On Becoming a Bitch

There isn't much that merits a response in this comment by Michael John Carley on my recent guest post on Wrong Planet. But on this New Year's Eve, as I reflect on the Spirit of Blogging Past, there's one point that could use a little clarification—I've never explained my reasons for choosing my screen name.

Before I started writing this blog, I had different online identities that generally reflected a positive and, sometimes, a ridiculously optimistic outlook on the world. For the most part, I went through my days in blissful ignorance of how much evil was still lurking out there. I really believed that the human species had evolved far enough so that we were only a few years away from a rational, civilized society where war and other horrors would disappear forever.

Then two things happened that completely knocked my naive worldview for a loop. The first was 9/11. The second was the anti-autism witch hunt and discovering that I belonged to a minority group that had been targeted for eugenic extermination. Both of these events had approximately the same emotional effect on me. Every morning when I woke up, for a moment the world seemed to be the same as always. Then I would remember, and I just wanted to curl up somewhere and hide, thinking: This can't be real.

And then I decided to fight back.

I chose my screen name to show attitude. The word "bitch" often has been used to dehumanize assertive women by suggesting that they are little more than yelping mutts, incapable of intelligent human conversation. I intended to make it very clear that I would not be silenced by such tactics: So you don't like what this uppity autistic woman has to say? Well, too bad for you, buddy, because I'm going to give you uppity times ten. Deal with it.

Of course, the oppressive language used by Autism Speaks and its minions is not as straightforward in its bigotry as a curse word like "bitch." Instead, when they claim that autistics are incapable of contributing productive opinions to the social discourse, they suggest that it's because we are tragic victims of our neurology. When we express ourselves on matters of public interest, we can't really have thought about the issues and developed intelligent opinions; rather, we are unable to comprehend the issues and are simply reacting out of anxiety, depression, or some other unfortunate psychological impairment.

It comes as no surprise to see dismissive statements like this from Autism Speaks; after all, their very name indicates that they believe autistics are incapable of speaking for ourselves. But to see such language used by a man who claims to represent the interests of autistic self-advocates is very troubling indeed.

Go Torture the Other Guy

In a comment on my last post, Ed mentioned how some people talk about "trading up" in friends, which seems to be a variation on the old social-climbing theme of raising one's perceived social rank by associating with others of higher standing.

Such behavior has been around, of course, since our prehistoric ancestors competed to be the hunting buddy of the alpha caveman; but the phrase "trading up" has a particularly crass ring to it, as if human beings were nothing more than commodities to be acquired. Are your economy-car friends cramping your style? Just trade up for trendy sports-car friends and you'll have no more problems.

And just in case anyone doesn't understand what kinds of problems happen to those who are not part of the in-group, there's a credit card commercial that helpfully illustrates it for us. Maybe you've seen this one—a young man goes up to an airport counter to buy a ticket and says he's traveling on business. He looks and sounds a bit unsure of himself, and his credit card has a cute picture of kittens on it. The airline employee behind the counter promptly glances toward a group of security officers, who converge on the unfortunate young man and take him away. Another traveler then confidently presents the advertiser's business credit card and gets his ticket at once.

The message conveyed by that ad is all too clear: If there's anything about you that might make others think you don't belong to the dominant class, you're quite likely to get harassed and perhaps even tortured. And how should a responsible citizen deal with this state of affairs? That's easy—just make sure to buy the right products and services so that it's some other guy who gets tortured, of course.

Ugh. Just… ugh. This is the world we live in today, folks.

There's one bright spot, though: we have just three and a half months left before George Bush's moving van pulls up in front of the White House.

When Should I Be Concerned?

Those who have sent comments to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) on its draft strategic plan will recognize the title of this post as the heading of the first section of the draft plan. (If you have not yet written a comment, they're due today. Follow this link to find a quick submission form with suggested talking points for last-minute responses.)

In the draft plan, the question "When should I be concerned?" refers to the identification of autism spectrum conditions. Although the main issue seems to be early childhood screening and when a child should be evaluated, there is also some discussion of identifying autism in older children and diverse populations.

Given the lack of clear definitions and the subjectivity of the current diagnostic criteria, this is indeed an area where more research would be useful. However, I believe that the IACC has not gone nearly far enough in questioning how our society identifies autistic people and that we need to reframe the issue from a much broader perspective.

What is actually being asked here, when we strip away all of the medical terminology, is a sociological question: At what point does our culture determine that a child (or adult) is not part of the dominant "normal" caste and should instead be classified as belonging to a subgroup (to which the autism label has been applied in recent years) of the stigmatized "abnormal" minority?

I'm reminded of the debates that took place in South Africa shortly before the apartheid system collapsed. At that time, the South African population was divided by law into whites, blacks, Asians, and people of mixed race. There was quite a lot of discussion about how to determine who belonged to what category, in the small percentage of cases where it wasn't immediately clear. As with autism in today's world, the resulting classifications affected what schools a child might attend, what sort of education (or lack thereof) he would get, and what his career prospects were likely to be.

Given the profound negative consequences of being identified as autistic (or any other neurological minority) in a society that sacrifices more of its children every year on the altar of normality, it is no wonder that so many parents are "concerned" when they notice that their children may have autistic traits. From that point of view, the IACC's question reasonably reflects the actual experience of many parents. It is also not surprising to find such a strong focus on teaching children how to pass as non-autistic, through behavioral programs or other means.

While it is only to be expected under the circumstances, this is not where our concern should be placed. Rather, we should have been concerned, a long time ago, about the social fiction of the "normal" brain and how it affects a human population that is—and always has been—extremely diverse in its cognitive and behavioral patterns. At a time when an increasingly complex economy needs large numbers of workers with highly specialized minds and abilities, our society perversely insists that there can be only one acceptable type of brain, thus forcing millions of people to hide their differences or suffer a lifetime of exclusion. It's past time to end our own apartheid system.


Edit: Here's a link to a powerful video about segregation of autistic students in American public schools.

Nate Tseglin: A Time to Heal

January 12, 2007.

