I have Asperger’s syndrome; therefore I’m not allowed to play netball

Unless it’s because I’m male or something. I certainly seem to have been discriminated against.

In 2019, people made false accusations about me and got me kicked out of a netball club in Stirling.

I tried to find another netball club, but the netball clubs I contacted were all reluctant to tell me anything about themselves, and when I asked further questions about them they just stopped replying or whatever. I also contacted the netball club in Stirling about rejoining, because their constitution says I can ask to rejoin at the next general meeting. They ignored me.

I contacted Netball Scotland, and asked them to investigate why I was being treated the way I was by these 4 netball clubs, and was told they’d investigate it.

I turned up at 1 of the netball clubs (they’d told me they weren’t playing because of the Covid 19 pandemic, and they’d tell me when they started playing again, but never did tell me), and played netball with them anyway. I literally only played there 6 times before they found an excuse to get me suspended by Netball Scotland!

In September 2022, I had the police at my flat, saying that I’d contacted someone at netball saying I need some new friends, and asking me not to contact her again. Then the next day, I got an e-mail saying I’d been suspended from Netball Scotland. They didn’t even say anything about why!

Eventually I found out that the reason I was suspended was, among other things, that I’d allegedly “communicated with a club member, Christina [surname removed by mod], that was uninvited and persistent which placed her in a state of fear and alarm”. I’d sent her 1 message on facebook, she’d replied, and then I replied to her message; and I’d only asked perfectly normal things like “How long have you been playing netball?” and “Where do you live?”

1 of the other reasons for the suspension was that I’d chased Natalie up about her investigation about netball clubs not wanting me to join. I’d supposedly failed to show her respect.

This post’s getting a bit long, so to cut a long story short, I had a hearing in March 2023 about it. And all the complaints against me were upheld, and I’ve been suspended by Netball Scotland for 5 years!

They haven’t answered any of my questions such as “What’s wrong with being friendly?” or “What’s wrong with doing to others what I would have them do to me?” or “What’s wrong with asking Natalie to do her job?”.

What happened at Stirling was brought up to demonstrate a “pattern of behaviour”, but nobody even told me what this pattern of behaviour was. The accusations there were completely different.

I’d put a complaint in about Natalie not having done anything about her investigation. Is this the real reason I’ve been suspended?

Oh 2 other questions that have never been answered are “Would I have had the same reaction to contacting Christina if I was a woman?” and “Would I have had the same reaction to contacting Christina if I didn’t have Asperger’s syndrome?”

So I seem to have been discriminated against.

  • The original post makes me feel two things. Very opposite from one another. 1. Deep sadness and empathy for the hurt feelings and loneliness that go with an (atypical? I don’t know about sport) interest or passion not being accommodated by a ‘closed shop’ or clique that won’t extend the hand of welcome and friendship. It sounds lonely and upsetting. 2. Deep concern for those women who were scared enough to call the police. Intended or not, something went way too far over the line there. Astrid’s suggestions sound most helpful to me: counselling to better understand boundaries (I stress about those all the time and may even be over-cautious just to be sure, but it shows that autistic people can have less intuitive or innate grasp of them) and good advice from formal third parties so he knows his rights and responsibilities and can balance those going forward. 
     

  • yeah but all incels/femcels would say they are saving themselves or they chose to not have sex... it would be widely used as a excuse.

    No people who label them selves as incel / femcel are explicitly saying they want sex and are upset they can’t get it.

    part of the definition of being an incel is wanting sex.

  • yeah but all incels/femcels would say they are saving themselves or they chose to not have sex... it would be widely used as a excuse.

    plus it doesnt really fit misogyny as a incel would desire sex with a woman and if anything a incel would be the type to take a womans side in hopes for sexual favour. if anything a incel would instead be paired with the term "simp" and would take a womans side on anything regardless if they know they are wrong.

    for hate of women, the term "gay" would probably fit most wouldnt it? ... but then we see the problem with that... and then we see the problem with hps argument of using sexuality as a derogatory insult as when you break it down you see it this way and you see how they had to wrongly use a term that doesnt fit because the correct term they wanted to use was politically incorrect but then we see that is the term they likely would have meant then but was too cowardly to use the correct term they meant for fear of bad optics.

  • Incel is a contraction of involuntarily celibate. It’s largely used as a slur against sexless typically Hetro men.

    however the term femcel also exists.

    A person volenterly refusing all forms off sex can’t be an incel.

  • to be fair, isnt incel a derogatory attack against lgbt?

    also didnt you claim to be asexual? .... asexual is basically incel... so i dont get your logic... you also claim to fear sex and claim it hurts... you dont have any leg to stand on if you use the attack "incel" as a foundation because by all what you have claimed you yourself are a incel.

