.

If you need a fictional autistic character to relate to, make your own, or read any of the numerous stories written by autistic authors. Let’s have representation that won’t vanish when our demographic is no longer seen as profitable.

I appreciated that the Star Trek Discovery writers didn’t do that with Sylvia Tilly when they found out that some fans were headcanoning her as autistic. They just said, without judgement toward the fans, that they never intended for her to be that way and left it at that.