That's when Nate Tseglin, who was only 16 years old at the time, was forcibly taken from his family's home in San Diego, California. It was the beginning of a nightmarish ordeal of captivity in a state institution where Nate was forced to take indiscriminately administered drugs that caused him to have seizures, was cut off from contact with his family and friends and community, and was prevented from completing his high school education. His crime? Being autistic.

When Nate, who had been a bright and thriving child in mainstream classes before beginning high school, got tested for an Asperger diagnosis, his parents no doubt thought it would help him to get a more understanding and accommodating school environment. Instead, the label turned out to be a ticket to blatant discrimination and exclusion. School officials treated Nate as incapable. Although Nate had been successful in honors classes and had even taken a college course over the summer, he was prevented from enrolling in advanced high school classes and was required to repeat work that he had already done.

Not surprisingly, Nate became anxious and depressed as a result of such mistreatment. He developed a bad habit of picking and scratching at his arms. His parents sought psychiatric help, but Nate could not tolerate the drugs that were tried. After that, his parents sent him to another school. A teacher saw the scratches on his arms and made a report to the local child protective agency, which investigated. Although the parents explained that Nate was physically unable to take several common psychiatric medications, no one listened, and the parents were accused of neglect. Nate was then sent to an institution where he was forcibly medicated with drugs that caused his health to deteriorate severely.

In desperation, the family turned to the Internet for help. Concerned bloggers and activists wrote about the case, contacted the media, and helped to arrange for legal assistance for the family. After many delays, a court hearing was held on May 27th, 2008. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network sent a letter to the court explaining why Nate did not belong in an institution. The judge ruled in Nate's favor, and Nate finally was freed after more than a year away from home.

There are some autism advocates who seek to get funds for services by touting flawed analyses that proclaim every child on the autistic spectrum will cost millions in lifetime care. This is what I have to say to anyone who sees nothing wrong with that strategy: You'd better take a good hard look at Nate Tseglin's case, because that is exactly where such rhetoric leads. If autistics are nothing but an expensive burden to society, then why bother educating them or providing any community services? Why not just dump them all in institutions so the normal folks won't have to be bothered with them? Why not put most of the funding into eugenics research, in the hope of wiping them all off the planet? That's where it leads.

Today, Nate Tseglin is in the thoughts and prayers of many people worldwide as he begins the slow process of healing—to the extent that it is possible to heal—from the extreme mental and physical trauma that he endured.

Today, there are other autistics even unluckier than Nate still languishing in institutions, forgotten by the world. Let us keep them in our thoughts also.

Imagine

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can...

John Lennon, Imagine


Here's a thought-exercise for those who see nothing wrong with the Combating Autism Act:

Imagine an ethnic minority group—it doesn't matter which one. Imagine there are statistics showing that the members of this group are more likely to be unemployed, friendless, depressed, and other common consequences of prejudice and social exclusion. Imagine that very few of the successful members of this group are counted in compiling these statistics because many of them, to avoid discrimination, are "passing" as part of the majority group.

Imagine that the children of this group often are segregated in the public schools and are described in negative, stereotyped terms that cause them to grow up thinking of themselves as inferior and incapable. Imagine that many of these children are taunted and otherwise bullied in the schools, every day, because of differences in their speech and appearance.

Imagine that the mainstream media regularly publish stories characterizing the members of this minority group as a devastating burden, along with statistics purporting to show the lifetime cost of each such person's existence. Imagine that there are also many news stories suggesting that it is miraculous when a child who belongs to this group is able to become a productive, self-supporting adult.

Imagine that there are mandatory governmental surveillance registries tracking every child who has been identified as a member of the group.

Imagine that a powerful advocacy organization, while claiming to speak for the interests of this group, openly declares that its ultimate goal is a world in which the group is nothing but a word for the history books. Imagine that this organization makes statements suggesting that it is normal to think about murdering the children of this minority group and, at the same time, launches an advertising campaign that focuses on how many such children there are in the country.

Imagine that many politicians are influenced by such views and proceed to enact legislation which, in many respects, appears to be designed to bring about the goal of a world in which the group no longer exists. Imagine that the legislation is called the Combating [name of minority group] Act.

Imagine—if you can—how the members of this minority group must feel.

Pity's Scrap Heap

I recently came across a forum post by a young autistic man who wrote that he did not believe he was fit to be a father because he had "bad genes." Unfortunately, that wasn't the first such post I've seen. Over the past few years, as the autism epidemic propaganda has spread across the landscape like a noxious fungus, I've seen many posts in which autistics described themselves in such terms. One woman wrote that the Autism Speaks awareness ads left her feeling like a heap of genetic scrap metal. There is a mock awareness poster on the autistics.org website that puts it this way: "Odds of having an autistic child, 1 out of 166. Odds of an autistic person feeling like garbage when reading autism epidemic hype, 64 out of 83."

When you're a target of pity-mongering cure charities, it can be hard to keep your self-respect and to look at what's going on from a broader perspective. The truth is, society's privileged elites have been describing various minority groups as having "bad genes" ever since genes were discovered in the 19th century. Back then, doctors and scientists authoritatively proclaimed that anyone who wasn't white had "bad genes." Now it's autistics and other people with disability labels. Same prejudice, different minorities.

The pity industry is big business. The infamous Labor Day muscular dystrophy telethon, which has been spewing rivers of disability prejudice for over 40 years, raised $61 million last year. Some people think that the telethon's condescending attitude is excusable because it has raised so much money for a cure. Well, no, treating people as pity objects instead of human beings is never justified; and the cure is, of course, nonexistent, so where has all that money really gone? To pay the salaries of fat-cat charity executives, to further inflate Jerry Lewis' already gargantuan ego, and to fund the development of prenatal screening tests that become more accurate every year in identifying fetuses to be aborted.

No doubt, over the years, well-meaning contributors to the telethon didn't intend that their money would be used for purposes of eugenic abortion; but it is an inevitable result of the attitude that certain kinds of people belong on the scrap heap unless they are cured.

