the situation in the Netherlands

Post Reply New Topic

Hi folks, here's a copy of the message I posted in Holland, if you're interested:

"Step down and listen for once".


In the [Dutch] autism world, some people out there are still thinking there are two groups: Care givers (parents, doctors) and patients.

Care givers make decisions for the second group, the patients. They also get to sit on the board of national autism committees, foundations or publications, where decisions are made for the patients.

This vision is flawed for two reasons:

1. If your kid is autistic, you and/or your spouse as well! How do you like being called a patient, now? Don’t worry, just read further.

2. An autistic person isn’t a patient unless he has a syndrome. Examples: Rett, Angelman, fragile X, acquired brain injury, etc.

Being autistic is being different but oh boy have I got big news for you: We are all different.

Don't be scared, you’ll get used to us, just as you did with mute, deaf, blind, black, gay, short, big or old people (did I forget someone?)

So why are they out there still so many people believing that kind of s**t? For the same reason mutes were believed to be ret*d (until sign language), gays were getting shock therapy (until DSM IV) and persons of colour were, ahem, still are discriminated:
- Ignorance and thus, fear.

So, dear parents, therapists and other important board members, trying to raise awareness and considerable resources to fight autism. Stop that.

You shouldn’t want to ‘cure’ being autistic, neither being black, gay or transgender btw, and you certainly shouldn’t want to be able to abort, murder, or euthanatize autistic beings, neither black, gay etc.
Secondly, please understand that whereas my sister has Syndromic ‘Autism’ and is institutionalized, I for myself AM autistic, and I'm not the only one who’s really beginning to be pissed off by other people trying to speak in my name, be it Chief, Chair (Wo-)Man or Head of Whatever important-sounding institution which tries to legitimate ignorance on a national level.

If you understood the logic behind this simple message, then you're one of us. If not, you’re the people out there I was talking about.

P.S.: Could you imagine for a second a national LGBT foundation where most of board members are heterosexual parents or doctors? Of course not. Could you for a second imagine a magazine who would publish an article about being black, where they would use an offensive stereotype as illustration but when confronted about it they would day it's adequate because they need to represent all point of views, even racist? Of course not. Well it seems we still have some way to go...