ADS Rights

Often because raising the issue is more stressful than the issue itself.  It took me 4 years to speak to my boss about an issue that I had at work. When I did, she said she would have to pass it up the ladder, so I wrote a very carefully worded letter explaining my problem.  After a 3 month wait I got a very dismissive letter telling me that nothing was going to change. My HR rep says that I can meet to discuss the issue further and has been very supportive, but it's a policy that comes from higher up and if they're not willing to listen then nothing will change.

I think another part of it is that as a group we are taught that our discomfort is irrelevant, we just have to fit in with what everyone else needs. That our feelings don't matter.  And when it's harder for someone to communicate those feelings, and the efforts they make are dismissed, and you don't have other people that support you, it's easy to give up.

Oh btw (I thought I said this last week but apparently I didn't so I'll say it now) although NAS seems short on polling its autistic members in the forum, there are campaigns and things being run out of the main site as NAS along with ASAN in the US are primarily focused on ASD rights.

because when you do another of those loud groups chirps up attacks you and has you banned and silenced and portrayed as against their group. so its pointless, and political liars will just take and use and group your rights with another not for the sake of your rights but for taking any protections you have to push their own harmful politics most of us wont agree with

'Autism has been pathologised as disease or disorder. However, autistic individuals do not typically understand themselves within a model of pathology. These views are often dismissed as autistic individuals are said to lack epistemic authority - that is, the ability to contribute to knowledge formation on Autism. Indeed, it has been argued that because autistic individuals are autistic, they lack the ability to produce reliable knowledge on Autism. Different ways of understanding Autism convey different levels of stigma, however. Autistic individuals tend to have a reliable and scientific understanding of Autism, which is also less stigmatising.

The ‘autistic person’, is not a natural category; instead it came into existence as a psychiatric diagnosis. Autism has developed under technocratic power structures wherein the power to define the meaning of Autism has been held by non-autistic researchers and medical professionals. Autism has evolved from a form of mental-illness to a cognitive condition. Although there is currently an emerging focus on ethical, participatory Autism research, some research on Autism has traditionally excluded and dehumanised autistic individuals.'

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('"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of Autism and stigma' by autistic researcher Monique Botha, University of Surrey)

Why we (should) fight:

'While not all research on autism is dehumanizing, there is still a distinct history of dehumanizing autism research. Examples of pathology and dehumanization include conclusions that autistic individuals are an economic burden, incapable of having moral-selves, personhood, or community, are inherently selfish/egocentric, have integrity equivalent to that of non-human animals, lack an ability to infer the minds of others, are sub-human and in need of rebuilding as “proper humans” and “exhibit less marked domesticated traits at the morphological, physiological, and behavioral levels” which may be interpreted as autistic people being less domesticated than non-autistic individuals. Similarly, unfavourable comparisons to Great Apes, brain-damaged monkeys, and robots or chimpanzees have been made. Extensive arguments supporting the use of eugenics programmes in autism have been published, with exceptions being made only for those who are economically-productive, and normative enough to not make others uncomfortable.'

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(Source: '"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of autism and stigma' by autistic researcher Monique Botha, 2020)

As previously mentioned I run a website that helps autistic people defend their own rights by providing legal information (not advice, we are not lawyers).

There is a new petition on the parliament website to extend QOCS to discrimination cases. If you don't know what QOCS is don't worry. It's the rule that makes it financially viable for personal injury lawyers to offer a no win no fee option. Expanding it to discrimination cases would mean autistic people (and people suing for discrimination more generally) could get no win, no fee lawyers too.

The website is supporting the petition with out QOCS to discrimination campaign. You can find the campaign page here. Please consider signing the petition but even more so please share the page as widely as possible.

Incidentally if anyone wants to contribute creatively (images videos etc) to this campaign don't hesitate to contact me.

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs said:

Well despite being all autistic apart from that we aren't exactly a homogenous group, spectrum is the operative word for us in many ways, a spectrum of experiences, personalities, emotions, thoughts, etc, which is a healthy thing.

I've noticed a lot of gravitation to extremes among autistic people ... (I'm not saying its a bad thing). Politically we seem to have more than our fair share of extreme left and rightwing views (sometime held simultaneously by the same person). Amongst autistic people you will find some of the shyest introverted wallflowers and obnoxiously loud extroverts. The most puritanical and proudly degenerate, the most technical and artistic individuals. If normal people are a spectrum, we're more like what you find in the infrared and ultraviolet.

Community.  Good.  Lovely, in fact. x

Oh, I know you are a very genuine soul indeed....I wouldn't bother highlighting my equally genuine "pure interest" in the difference between us on that writing if I wasn't 100% sure you meant it......that would make this whole matter entirely uninteresting!.  ....  ..... but the more I write about it here, the less interested I feel. .. . .must .. .   RE. .   T u.  R n. ..........2......w -,._'..o ...--- rK

Well despite being all autistic apart from that we aren't exactly a homogenous group, spectrum is the operative word for us in many ways, a spectrum of experiences, personalities, emotions, thoughts, etc, which is a healthy thing.