It's time to send the telethon off to the graveyard of old prejudiced TV programs, bury it six feet under, and pull the plug on pity.

Edit, September 3: The Anti-Telethon Blogswarm is now up at Kara's Place. Check it out and join the protest against pity!

Useless Readers

In Nazi Germany, people with disabilities often were described as useless eaters, as an intolerable financial burden to society. In recent years, similar dehumanizing propaganda has been used in describing the purported cost to society of autistic people. Sometimes it looks as if there's no attack too vicious, no bigotry too revolting, and no stereotype too absurd to be parroted by politicians and the mainstream media.

Even so, I was taken aback when I saw how autistic children were characterized in this Newsweek article about early diagnosis, in which Rebecca Landa of the Kennedy Krieger Institute was interviewed about behavioral treatment for infants. Would you believe... useless readers?


In a typically developing infant, everything is a learnable moment. In an infant or toddler with autism, their attention gets hyperfocused on things that aren't important--like for example, the letters on a wooden block.

How do you stop such behavior?
You redirect the child's attention, you engage them in other toys. You also teach them how to pay attention to really important social signals, like people's eyes, people's faces.


Once upon a time, in a simpler world, I was one of those infants who had a strong focus on "unimportant" letters. According to my mother, when I was about nine months old, I often crawled to the TV and touched the raised letters on the logo at its base. Because I was so interested in letters, my parents bought some Dr. Seuss stories and a set of illustrated children's encyclopedias, and they started reading to me regularly.

I'm not sure if I learned to read before I could talk, or if I developed speech at about the same time, but I could read fluently by the time I was two years old. Books were my constant friends, my loyal companions in adventure. After I started school, writing always came easily to me—all through my childhood, and then university, and graduate school and a professional career.

But now it seems that, as Rebecca Landa would have it, my parents raised me all wrong. If only they'd put me in a behavioral program and systematically deprived me of books and anything else I enjoyed, I might have been successfully transformed into a nice pleasant drone with a lovely smile and flawless eye contact, perfectly obedient to social expectations, a paragon of normality and mediocrity.

Before I go any farther, let me make myself completely clear on one point: I'm not writing this post to brag about my personal accomplishments. In fact, I don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about that. I'm writing it in white-hot outrage at what is being done to our children.

Sometimes I feel as if I've fallen through a time portal and landed in the middle of a long-ago witch hunt, among primitive, superstitious, pitchfork-wielding peasants who would happily burn at the stake any child or adult who had the audacity to open a book; after all, only a witch would show any interest in such a useless object.

To put it another way—the barbarian hordes are at the gate, trying to destroy everything that brings beauty and meaning to our world. Grab your children and your books, hide them away in a safe place, and get ready to fight for the survival of civilization.

Just mailed my taxes...

...and you know what, I'm getting really fed up with all the people I'm supporting with my tax money who aren't contributing a damn thing to society that's of any use to me. They're sucking up my money from the tax trough like so many oinking and snuffling swine, and the only thing they're giving me in return is a lot of grief.

Who are these useless leeches? Well, guess what, this post has a different cast of villains than some (ignorant) people might have been expecting to find. At the top of my list, there are the politicians who pander to bigotry and mass hysteria by spouting contrived statistics while claiming that everyone would be better off in a world without autistic people. Somebody really needs to explain to these clowns, in simple little words they can understand, that autistic citizens' taxes are paying their salaries too, and our money is just as green as every other taxpayer's money.

And how about the eugenics researchers who are happily munching on all those tasty grants from the National Institutes of Health that fund their autism genetic studies to develop a prenatal screening test? That's my tax money being spent for their genocidal schemes, too.

As for my local taxes, that money is paying for schools that children from families like mine often can't attend, at least not without being stigmatized as "disordered" and put into segregated classes.

Hardworking autistic taxpayers are being unfairly burdened by having our money spent on worthless bigoted garbage, instead of a decent and respectful education for our kids. Our society is being overwhelmed by a costly epidemic of ignorant prejudice, and we need a cure for it NOW.

I'd love to see an autistic economist do a detailed analysis of the cost of neuro-bigotry to our economy. (To any readers who are knowledgeable about economics, if you decide to write and post an article like that on your blog, let me know, and I'll give you a link from my site.)

Big Brother Is Watching

In the United States, using the advanced technology of the 21st century, vigilant government agencies seek to protect citizens by conducting surveillance on potentially dangerous groups.

Are they targeting terrorists?

Gun-toting street gangs?

Pedophiles and other sex offenders?

Well, actually, when a surveillance law is passed in today's America, it's quite likely to target the autistic minority population. Under the ambit of "disease control" agencies, mandatory state registries are collecting data on autistics.

Here's an excerpt from Delaware's autism surveillance law (16 Delaware Code Annotated, section 221).


The intent of the General Assembly is to establish and maintain an autism surveillance system and registry for the State.

Responsibility for establishing and maintaining the system and registry is delegated to the Department of Health and Social Services, along with the authority to exercise certain powers to implement the system and registry. To ensure an accurate and continuing source of data concerning autism, the General Assembly by this subchapter requires certain health care practitioners and all hospitals and clinical laboratories to make available to the Department of Health and Social Services information contained in the medical records of patients who have a suspected or confirmed autism diagnosis.


Note the use of the word "suspected." When that word is used, it means that even if you don't have an official diagnosis, you're still not safe. If your family physician, your counselor, or any other informant decides that you look autistic—you could be a surveillance target. Delaware even requires dentists to report autistic patients (the state is collecting data only on children at present, but that could change at any time).

Parents, beware: if you take your child for a diagnostic evaluation so that you can get school services, and the psychologist notices that the child inherited some of his or her autistic traits from you (as is often the case), your name could end up in a government database too.

The Buzzing

In a comment on my last post, Chasmatazz wrote about the self-doubt and despair often found in today's autistic youth:


I attend an autism support group, and I see this all the time among the younger set. They use medicalized terms, and lament their sorry state of affairs.

How can we reach the younger autistics?


