Our Civil Rights

LongSpoons said:

There are quite a lot of us here who seem to be coping really well and I wondered if between us we had the strength to pull together some sort of campaign for better treatment by society.

Me too.

LongSpoons said:

If we could agree on what we wanted and could find a way to communicate it easily then why wouldn't non Autistic people want to help us improve the way we engage with the world.

Because it will massively inconvenience them and lead to occasional situations that make them uncomfortable ... In my view autistic inclusion in society trumps that easily but lets not pretend their won't pushback. For example my friend has recently started a degree in law and politics. Her request to do more remote studying was approved but only after her lecturers started to notice her odd comments and questions in class. Frankly the other students didn't know what to make of them. In this case it worked for her interests but had she wanted more class room engagement it might have been an issue.

LongSpoons said:

I think the first thing we need to do is have a clear identity that we own, that does not divide us and does not allow others on that identity alone to judge our abilities, limitations or needs. I would say that we all have an Autistic Profile or that we identify as a person with Autistic Traits.

The language of Autism should be autistic friendly, there should be no muddling of traits and general terms they tell us nothing apart from nobody has actually can properly explain what they are talking about. Poor language creates anxiety whilst clear language creates control.

I don't understand what you are trying to say?

LongSpoons said:

The issues around Autism Denial need to be treated as a hate crime, our use of language should be such that nobody can defend their actions when they treat an autistic person in an abusive way. We already have protections under the Law but we do not make it easy to engage those protections, we need to be clear about who we are and what we need. 

Yep. Thats very much the law. In theory the equality act is actually quite helpful, in practice the autistic people its meant to protect don't understand it and don't have the money / mental energy to invoke it. Disability hate crimes are already a thing but first you have to prove an ordinary crime for it to become a hate crime and most autistic people struggle to say get the police to bring charges of harassment. But that's an issue with law and law enforcement not language.

LongSpoons said:

Design a resource to provide specific coping techniques for individual traits, face to face training.

What kind of traits? What kind of coping? Training for autistic people or NTs?

LongSpoons said:

There are quite a lot of us here who seem to be coping really well and I wondered if between us we had the strength to pull together some sort of campaign for better treatment by society.

Me too.

LongSpoons said:

If we could agree on what we wanted and could find a way to communicate it easily then why wouldn't non Autistic people want to help us improve the way we engage with the world.

Because it will massively inconvenience them and lead to occasional situations that make them uncomfortable ... In my view autistic inclusion in society trumps that easily but lets not pretend their won't pushback. For example my friend has recently started a degree in law and politics. Her request to do more remote studying was approved but only after her lecturers started to notice her odd comments and questions in class. Frankly the other students didn't know what to make of them. In this case it worked for her interests but had she wanted more class room engagement it might have been an issue.

LongSpoons said:

I think the first thing we need to do is have a clear identity that we own, that does not divide us and does not allow others on that identity alone to judge our abilities, limitations or needs. I would say that we all have an Autistic Profile or that we identify as a person with Autistic Traits.

The language of Autism should be autistic friendly, there should be no muddling of traits and general terms they tell us nothing apart from nobody has actually can properly explain what they are talking about. Poor language creates anxiety whilst clear language creates control.

I don't understand what you are trying to say?

LongSpoons said:

The issues around Autism Denial need to be treated as a hate crime, our use of language should be such that nobody can defend their actions when they treat an autistic person in an abusive way. We already have protections under the Law but we do not make it easy to engage those protections, we need to be clear about who we are and what we need. 

Yep. Thats very much the law. In theory the equality act is actually quite helpful, in practice the autistic people its meant to protect don't understand it and don't have the money / mental energy to invoke it. Disability hate crimes are already a thing but first you have to prove an ordinary crime for it to become a hate crime and most autistic people struggle to say get the police to bring charges of harassment. But that's an issue with law and law enforcement not language.

LongSpoons said:

Design a resource to provide specific coping techniques for individual traits, face to face training.

What kind of traits? What kind of coping? Training for autistic people or NTs?

I guess what I am trying to say with identity and language is that we need to be really clear about who we are.

I don't think we need to get into an argument about the motives of NT people I don't think it will help.

Laws fail when there is ambiguity, the way society understands Autism is ambiguous which means the laws will fail, the clarity of language is something that will help the laws to work.

For the resources if we are coping well then we have probably developed skills that could help other people with the same autistic traits as ourselves, the difficulty is knowing what they are, how they work and how to tain someone else.

Sorry its not that I have answers, I just see a direction of travel.