TBH Number I think it's my academic and medical knowledge that helps me find the fault in some of these texts, autism is too often looked at through a purely medicalised lens and even among the medical professions there are correct ways to talk about people and recognise the patients humanity otherwise a pateint might as well just be a slab of meat with a bullet point list of symptoms to treat but that isn't the same as receiving actual care. I'm also concerned that the research that goes into autism is still only ever looking at autistic people in snapshots, primarily at singular events only retroactively cobbled together into a big picture, because if the researcher  would spend any great time living with a group of autists on a wide representation of the spectrum they would know we do in fact have all the components of empathy, just in some individuals not all of those components are going to be active simultaneously. And that's the problem NT people often only focus on autism by what is seen as defecits against an artificial NT benchmark. ( A benchmark I've noticed even NTs do not always live up to themselves.)

But that's just me explaining my view. No doubt you have things about your life experiences that may make you feel or think differently about it which is fine. It's just nice to be able to chat and talk about it.

You are right btw, I did wonder where Steven had got to. That's a very good guess.

Hi, Number. 

Thanks for your very considerate and diplomatic response. My problem is that I've perhaps read too much about the more negative history of 'mind doctors' and this undoubtedly colours my opinions regarding the treatment of Autism. Just as with news coverage, those books don't often focus on 'good news' i.e. the many success stories. So, while I can't help but be worried about how we're perceived and treated, unfortunately I cannot claim objectivity. My alarm is genuine though.

The default prism - and not only concerning empathy and its supposed near-absence -  conveniently allows them to elevate themselves by standing on our shoulders.

Hi Steven.  Missed you over the w/e.....and I just noted that s.o.b. called Sam feels similar too.

I hope we know each other well enough for me to say this without causing you upset or concern..I just think it is interesting and worth pointing out that I most sincerely don't understand why that extract incenses you so.  I read it and perceive it very benignly personally.  I find this difference in our perception very interesting.

Generally, we seem to share many commonalities.....but I don't take any offence from those words in the context they were presented.

 I hope we can "Vive la difference" and "entente cordiale" on this point......and I only mention it because I find it interesting.

Nice to see you back in the pages.....I won't be around much this week....feel the need to cut my time here!

Jeezo, even in a line where they say something nice about us we're still spoken about like they were doing experiments on chimps. I hate that, it's so prevalent even in better media we are often talked about int hsoe sub human terms and it really aggravates me.
This kind of thing is exactly why I initally developed a lot of internalised abelism during my childhood an teen years became I became very aware that I wasn't going to be treated like some subhuman other until people stopped treating me like the other, and it made me mask like f for many years and then obviiously that dodn't work out because I can't just not be autistic so then I swung hard in the other direction now I'm a big self (and autism) advocate. We really need to normalise autism because  despite what some may think, we are normal, at least as normal as anyone else. 1/50 is an estimate I regularly hear, that's %2 of people, and 2 percent of 8 billion people world wide means we have an estimated autistic global population of 160,000,000 and that is no wayward anomaly.
"Some of the components of empathy" it's insulting, the author should just have the guts to come slap me in the face directly if that's what they think.

Steven said:

Besides, despite all this, some of the quoted sentences unwittingly imply that there's hardly any difference between neurotypicals and autists regarding empathy.

That's because there isn't really a difference Steven, the capacity is there just like in NTs the difference is sometimes the development of it is interupted or slowed by the fact that we aren't as naturally a gregarious bunch, because all empathy is learned through social interaction, even NT babies get taught by their parents by the gradual setting of boundaries to be less selfish and consider others (to overide the first instinct of "me, my needs, my wants, and my feelings only" innate in all infants). In autists part of the reason ours MAY not get fully formed exactly like in an allistic child is because we don't always have the same social experiences or get treated the same by NT adults as our NT peers growing up.
I have a kid who at 9 years old said "you seem sad do you want a cup of tea" before taking it as a mission to try make me one (I had to step in obvs because boiling water is dangerous.) This kid shows all the signs of having inheritted a similar pattern of autism and ADD as myself, and nobody can tell me that we are devoid of empathy.

Christ, just look at the faint, throwaway praise in this quote from a book titled 'The Science of Evil'; and what place has a discussion of Autism in a book with that title and subject-matter?:

'Whilst even adults with Asperger Syndrome may have difficulties figuring out why someone else's remark was considered funny, or why their own remark was considered rude, or may judge others as liars when they simply are inconsistent in not doing what they said they would do, they may nevertheless have a highly developed emotional empathy, caring about how someone feels and not wanting to hurt them. If they do hurt them it is often unintentional and they feel mortified when it is pointed out, and want to rectify this. In this respect, they do have some of the components of empathy.'

Besides, despite all this, some of the quoted sentences unwittingly imply that there's hardly any difference between neurotypicals and autists regarding empathy.

There is also an instergram, currently with no content so if anyone has contributions to that, even memes, by my guest. www.instagram.com/.../

That's pretty brilliant mate.  I wish you every success with the endeavour.   I especially like this.......

"No we're not a charity. We're not even a company. We're just a bunch of people. We don't have any formal legal status. We prefer to think of ourselves as an organism rather than an organisation."*

*Quote from Are You Alien.uk website.

For the record I have this website that tries to help autistic people trying to defend their rights http://areyoualien.uk

we’re always looking for input for the site and it’s associated social media accounts.

I think the recruitment process is a bit like MI5 of old.....when you least expect it, an Iceberg will tap you on your shoulder!