At various times in history, civil rights activists have had to deal with similar issues. Feminists often found themselves unable to convince other women that they were deserving of property rights, the vote, and equal employment opportunity. Gay rights activists struggled to persuade their closeted brethren that they were not evil or mentally ill and had no reason to be ashamed. Black activists worked to bring hope to many people who had spent their lives in the most appalling poverty and degradation, never expecting to see anything better.

There's a stark description of these feelings of worthlessness in the book The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, which is actually a historical novel and not an autobiography. The main character, an elderly black woman, explains why a young civil rights activist named Jimmy has been finding it so hard to persuade others to join his cause:


You talk of freedom, Jimmy. Freedom here is able to make a little living and have the white folks think you good. Black curtains hang at their windows, Jimmy: black quilts cover their body at night: a black veil cover their eyes, Jimmy; and the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing in their ears keep them from 'ciphering what you got to say...

...they don't understand nothing you telling them. You see, Jimmy, they want you to cure the ache, but they want you to do it and don't give them pain. And the worse pain, Jimmy, you can inflict is what you doing now—that's trying to make them see they good as the other man. You see, Jimmy, they been told from the cradle they wasn't—that they wasn't much better than the mule.


For autistic youths who grew up hearing that they were sick and defective, the buzzing pervades every aspect of their existence. Even their most personal thoughts are not their own, but are disordered manifestations of a malfunctioning brain. Every idle activity is a stim, while every productive interest is an obsession. Any natural talent is a splinter skill or a symptom, and any area of weakness is evidence of an overall lack of ability. Conversations can't just be exchanges of information but, instead, are verbal minefields where speech and social skills are constantly tested and found wanting. Even the simplest of hopes—a meaningful job, a home of one's own, someone to love—are met with pity and a patronizing insistence that these things are impossible. Having a crisis of the soul? Better go take some meds...

Our young people's inner selves are dying slow, silent, ignominious deaths, with no news cameras to bear witness to the destruction of their dignity and their dreams. They have no protest songs, no chanting crowds of demonstrators, no voices loud enough to be heard over the buzzing.

How can we reach them? Not with words alone, but by transforming the world around them, as other civil rights movements have shown. Change the social environment to one that is more respectful and offers more opportunities, and those who have despaired will begin to feel hope.

You're not safe either, dude

Hey, you.

Yeah, I'm talking to you, dude—the guy over there biting his fingernails and getting all stressed out about the devastating autism epidemic that's supposedly going to destroy life as we know it.

I just heard some interesting news. The psychiatrists who have been working on the DSM-V decided to add some new disorders. Not to upset you or anything, dude, but it looks like you might meet the diagnostic criteria for one of them, Apocalyptic Melodrama Disorder. Symptoms include high levels of anxiety, irrational fears of catastrophe, and significant impairment of the ability to think rationally about news reports.

You say there are no scientific research studies that would support giving anybody a label like that? So what? When has that ever stopped the psychs before?

Okay, you think I'm being absurd. You're sure nothing like that could ever happen. You believe you're completely safe because there's nothing wrong with you.

And you know what? That's exactly how I would have reacted if anyone had warned me, a decade ago, that I belonged to a group of people who soon would be shunned worldwide and treated like defective subhumans because of the newly created concept of an autism spectrum. If anyone had told me that my tax money would be used to fund eugenics research to "combat" the existence of people like me, I probably would've laughed in his face and asked him what the hell he'd been smoking.

Live and learn.

I'm sure you haven't paid any attention to a word I've said. You're too busy enjoying the comfort of your peaceful little bubble of social conformity, secure in the knowledge that you're just like everyone else. You're normal... at least for now.

Oh, by the way, it might be a good idea for you to go visit a manicurist and get something done with those nails you've been biting. After all, you wouldn't want anyone to think you were exhibiting a symptom of a mental disorder. That would be very bad for your career prospects and your civil rights in general, you know.

Dude, I'm just trying to be helpful.

No Dogs or Autistics Allowed

We may not actually see signs like that at parks or schools, as mentioned in a comment made on Estée's post Unremarkable Autism, which addresses the harm done by stereotyping and the need to recognize our common humanity. (For those who are not familiar with the historical reference, many public places in the American South during the Jim Crow era had signs that read "No Dogs or Negroes Allowed.")

But we don't live in a world where such signs would be unthinkable, either. All too often, autistic people are spoken of in the most vile and dehumanizing language. In her recent post Something Fierce, Mothersvox describes how her daughter was "feralized" and treated "like a pet" at a New York school.

I received an e-mail some time ago from a woman whose autistic boyfriend was told to leave a restaurant, apparently because he didn't look "normal." The proprietor pointed to a sign on the wall that said "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Signs like that were commonly used to enforce Jim Crow segregation.

Nowadays, we have civil rights laws that can be used to prevent disability discrimination, but the reality is that many people are too afraid to stand up for their rights. This woman's boyfriend didn't sue the restaurant, although he probably could have won a discrimination lawsuit. There are many like him who feel that it is far too dangerous in today's world to have their autism become a matter of public record in a court file, immediately visible in an Internet search conducted by a prospective employer or landlord.

In my previous post, I wrote about a news article that mentioned a university student whose professor told her to disclose her autism to her teammates on a group project. The professor was quoted as saying that compared to the "very embarrassing" condition of being autistic, "what else can anyone feel embarrassed about having to divulge?"

Elsewhere in that article, a disability services official at the same university (which is a high-tech haven for geeks) mentioned the fact that many autistics do not disclose and that the actual number of autism spectrum students is much higher than the official statistics.

And that leaves me wondering... how many of the other students working on the group project might have been autistics in hiding? How many of them politely nodded and smiled, forcing themselves to make eye contact and sit still in their chairs, afraid to say a word, as the professor coerced their classmate into a confession reminiscent of a medieval witch hunt? How many of them went back to their dorm room afterward and had a good cry—or took out a razor and cut themselves until the pain was enough to blot out the fear and shame?

