Published on 12, July, 2020
I joined in January following my ASC diagnosis, the community was recommended by my assessor at the feedback session. There’s some big ways in which being a member here is helping me, my thread about fibromyalgia for example is one where I have received terrific support, information and tips which are really useful. I’m learning so much about the different ways autism presents and about various ideas for self help. I’ve been able to share the way the ASC dx enabled me to challenge then overturn the mis diagnosis of bipolar Id lived with since 1999 which I hope has helped others too. This is all keying in really well with the support I’m getting from several nhs teams and my partner’s huge positive emotional backing. There’s a big BUT though …
Quite often threads deteriorate into extreme points of view which are irrelevant to autism. I rarely take sides and by and large am staying out of the arguments but it is impossible to avoid seeing them, it isn’t possible to simply “scroll on by” as most times the thread title doesn’t suggest where the discussions end up. I am dealing with serious trauma and these posts sometimes really trigger me. Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions but I actually think it is harmful to have debates around politics, gender, sexuality, religion, race etc here in a autism community. There are places where these issues can be discussed but this shouldn’t be one of them.
My preference would be for an outright ban on these subjects, an instruction that the community is a place simply for discussion about autism and related health issues themselves not the politics and opinions of autistic people. Of course it would require a serious moderation involvement but I’m sure that can be achieved as I have no problem in reading every post every day with no more than hour of time invested
An alternative would be to follow the model of the Bipolar UK eCommunity where there is a “Contested” section for the discussion of off topic and triggering issues.
My own opinions on these off topic subjects are irrelevant but the harm having these debates salted into threads which I need to read in order to develop my understanding of autism is such that it could impinge on the progress I am making. I imagine this is true for others too, the silent majority no doubt
Thanks
Emma
Alice-nice-Alice said:Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions but I actually think it is harmful to have debates around politics, gender, sexuality, religion, race etc here in a autism community.
Well the first obvious consequence of banning discussion around gender would be removing the women’s and girls subform. Because any discussion can become a debate if two people in it have differing points of view. So when you talk about banning debates you’re really talking about banging discussions on particular topics.
now you might counter that autism and gender, particular being a woman, has an important intersection with certain issues that are unique to the crossover of both of them. And I would counter yes but that’s true for everything else as well; sexuality, politics, et cetera. If we couldn’t debate politics here how would we help coordinate and drive political campaigning for autistic rights, surely that is one of the main points of NAS as an organisation and absolutely something we should be talking about here.
now the idea of having a dedicated debate forum is not a bad idea. it would probably help keep a lot of these more controversial threads in that forum. It wouldn’t be perfect and we couldn’t expect threads that happened elsewhere to never get contentious. One thing that would help with that is encouraging threads not to go off topic so that people can make a new thread if some interesting side issue comes up. And potentially something like that could be some new forum rule.
but banning discussion on gender, sexuality, politics et cetera, would have to be done consistently not just when it leads to arguments that you personally don’t like because other people have views and what would not be acceptable would be a situation in which it’s only allowed for people to express one set of views on these issues and no other set of views can be expressed lest it cause an argument. If one set of views on these issues is to be banned and not discussed then all of them must be. And I don’t think that’s in anybody’s interests.