Published on 12, July, 2020
Trigger warning: knife crime and murder
I had not been following too closely the news reports about the tragic murder of Brianna Ghey. However on the news last night it stated that both of the accused are autistic and that has shocked me. This online news report states the the boy "has been diagnosed with selective mutism and autism spectrum disorder" and the girl "has traits of autism and adhd". They were described as 'high functioning' in court
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67727331
I find it impossible to comprehend how any autistic person could be capable of such a premeditated heinous crime and then to lie about it afterwards.
The stigma against autistic people persists and news reports like this are not going to help with the negative perceptions some people continue to have. Sadly there are some people who believe that autistic people are in some way dangerous and should be locked away in institutions. Cases like this might damage public support for the NAS campaigns to release autistic people who are wrongly detained
I've just been reading about this. The boy was only able to communicate in court via text messages. I am worried about people focusing on the pair's autism, rather than the other factors that may have played into this, not least the ugly culture wars raging around trans issues at present.
Worth noting that they had a list of several people they wanted to kill. Brianna wasn’t even their first choice victim. But I do agree.
Yes, it's all very disturbing. They did seem to have a fascination with Brianna's trans status, which seemed to be part of their calculations. It's way beyond my pay grade to untangle the complexities of all this, but my hope for 2024 is that people will begin to moderate their language about issues like this where real lives are at stake. I think it's probably a vain hope.