Cultural Indoctrination

I've been pondering a couple of issues that came up in the comments to my recent posts: the extent of cultural bias in the assessment of autistic speech and social interaction, and Majia Nadesan's article on how the autism label can give rise to a "looping effect" that reinforces the labeled person's behavioral differences.

Some of the commenters debated what Nadesan meant by a "looping effect." The phrase can refer to any self-reinforcing interactive process. In the context of autism, it could refer to disability stereotypes and the emotional effects of being told that one has a "mental disorder" that makes one behave in certain ways. It could be applied to more specific practices, such as behavioral therapies or the use of drugs to alter behavior.

Andrea just wrote a post in which she points out that there is also a looping effect that reinforces society's insistence on appearing normal. Because there is such strong cultural pressure to hide any differences that might be considered abnormal, most people rarely encounter anyone who does not appear to be within the realm of normality (wherever its boundaries, which often change, may be from one moment to another). This in turn reinforces a primitive fear of difference and the illusory perception that all people are very much alike.

Back when autistic traits were considered to be mostly normal (which was not all that long ago), it wasn't unusual for autistic patterns of speech and social interaction to be clearly recognizable in multiple generations of a family. There was also a looping effect at work there: parents who had autistic traits interacted with their children in autistic ways, such as quietly teaching by example and talking about ideas and values, rather than blathering on about celebrities and fashion and other such fluff. The children, in turn, were likely to develop a similar conversational style and a strong sense of their own identity, whether or not they would have been considered autistic by today's definitions. Because there was no reason to hide autistic patterns of speech and social interaction in those days, they were seen often enough to be viewed as part of the common landscape of normality.

I'm sure that we still have just as many multigenerational autistic families as we ever had, but now—in response to today's strong social pressure to hide or suppress autistic behaviors—many parents are denying their own autistic traits (whether consciously or subconsciously) and are making desperate efforts to transform their child into a more socially accepted type of person. As autistic traits have become stigmatized, those who display such traits are no longer welcome in the community; as a result, the only options that many parents can see for their children are to learn to pass for normal (that is, today's extremely narrow definitions of normal) or to spend their lives being hidden away from the world in institutions or group homes.

This has created a very profitable niche for behavioral programs such as ABA, in which, according to a therapist who was quoted in a Time Magazine article, 50 percent of the instruction focuses on teaching children "behavior to look good." ABA is not a medical treatment, as its advocates often claim; rather, it is a form of cultural indoctrination. After many years of intensive drilling in how to suppress their socially unacceptable real selves, some children, as discussed by Joseph and Not Mercury, will become so thoroughly assimilated into mainstream society that they ask to be "undiagnosed." Parents and psychologists often are happy to oblige.

Even more disturbing, as large numbers of autistics have had to suppress their natural behaviors, many people have become convinced that autistics never even existed. When the vast majority of autistic adults are "in the closet" for fear of being considered abnormal, it's not hard to convince people that there are no autistic adults; after all, that accords with what they see when they go about their daily business. Although scientific studies have clearly shown otherwise, the idea that autistic children suddenly appeared in the past few years perfectly suits the agendas of the epidemic-mongers who are raking in the profits from today's mass hysteria about autism. Once again, it's a "looping effect," and one that is quite likely to make the worldwide disappearance of a minority group—in what would be the largest genocide in history—go almost entirely unnoticed.

Social Interaction and Cure

I wrote a post in September about defining curebie-ism, in which I said that a parent's attitude toward his or her child determines whether that parent is a curebie, rather than the choice of any particular treatment or therapy. At the conclusion of the post, I wrote, "If you care whether your autistic child thinks you are a curebie—you're not one."

Wade Rankin responded by pointing out that all parents have to make choices that will change their children's development in one way or another, regardless of whether the children approve. At first glance, that seems like a sensible enough point, and one that is true whether or not a child is autistic. When you stop a toddler from wandering away, for instance, you don't worry about whether you're stifling her adventurous spirit. Parents are constantly shaping their children's personalities by making everyday decisions; it would be impossible to do otherwise.

I gave the question some more thought after reading Tera's recent post about the attitude shown by Alison Tepper Singer (of Autism Every Day infamy) toward her daughter and the idea of cure. Singer opined that her daughter had no abilities and that there was no reason to be concerned about squashing the child's natural personality. That's curebie-ism at its worst: a total lack of acknowledgment that an autistic child even has any feelings and thoughts that are worthy of concern.

Most parents who talk about "curing" their children are not in that category. They're not trying to change their kid into a completely different person, they say; rather, they just want the kid to have more ability to communicate and interact with society. While that's a reasonable goal in itself, sometimes it seems as if these parents overlook the fact that their autistic children already are interacting with society. Wade's post, for example, describes how he imagines his son, if "cured," might behave:

Why, my son asks rhetorically, did I ever think it necessary to “cure” him; did I consider him “defective?” Without waiting for a response, my son storms out of the house and walks outside to his waiting friends, to whom he complains about how I just don’t understand him the way his friends do. If my son would only look to the front window of the house, he would see me peeking out from behind the curtain, listening to him interacting with his friends. And he would see me grinning from ear to ear.

Wade, I have to ask: do you really believe that autistic teenagers have to be "cured" before they are capable of interacting with friends and complaining about their parents? Because if that's what you believe, I take it you haven't looked at the Aspies for Freedom (AFF) forum recently, or any of the other websites where thousands of autistic teens are venting—quite vociferously indeed—about how society and their parents have treated them. And they're not "cured" by any stretch of the imagination.

Before I go any farther on this topic, I want to make it clear that I do not share the attitudes I'm about to discuss. My parents always respected my individuality and treated me as a worthwhile human being; I have no grudges against them whatsoever. I also don't intend this post to be a personal rant against Wade or any other parent who has expressed a desire to "cure" a child, but I feel that it's necessary to bring certain unfortunate facts to their attention.

