Published on 12, July, 2020
Today completes an important step for the National Autistic Society. Today with Rule 13 they complete the abdication of responsibility for supporting autistic adults reaching out for help.You may remember in 2021 that the National Autistic Society closed its general helpline. There was a thread about it on this forum. As was pointed out at the time from that point onwards this forum became the only port of call at the National Autistic Society for help for people who did not qualify for one of the remaining helplines.And the remaining helplines pertain to children in school, children leaving school and parents of autistic children. The National Autistic Society has become a defacto children’s charity leaving autistic adults out in the cold.Now not content with refusing to help autistic adults they now seek to reduce autistic adults ability to help each other. I fully admit that a bunch of amateurs on an autistic support forum is a poor substitute for professional help. However the vast majority of those seeking such help now have nowhere to go professional or otherwise.Some of you know that I also brought a lawsuit against an organisation for discrimination. I reached out to the citizens advice bureau and got no useful help. I reached out to the EASS and they said that they couldn’t help me because the other party would not engage with them. I wrote to established academics with a background in discrimination law and autism and they said they couldn’t help me.Yes I rang that autism helpline back when it existed, back when I tried to get some justice and they said we can’t help you. But at least I spoke to someone who admitted that he was supposed to be able to help me. That helping me was what he was there for.With regard to the law when you bring a case for discrimination most of the time legal aid is not available. This is in part because the majority of discrimination cases go through the small claims track which is intended to operate without lawyers.Something similar applies to the health service. It’s very easy for autistic people to get sidelined in the health service particularly if they are bad at articulating their needs and concerns. Again I know this from personal experience.At this point if autistic adults come to this forum or the loved ones of autistic adults come to this forum and say they are having difficulty with the law or discrimination or a medical issue rule 13 interpreted strictly means that we can provide no helpful advice other than pointing to sources of help that in fact do not exist.For quite some time now I have run a website dedicated to helping autistic people defend their rights and oppose discrimination. I chose not to include a forum on that website because I was aware that policing it could involve a substantial amount of work. However this development has persuaded me to change my mind. So I’m announcing that areyoualien.uk now has a forum for autistic people. The focus of this forum like the website is advocating for autistic rights in government policy and the law and opposing discrimination. You are all very much welcome there.
On the topic of rules, I happened to stumble across a discussion earlier which had consisted of an exchange of mock insults between a couple of regular members. This resulted in one of the moderators intervening with a reminder of Rule 5 (be kind to each other).
One might ask how I knew these mock insults weren't intended as genuine insults. Well, whilst I might not be as active here as I used to be, I feel it is fair to say that these members have a good rapport with each other and share a similar sense of humour. From my perspective, they are well-known for playfully winding each other up.
I appreciate that humour is subjective. Something that one person finds utterly hilarious might seem downright offensive to someone else. Also, I'm aware that some people really struggle to understand humour. However, I suppose that because I was 99.9% confident that the exchange of banter was completely harmless, I couldn't help but feel that the moderator's intervention had been unwarranted. It's a tricky one because whilst Rule 5 does indeed state that personal jibes won't be tolerated, I felt confident that those insults were not intended to be taken literally.
As far as Rule 13 goes, I think NAS needs to specify exactly what they mean, as I feel it's open to interpretation. I feel it would be a sad state of affairs if the people who come here seeking advice are left to feel as though they are banging their heads against a brick wall, due to the advice we are permitted to give now being to point them back in the direction they may well have come from.
Nice one R