Has the Autistic Rights Movement lost its teeth?

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Hi, I've been following the Autistic rights movement for several years and I've been surprised by the degree of change which has occurred at least in some circles of our movement.

The most striking one is the rise of ableism/anti-ableism. At first glance anti-ableism appears to be championing the liberal, progressive ideals which the Autistic rights movement was built upon; however when talking to people who use the label it's becoming more clear to me that it is infact working against Autistic activism, quietly smothering it and removing its teeth.

Back in yester-year our message was "we don't need to be cured, we're awesome!" but now some self-styled anti-ableists want it to be "Autism isn't awesome and if you think we should be awesome then you're ableist". I've seen good, dedicated activists shouted-down for the crime of showing that autistic people can be a great value to the world. This 'value' doesn't have to be about money or acting Neurotypical, but instead the very idea of going out into the world and making the most of things, not playing-down our condition.

How are we supposed to counter Autism's real opponents if we're now against the very idea of Autism being good?

Have I misjudged anti-ableism or is it truely aiding people like Autism $peaks?

I agree that in the last few years a been a backlash amoung a significant amount of autistics against the concept of neurodivesity, believing it to be an elitist movement headed by clueless very high functioning/Aspies who do not understand that Autism is a significant to crippling disability/set of impairments. They were never part of the autism rights movement probably. I do post about the extreme negative stuff involved but also about autistics whom have achieved great success and will continue to do so because autism like life in general is a mixture of the horrific, the awesome and everything in between.

My issue with the Autism rights movement is that it has become too intertwined the anti Trump resistance. Steve Sielberman's book was the best thing that happened to the autism rights movement as it significantly changed how the mainstream media covered autistics. Silbermen's twitter feed these days is just one almost continuous attack against Trump. ASAN is devoting most of its energies to fighting the repeal of Obamacare. This is not about my feelings about the Trump administration and I do understand Medicaid is important to many autistics. To me the Autism rights movement is becoming just another indistinguable voice amoung the millions of voices of the resistance. And what of the many autistic Trump supporters or just those like me that dislike Trump but do not support the beliefs or tactics of the current progressive movement? . "Nothing without us" does not apply to us appearently. The Autistic rights movement needs to get back to what was successful for us which easing the stigmas and stereotypes about us. Without that anti discrimination laws will continue to often be meaningless our dependence on medicaid continued. The most important thing for the movement is easing the disgusting suicide ideation rate and shorter life span we have. Easing the stigmas and stereotypes is an important part of that as well getting more Autistic presence in the decision making process for Autism research as well as Autism policy making.

Exactly, promoting the positive aspects doesn't mean that we have to ignore the negative aspects too. I have come across some autistic people in the past who seemed particulary self-hating, being very pro-cure; they were normaly (but not always) on the low-functioning side of the spectrum. However the anti-ableists don't seem to be part of this group. Infact they dislike the term 'low functioning' entirely as they see it as elitist. I'm not especialy fond of the term either but that's another subject for another thread. Instead of wanting to focus on the negative aspects and follow a pro-cure mantra the anti-ableists are anti-cure but they view any promotion of autistic value to be a terrible thing. They are so used to defending their rights at they've now gone full-circle by wanting to defend the right to not even promote their rights. By doing this, they are simply not prepared to confront Autism's real opponents.



Being British I don't know much about the finer details of the anti-Trump resistance, but that is interesting what you say. (I'll post more on it when I've got the time. XD)

Indeed. I have witnessed this kind of co-optation of smaller groups into larger groups take place in politics over the last 35 years.

Small groups become notable for some early successes --> Large groups have reasons to take over the small groups to control (promote or prevent) further successes --> Small groups begin to atrophy through subtle complacency --> Large groups begin to ignore the demands of the small groups --> Small groups are finally controlled out of existence.