In the decade since the Asperger diagnosis came into common use, large numbers of autistic youths—mostly male—have grown up feeling profoundly alienated from society. Many of them spent their childhood sitting in segregated classrooms, swallowing daily doses of behavior control meds, going from one therapy to another, and hearing themselves described as tragically defective sufferers whose existence should have been prevented by means of prenatal testing. They are full of rage and despair at a society that they believe has not only rejected them utterly, but has also turned their parents against them. This is not the typical teenage angst that many of us remember, nor is it an irrational creation of disordered minds. It is a corrosive, soul-crushing despair that has grown out of actual experiences.

The following poem by "kai," recently posted on the AFF site, illustrates the raw depth of such feelings:

ME

it's hard for me to sleep...i fear my dreams
it's hard for me to live..i fear my life
i fear feeling too much
or at all
even the happy feelings bind with strife
and all the joy is tainted with a sting
and all the light is faded with a gray
all the drugs are based in an addiction
and hopes that they could take the pain away
and if somebody feels we call it crazy
and if i feel i tell myself to stop
if i dream i wake up kind of shaky
and if i live i tell myself to not
then i run somewhere i haven't been yet
and promise things will turn out right this time
take another pill to make it better
and find myself inside this paradigm
everywhere i go i build with dreams
and the dreams are everything i couldn't be
those dreams become a prison that i hide in
and that prison that i hide in
becomes me

Amy and Gareth Nelson, the administrators of AFF, have repeatedly stated that they do not advocate, and will not condone, any violent or illegal acts. But sometimes their efforts remind me of the story of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, trying to hold back a flood. They had to talk one guy out of a suicide terrorist attack on the Judge Rotenberg Center. Someone else posted that he was thinking about immolating himself to protest society's abuse of autistics, like the Buddhist monks who committed suicide during the Vietnam War. And this was posted just yesterday, in reference to what could be done to stop eugenic abortion:

A bit of C4, some matches for the data, and some .50 cal bullets for the researchers will do the trick.

Frankly, I'm surprised that there hasn't been any terrorism committed by autistics. If any other minority group were this close to genocide, there's no doubt a "liberation army" would consider itself morally justified in fighting back by any means. Although autistics are often considered to be more analytical and less emotional than the general population, we do have a broad range of personality types, and not all of us have a natural inclination toward calmly seeking peaceful solutions.

I don't advocate or condone violence either, and I really hope it doesn't happen. (Edited for more emphasis: If anyone reading this post has been thinking about committing a terrorist act, DON'T DO IT.) But we need to face the fact that we now have a social minority underclass of angry youths with little or no hope for the future, who grew up being treated as damaged goods and who are likely to remain unemployed because of discrimination; and historically, that always has been a recipe for disaster.

Wade—I don't know anything about your family situation, and I am not claiming that this is how your son feels. I wouldn't presume to suggest that, and for both his sake and yours, I hope it isn't so. However, under the circumstances, it's likely that when he starts complaining about his life to his friends, you will not find that to be an occasion for "grinning from ear to ear."

I recommend reading the short story "Poor Little Black Fellow," written by Langston Hughes and published in 1934 as part of the collection The Ways of White Folks. It's about a young African-American man who travels to Paris with the well-meaning white couple who raised him. For the first time in his life, he finds himself in an environment where he is seen as a human being like everyone else, rather than as a "Negro." When he decides to stay in Paris, his foster parents are dismayed, believing him to be ungrateful for failing to appreciate their efforts to help him deal with his disadvantages and make the best of his status in American society.

And in a mirror universe...

... where there are decent people who actually care about diversity, the senators are now considering:

• The Combating Neurobigotry Act;
• The No Autistic Children Left Behind Act;
• The Civil Rights for Neurological Minorities Act; and
• The Preventing Eugenics Act.

Sigh.

Maybe it'll happen one of these days.

I just hope there are still some of us left alive when it does.

You Don't Know What You're Talking About

After I wrote a post about the horrific abuse at the Judge Rotenberg Center, I got a couple of comments from JRC apologists (both anonymous, no surprise there) who sang the praises of using electric shocks on children. One of them snidely remarked, "I wouldn't express such strong opinions on subjects I know nothing about."

It's interesting how often autistic activists are told that we know nothing about how people like us ought to be treated. Although we have a lifetime of experience being autistic, we're told that the only people who are qualified to say anything about us are those who study, or work with, or take care of autistic "patients" or "subjects." Even when we are talking about the most basic human rights, there's always someone who is quick to proclaim that we just don't understand that the usual rules for humans do not apply to some of us.

Of course, this sort of attitude is nothing new in history. Oppression always has been rationalized in one way or another. I've put together a list of just a few examples...

Roman Emperor: What do you mean, it's inhumane to throw people like you to the lions? It's a very effective way of maintaining civic discipline and morale. If too many of our citizens followed your dangerous way of thinking, we would be overrun by barbarians. Sending a few people like you to the lions is in everyone's best interests, even yours, as you would understand if you had any common sense.

Medieval Inquisitor: We had no choice but to burn those heretics at the stake. It was for their own good, to free them from the devil's clutches. Although we tried other methods of curing the disease of heresy, nothing else was effective. Surely you don't think we should have been so cruel as to let them fester in their heresy.

Colonial Settler: You just don't know what it's like to be in a primitive country full of savages. Yes, we kill some natives from time to time, but it's the only way to keep them in line. In a few years, they'll thank us for making decent Christians out of them.

Slave Owner: Who are you to criticize the way I run my plantation? You don't know anything about how to make those uppity negroes behave properly. Keeping them in bondage is an act of kindness; they wouldn't be able to take care of themselves if they were free.

Wife Beater: There's nothing wrong with the way I treat my wife. I love my wife. I've been taking care of her for years, providing for all her needs. I want only the best for her. It's just a fact of life that women are weak-minded and need firm guidance and discipline.

Abusive Cop: Okay, so I was caught on videotape beating a handcuffed suspect. Don't get all moralistic about it. You don't have a clue what it's like out there on the street. Those criminals aren't people, they're animals. If we didn't show them who's boss, they would be breaking into your house and raping your daughters.