  • Don’t be absurd. I’ll be the Incel that gets on TV for building a harem of sexy robot waifus like the proper mad scientist I am. Stuck out tongue

    Stepford wives anyone? (disclaimer I’ve never actually seen the film Stepford wives)

  • Some of the members of this forum could do with referral to Prevent. I keep expecting to turn on the TV and see another incel shooting by a member here.

  • For what it’s worth, if the op (Mark) is willing to share what happens next in the story I would be very curious to know. Have a long-standing interest in legal action over discrimination against autistic people. There are so few examples in the literature of action taken against service providers by autistic people that any case study is really interesting to me even if it never actually goes to a verdict.

  • but yet i was speaking out against sexism.... you saying im sexist for speaking for mens rights and men being wrongly accused shows that YOU are infact being misandrist.... in that case i now ask for a investigation against your misandry as i believe you are against the rules now as misandry is sexist and you just exposed yourself as a misandrist and broke your own rules

  • In fairness to him I don’t think it’s sexist to assert that there is a double standard when it comes to the way accusations of harassment against men are handled vs accusations of harassment against women.

    I do think it’s a stretch to say thE accusation was probably false but that might be his sincere assessment of the facts we’ve been given rather than him merely  asserting a sexist stereotype.

  • Hi,

    This is a reminder of  our rule 5. We do not allow sexism on the online community.

    You can read our rules in full here https://community.autism.org.uk/p/rules 

    If you have any questions about this, please contact our moderation team at  community.moderators@nas.org.uk 

    Kind regards,

    Clare Mod

  • I will say that even though it might be different if you contacted Christina if you were a woman and you didn't have Asperger's syndrome, I have been bullied before. It could have been the same tough even if you were a woman. But to not let you play netball for five years because of what you did, that is crazy. And I am sorry that happened to you. Some people just over react sometimes. It is hard, I also have Asperger's syndrome. Once again I am truly sorry for what happened, I do hope your case does come up for your benefit.

  • you've somehow overlooked the extraordinary measures taken against him (police involvement, an exceptionally long ban etc etc)

    Not at all. large organisations frequently get their obligations under discrimination law very very wrong when it comes to autism and a visit from the police doesn't necessarily signify anything other than a complaint being made to the police. The police generally do get involved when accusations of harassment are thrown around, not because actual harassment is taking place, but because they reason making people aware that they are watching the situation will keep things from escalating to the point that there might be harassment going on.

    why would your default position be to agree that he has been discriminated against when his own words imply not discrimination but persistently troubling actions and attitudes regarding women?

    I'm not at all persuaded they do but even if they did that doesn't mean discrimination law doesn't apply. Even if there is a genuine cause for concern about him discrimination law can still require that those concerns be approached a different way and lead to different outcomes.

  • Hello, Peter,

    Your immediate response to Mark's opening post was to suggest that he contacts a lawyer; in doing this, you've somehow overlooked the extraordinary measures taken against him (police involvement, an exceptionally long ban etc etc) - why would your default position be to agree that he has been discriminated against when his own words imply not discrimination but persistently troubling actions and attitudes regarding women?

    It's very understandable that we here generally take the side of our fellow autists...but that in itself shouldn't be our default position in every single case.

  • its kinda normal too though..

    although i dont talk to women myself or anyone unless they talk to me, but if anyone talks to me and i need a idea of where abouts they come from i ask "where a bouts are you from" more so asking like...what town or city are they from, usually so i can gauge how far they came and how long they must have took to travel there, although thats mainly a work thing. everyones always local from the nearest town although one person came all the way from blackpool and traveled like 2 hours to work each day lol

  • if you was a woman the other person would be suspended instead.

    the woman probably made false accusations against you and made everyone take her side and believe her #believeallwomen lol

  • If what he’s telling us is accurate it does sound like PC gone mad doesn’t it. I imagine maybe if he’s the only guy in the class and maybe he’s at the top of their age range and the rest of the class members are closer towards the bottom maybe people are viewing this with a very biased stereotyped lens.

    but that’s no excuse for professionals like the police or even a netball club to be applying those  sorts of stereotypes and biases to these sorts of situations

  • In September 2022, I had the police at my flat, saying that I’d contacted someone at netball saying I need some new friends, and asking me not to contact her again.

    It's PCs gone mad...

  • You're hardly strengthening your argument by posting the full name of your correspondent.

  • I'm not questioning how women collectively feel about things, well actually yes I am in this specific case, but more generally I'm not saying women don't perceive themselves as being in more danger than men. I'm saying A) I'm not convinced that's rational, B) we should proceed in society based on demonstrable facts not feelings, C) the law is designed to apply to people not groups, it shouldn't disadvantage the individual because some other group they're not in is disadvantaged. D) if you feel discrimination law is not being properly implemented to protect women the solution is not to suggest it shouldn't protect men either.