Anyone who watched how the Tea Party political movement (originally a Libertarian invention) was cozied up to by the Republican National Committee only to be assimilated and destroyed will understand this process. Groups like Autistic Self Advocacy Network should watch out. Cherishing their allegiances with governmental and corporate groups to the point where they comply spells doom for the groups' stakeholders.

Isn't it time all this bickering stopped, and proper recognition was given to the wide spectrum in terms of ability and functioning? It's not about a 'cure' or 'non cure' but tailoring things to the individual on the spectrum. For some that may involve a 'cure' or more likely an improvement in that which impairs and restricts their lives. For others, more able,it's a recognition of their abilities and the positive contribution they can make to society, and not being dismissed just because of a label.

There needs to be an ASD movement that supports the needs and wants of all on the spectrum and not just factional groups often at odds with each other.

In what context is this said. I haven't seen this "anti-ableist" sentiment that you talking about, so I need to see an example of it before I answer you, so that I can see the context.

This ( http://www.autistichoya.com/2016/04/hel ... leism.html ) is a good example of anti-ableism, in my opinion.

I do not think it was deliberate co optation. Most of the resistance members probably have no idea there is such a thing as the Autistic Rights movement which was my point. My take is that by thier nature of bieng activists and progressive and often living in the bubble(ASAN NYC, Silberman San Francisco via NYC) they reacted as 95 plus percentage of progressives did to election of Trump with at first with shock and depression followed by the time for depression is over resist. It seems to have been an mass organic reaction due to the nature of bieng progressive for reasons I do not understand because I am not one.

I agree. Most co-optation is usually just meaningless enthusiasm by the co-opters. Political parties are especially good at doing this through ideological narratives. The logic goes something like this: "Most (liberals or conservatives) agree that autism rights will cause ___ . If you are a (liberal or conservative), you should stand up to those who disagree with you about autism rights." Now, where would those ideas be expressed these days? They are online instead of actually lobbying those public officials who stand at the friction points of improving matters. I amn't surprised that Silberman et al. spend their days cranking out evermore hostile claims that serve no one.

As for ASAN, Ari Ne'eman resigned six months ago. What memorable successes has the group accomplished since then? In this case, I believe it is more a matter of lacking momentum. The group is stalling because it is stalling. Inertia has kicked in.

In each of these examples, the stakeholders aren't being served.

Around here, whenever a upper middle class Aspie, with parents who have connections starts hollering about acceptance/no cure/neurodiversity, he is immediately dog pile and gets labeled "Aspie Privilege" by parents who have kids at lower end of the spectrum. Parents, whoes kids if they are lucky, will find a group home for them at 18.

If I had an adult kid, who could only function on big doses of antipsychotics, is non verbal, and the high light of his day is sheltered work shop work, yeah...I might be cheering Trump's mention of "cure".

It's gotten so bad around here, many groups exclude Aspies because what do they really have in common with someone on the lower end of the spectrum? No parent wants to hear about a college educated man talk about his work issues, when their adult child bites himself and has violent rages. Not a whole lot of sympathy/support being passed to the Aspie.

The whole movement needs a major overhaul or the diagnosis split into two parts again. Too big of a range to be inclusive to everyone's satisfaction.

The new head of ASAN is Julia Bascom. Her claim to fame is the "loud hands" project. The "loud hands" project was a reaction to the "quiet hands" concept popularized by Applied Behavioral Analysis. It viewed autistic behaviors, most notably stimming as maladaptive behaviors to be corrected. While Bascom has hitched ASAN to the anti Trump train, Kansas and Alabama are getting ready to mandate insurance companies cover ABA therapy. If passed there will only be one or two states where insurance coverage of autism therapies is not mandated. ABA is the near universal therapy used. Whatever you think of ABA, breaking up the ABA monopoly will allow less expensive and time consuming therapies to be proven effective.

Tawaki mentioned the "functioning" devide. Many "shiny aspies" as kids met the definition of severe autism. It should be more known that people like Carly Fleishmann, Temple Grandin met the severe criterias and often did what they did without or dispite ABA. The might chip away at the attitudes of both the "warrior parents" and the "high functioning" WP members who write elequently about how they are a loser destined to always fail.