War Criminal: You don't have any idea what it's like to be stationed in a war zone. Those people don't act decent and civilized, like us; they're nothing but vicious terrorists. Sometimes we have to use aggressive interrogation techniques to get information to keep our troops safe. Yeah, maybe we killed and maimed a few civilians, but that's war.

Alice's Adventures in Disorderland

I'm feeling conflicted about the trend of posthumously diagnosing autistic geniuses. Today's autistic children desperately need strong role models because there are so many nasty stereotypes and negative images in the media. Knowing about the contributions of autistic scientists and artists could also convince some people to take a stand against eugenic abortion. On the other hand, though, if there's too much talk about autistic geniuses, it could give the impression that only the most highly talented autistics deserve to exist. As the eugenicist Joseph Buxbaum put it when defending his research to develop a prenatal test for autism, "none of the parents who ask me about these issues are the parents of a Bill Gates or an Albert Einstein."

It gets even worse when successful autistics are portrayed as pitiful, suffering freaks who fought their autism (or some other equally offensive military metaphor) to achieve miraculous success despite their neurological inferiority. This sort of posthumous diagnosis doesn't just identify typical autistic behaviors; it also picks apart the person's work in search of various shortcomings that can be blamed on defective mental wiring.

Sometimes the so-called evidence relied on for posthumous diagnosis gets to the point of being just plain absurd, as in Dr. Michael Fitzgerald's comments on The Infinite Mind regarding Lewis Carroll, the author of the classic children's stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Fitzgerald claimed that the stories "couldn't have been written by anybody except somebody with Asperger's syndrome" because, among other things, the animal characters were talking and "somebody with Asperger's syndrome are [sic] absolutely fascinated by animals." Fitzgerald also pointed to Carroll's use of repetitive language and stated that all autistics "whether they are geniuses or not they use repetitive language."

When I read garbage like that, it just makes me want to outgrabe. Hello-o-o, Dr. Fitzgerald, these are CHILDREN'S books, just in case you hadn't noticed. Talking animals and repetitive language are standard fare in children's books. You'd have to be a total dumbass to interpret that as evidence of an obsession with animals or a language disorder.

Of course, autistics are not, by any means, the only group whose creative works have been patronizingly dismissed as nothing but isolated fragments of ability from an impaired brain. There is an entire genre of Outsider Art, that is, art by individuals who have been labeled as mentally abnormal in one way or another. In the past, much of this art was produced by those who were confined to mental institutions. Estée Klar-Wolfond comments that society often has expressed a "sensationalist view towards Outsider Art and artists—a gazing from the outside in without engaging or accepting the variety of human functioning, much like a human safely viewing a Gorilla in a cage."

This view of neurologically different artists as subhuman curiosities has led to such outrageous exploitation as the sale of autistic artists' work to raise money for pro-cure organizations. Apparently the curebies see no contradiction between praising the work of autistic artists while, at the same time, asserting that the minds that produced it should not exist.

Not only is it considered socially acceptable to gawk at the works of an autistic artist as if she were an elephant painting with a brush in her trunk, it's also common for autistic people to be treated as children regardless of their age. As Kristina Chew points out, the Autism Society of America has started publishing a humor column entitled "Out of the Mouths of Babes," which invites non-autistics to send in anecdotes about their conversations with their autistic family members (some of whom are adults) so that the readers can have a good laugh at their expense.

You know what this reminds me of? The language used to describe African-Americans back in the days of Jim Crow. If you were black, you could expect to be called "boy" or "girl" throughout your entire adult life, until you were quite elderly, at which point you would be called "uncle" or "auntie."

In much the same way, there are no adults in Disorderland.

Yes, You Are Talking About Me

This post is a contribution to Blogging Against Disablism Day. I'm sure there are as many definitions of what is variously called ableism or disablism as there are blogs, so I'll start with my own definition, which is that it's a prejudice against people who are seen as being less capable in society. I use the word "seen" because what we are dealing with is often an assumption, rather than a fact. A "disabled" person isn't necessarily any less able to communicate, or work, or learn, or take care of himself or herself than anyone else is; the question is whether or not the social environment is flexible enough to accommodate the person's needs.

This disparity between the prejudice and the reality often leads to a situation where bigots try to justify their prejudices by claiming that anyone who is competent enough to criticize them isn't really disabled and should just shut up. (We all know who they are—Lenny Schafer's crowd, those who attack Michelle Dawson for not posting her diagnosis on the Web, etc.) This is what I have to say to those bigots:

Yes, you are talking about me when your hate sites proclaim that society must act now to eradicate the horrible plague of autism. Don't even waste your breath trying to convince me that it's none of my business because I have a job and I'm not on disability. You don't think your bigotry affects me? You don't think my life has been changed by your relentless campaign to turn autistic people into the lepers of the 21st century?

I can't even blog for autistic rights under my own goddamn name because there's no way of knowing if someone from my company might read my writing and decide that they need to cleanse the workplace of tragically impaired mental defectives.

You don't think I have a right to say anything when you declare that the world would be so much better if people like me didn't exist? When your so-called charities raise funds to develop a prenatal test to exterminate autistics by the millions? Not my business because there aren't (yet) any jackbooted storm troopers knocking on my door in the middle of the night to drag me off to the concentration camp?

You're wrong. You're so wrong. You're dead wrong.

And there's one more thing I have to say to the curebie parents: Most of you are autistic, too. You just haven't realized it yet because you have a job and you're not on disability. So, the next time you launch into a perseverative monologue on the horrors of autism, take a good look in the mirror.

Autism Intolerance Month

In the United States, February is Black History Month. We celebrate it by telling black schoolchildren that they should be proud of their racial heritage. They learn about notable black achievers in American history. They are encouraged to set high goals for themselves in school and in their future careers. When they grow up—and perhaps even sooner—they can expect to see a black candidate elected President of the United States.

We follow that up in March with Women's History Month, telling girls that they should be strong and confident. They learn about women who overcame discrimination and became leaders in government and industry. They are encouraged to take challenging classes and to consider careers in science, engineering, and other traditionally male-dominated fields. When they grow up—and perhaps even sooner—they can expect to see a woman elected President of the United States.

