Autism Strawmen in the Media

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I, an 24-year-old with autism, am thoroughly convinced that one is born with autism, and therefore can never "outgrow" it. I consider it more like a "trait" than a "disorder", but I still call it a disorder, because that is its official name - Autism Spectrum Disorder, as stated in the DSM-5.

Given these points, I suggest founding a grassroots organization that only admits adults with autism, so that they can help refute harmful stereotypes of autism perpetuated by the U.S. mass media.

I tried joining the Autism Self-Advocacy Network, but I don't know how to go through the necessary procedures.

It looks from the website that you can register online
https://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50944/donate_page/membership

I don't have enough money.

What I do is go on comment sections of media and YouTube videos to refute with stereotypes or just to state my opinion on Autism related issues. Most do require an account or a Google or Facebook Account so I have created separate accounts that have Aspie/Autistic in the name. As one person doing this I can not make a difference but I am far from the only one doing this. A couple of years ago nearly every comment thread in an Autism article no matter what the topic at hand one or more people would tell autistics not to call themselves "autistic" but a "person with autism" because "autistic" is offensive to autistics. Nearly every time that happened the language policing person was told by multiple posters why we thought they were the rude/offensive ones. Causation may not be correlation but I rarely in comment sections see NT's insisting we call ourselves a "person with autism" anymore.

Note: I have no objection if a spectrumites want to call themselves a person with autism.

You got that phrase backwards. It's "correlation does not prove causation", not "causation does not prove correlation".

Listen up. Just because I'm thoroughly convinced of something now doesn't mean I'm thoroughly convinced of it forever. My mind will change when and only when someone else can give me some evidence. Besides, what I meant to say was that it's impossible to cure autism, because it is not a disease.

It's both



Why the restriction?

"You don't grow out of autism", well technically not.

Meanwhile back in the real world autistic kids with functional limitations do develop the capacity to manage their behaviour/compulsions so growing to manage their autism.