I agree with getting more Autistic presense in the decision making process as it's discusting how Autism Speaks doesn't have any Autistic people in its senior staff.

As for being intertwined with other movements, the anti-ableist mantra includes alot of the university politics of 'triggers' and speech policing. As someone who's centre-left and a supporter of LGBT rights I thought I'd be on safe ground, but I and others have been walking on eggshells lest we trigger someone's aversion to something.



The blogosphere, Facebook groups. AspieUtah's link below is a good example. A member of my local blind community has also came across the term, although as it was in the wider disabled community rather than specifically the Autistic community she may have heard someone refer to generic discrimination rather than this pseudo-Autistic use of the word.



This is exactly the kind of university politics which I'm talking about. Note how the first paragraph alone has 5 mentions of the word "privilage", 15 instances in the whole page.

More importantly, they say "other autistic people are treated dubiously and with suspicion if they self-identify". I agree with them in part, indeed I've given a lot of sympathy and support to people who have found it difficult or impossible to get an official diagnosis. If someone says that they have undiagnosed Autism then I won't question it as I recognise that I don't have the right to deny anyone's possibility of Autism. Yet the anti-ableist in that link and in other groups are saying that obtaining a medical diagnosis is "ableist, classist hierarchy" and a "medical/psychiatric-industrial complex". No, it's science. We get a diagnosis because Autism is based on medical facts. They're effectively saying that self-identification is a diagnosis in itself rather than a hope of a future diagnosis. How can we campaign to make it easier for people to get a diagnosis if we throw the whole idea of medical diagnosis out the window?

This all goes back to the infantile anti-ableist mentality of campaigning to not campaign. 'why should I give the public a positive view of Autism?' 'Why should I have a diagnosis?' 'why debate with people when you can censor them?'

Last edited by TUAndrew on 12 May 2017, 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am anti-ableist. Ableism and internalized ableism like racism and internalized racism are real and harm a lot of people and is an important reason for the self-hate and suicide ideation I mentioned. The problem is seeing ableism everywhere and implying that a person who says my autism is a disability, a curse feels that way because of internalized ableism. An Autistics suicide ideation might be the result of internalized ableism, partially the result of internalized ableism, or solely the of result Autism and so called co-morbid impairments. Saying the problems of autistics is only or mostly an internalized ableism issue is doing exactly what they correctly call out NT's for and violates their own "Nothing without us" mantra

By 'internalized ableism' you mean being ableist against yourself?

In a way I'm anti-ableist too, but it really depends on what you define 'ableist' as. I see it as something closer to 'discrimination faced by Autistic people'. Where as the anti-ableists which I'm talking about seem to think that 'ableism' means attempting to better yourself in anyway, even if that betterment is proudly Autistic rather than Neurotypical.

I would define ableism as descrimination against disabled people and/or hostile actions directed towered disabled people based on the belief the disabled are inferior. Excluding autistics from Autism policy decisions deliberately or not even thinking of including autistics in Autism policy decisions is institutionalized ablism. Not hiring an autistic person for a sales position because that person has Autism caused communication differences/issues/difficulties is not ableism.

Internilized Ablelism is a person who feels they are inferior because they bought into ableist beliefs.

Not wanting to better yourself for whatever reason is no anti-ableism, it is stupidity and stubbornness.

I'm the person who wrote the blog post linked a few comments upthread. I just want to clarify my opinion on medical diagnoses -- I don't think that a person's choice or desire to get a medical diagnosis makes them automatically classist/complicit in the medical-industrial complex/etc. I think that treating people who have medical diagnoses as more validly/authentically autistic than people without those diagnoses is, at least in part, classist and contributing to the medical community's gatekeeping power over defining autism. (That gatekeeping is what leads to people with medical diagnoses being able to get resources, while people without medical diagnoses -- even if they want one -- cannot get access to the same resources.) Hope that helps clarify.