Then the calendar flips to April, and we move on to Autism Awareness Month. Autistic children see pitiful, stereotyped images and hear that the existence of people like them is a devastating epidemic. They learn that many employers refuse to hire autistic applicants, based on differences in voice and body language, and that society sees nothing wrong with discriminating against their kind. The April curriculum is the same as any other month in schools that segregate autistics into special-needs classes and treat them as if they are incapable of learning. When they grow up—and perhaps even sooner—they can expect to see the systematic, worldwide extermination of the autistic population through eugenic abortion, courtesy of prenatal testing research now being funded in part by the government of the United States.

Autism awareness promoters such as NAAR and Cure Autism Now, which also fund eugenics research, shamelessly claim to be helping children. Cure Autism Now recently "helped" children with Rett syndrome, a condition related to autism, by funding the research of Dr. Huda Zoghbi to identify a genetic marker that is currently being used for prenatal testing worldwide to detect and abort Rett babies. (You'll have to copy and paste, because eugenicists are not getting any active links from me, but more information about Zoghbi's research is at

cureautismnow.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=bhLOK2PILuF&b=1289189&ct=1814251

and you can find a directory of laboratories at

rsrf.org/about_rett_syndrome/2.4.1.html

that perform a prenatal test for Rett syndrome, based on the gene Zoghbi identified.)

It's past time for our society to realize that autism awareness propaganda is America's sickest April Fools joke.

What it's like to be...

Back when the concept of civil rights for racial minorities was still controversial, there was a great deal of discussion and speculation among liberal-minded white folks on the subject of what it would be like to be black. One white man, John Howard Griffin, went farther than just talking about the issue and actually disguised himself as a black man in order to experience the prejudice firsthand.

A recent post on Brett's blog suggested that a non-autistic person could get a better understanding of the social experiences of autistics by means of a similar disguise. It's an interesting idea, but I really have to wonder how someone would pretend to be autistic. There isn't much ambiguity in how society defines race; if you have dark brown skin, then you're classified as black, regardless of your other characteristics. When it comes to autism, on the other hand, the depths of society's ignorance are so profound that most people wouldn't have the first clue how to distinguish autistics from anybody else. The diagnostic criteria are a ridiculously vague hodgepodge of traits, to the extent that even an experienced psychologist often can't identify an autistic adult without detailed information about his or her childhood development.

Of course, given the fact that most people are so ignorant about autism that they can't tell an aspie from a turnip, just wearing Autistic Pride T-shirts for a week probably would be enough to get an idea of what the prejudice is like, even without any actual change in behavior. I wouldn't recommend wearing them to work, though; you never know what might happen.

Brett also said this in his post:

Is it possible for non-autistics to truly understand what it means to be autistic? Can we really grasp the major effort that it takes to do the things that we take for granted? I think the answer to these questions is an unqualified, “No.”

Hmmm... I know everyone who read that statement probably agreed with it, but I'm going to pick up my Bitch from Hell pitchfork (it's nice and shiny, with a faint lingering smell of sulphur) and play devil's advocate on this one. I don't believe the differences between us are anywhere near that great. You don't have to be autistic to know what it's like to make major efforts to do things that others take for granted. You just have to live in an intolerant society where your particular neurological type happens to be in the minority.

Here's a thought-exercise for readers who are not autistic:



When did you first become aware that you were different? Maybe you were two years old, or three, when you noticed that the other children could do a lot of things you couldn't. Some of them could already read. Others were doing arithmetic, playing musical instruments, or using computers. Even those who didn't have such skills all had special interests of one sort or another, and they seemed to know a lot about the subjects of their interests. You couldn't do any of that.

Your worried parents took you for a developmental evaluation. A psychologist, after observing your chatty demeanor and your lack of any focused interests, diagnosed you as suffering from Oversocialization Spectrum Disorder. The symptoms of this neurological disorder included preoccupation with social concerns, often resulting in the performance of dysfunctional and destructive rituals as a way of maintaining group identity, and inability to focus intensively on one interest.

Because you were only two or three years old, you didn't understand much of this. You only knew that sometimes, after that evaluation, your parents would look at you and suddenly burst into tears.

In the hope that early intervention would help to remediate your deficits, your parents arranged for therapists to work with you in reading and arithmetic. But you weren't developmentally ready to learn these things as a three-year-old, and you struggled and felt stupid. You got frustrated and had tantrums. You developed a few nervous habits, such as biting your nails. Then your parents started to talk about medicating you for these symptoms of your disorder.

As you grew older, you realized that you were very lucky compared to others of your neurological type, who were often subjected to painful quack treatments or even put away in institutions. But that didn't make it any easier to deal with the bullying you endured every day when you went to school and got teased about being different and being in the special education class.

News stories and fundraising solicitations often described the existence of people like you as a plague, an epidemic, a calamity, and an overwhelming burden to society. You learned that researchers were working busily to develop a cure or a prenatal test so that there would never again be any people like you in the world.

As much as you tried not to think about it, sometimes you couldn't help but to stay awake at night worrying. When your parents noticed that you weren't getting enough rest, they took you to the doctor to get some sleeping pills, which you took along with all the other meds that had been prescribed for your disorder. You took them without protest; by now, you thought of yourself as sick because you had been described that way for so many years.

Although your siblings were going away to college, that wasn't an option for you. People like you struggled in college, your counselor explained, and employers couldn't be expected to hire your sort, anyway. There wasn't much chance you would ever get married, either. But your parents cheerfully told you that they had found a comfortable group home where you could stay for the rest of your life, with friendly staff to cook your meals and remind you to take your meds every day, and no need to make any decisions or worry about anything, ever. Wouldn't that be nice?

You put on a happy face and agreed that, yes, it would be very nice. Then you went into your room, shut the door, and swallowed all the sleeping pills in the bottle.

And everyone blamed your suicide on your defective neurology.