The #MeToo movement has gone too far. I'm done!! !

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To add onto this thought, why would you want to go back to this kind of support group? Is there another group available? I understand changing groups is difficult but in the long run, may be a better solution.

It couldn't have been the director and here's why. I only ever contacted the director AFTER the allegations had already been about me and I was banned, meaning I never ever met or communicated with her before this entire debacle. The director is trash for sure and evil, but she couldn't have conspired against me without having known me 1st. It took someone from that group who does know me, hates me, and wanted me gone to concoct a story against me and the gullible director believed it without any investigation or inquiry.

I am sure this is not the only support group available, The consensus is look for a new support group, There is no point trying to go back and harvest fruit from a dead tree,

Agreed. This is a big problem -- somewhat similar to the "Believe the children!" slogan of the ritual abuse scare of the 1980's.

(Somewhat similar, though not quite the same thing. In 1980's "ritual sex abuse" investigations, often the children were questioned by investigators for hours on end, until they finally told the investigators what they wanted to hear, the worse the better -- resulting in a LOT of innocent people, mostly female childcare workers, being wrongly convicted and sent to prison.)


I'm very sorry to hear this. A really awful situation.

You're not alone. A member of my support group was kicked out of another kind of group he was involved in, for similar reasons.

On the other hand, I am also aware of real instances of severe harassment of autistic women by autistic men, where the harassment was not taken seriously at all by group leaders.

IMO the autistic community needs to find ways to strike a balance between the safety of women and the principle of "innocent until proven guilty." This isn't easy, but it's something we need to think about very seriously.

IMO when members of a group complain about sexual abuse or harassment by another member, the leaders need to find ways to ask for details and evidence while at the same time being supportive and comforting, sensitive to the fear and/or trauma that the complainer may have experienced. That's a tall order, but it's something we group leaders need to make a point of educating ourselves on.

(Note to self: Important topic for an upcoming Autistic Peer Leadership Group meeting.)

Also, it needs to be recognized that an autistic person may say or do sexually inappropriate things without realizing it. So, when an autistic man in a support group says or does (or is alleged to say or do) something sexually inappropriate, the first response, IMO, should not be to immediately expel him, but to educate the man on appropriate behavior. Only then, if more complaints are heard about him, especially from other women in the group, should he be expelled.


In the case of an autistic support group, there might be another factor at play here, besides just the #MeToo movement.

A question, if you feel inclined to answer this: What was the ratio of women to men in your support group?

Diagnosed autistic men vastly outnumber diagnosed autistic women. Thus, in many autistic adult support groups, especially in-person ones, men outnumber women -- and the higher the male-to-female ratio, the less safe many of the women feel, resulting in an even higher male-to-female ratio, making the remaining women feel even less safe, and so on. I strongly suspect that this dynamic may have led some (though not all) autistic adult support group leaders to become very protective toward the few women, even before #MeToo.

(On the other hand, other support group leaders have not taken sexual abuse allegations seriously enough.)

Another question: Was this an autistic peer-led support group or a professional-led support group, and, if the latter, were the leaders autistic or NT?


I would guess that they were probably trying to figure out what to say to you, and how, and perhaps consulting a lawyer to figure out how to cover their ass legally. I'm not surprised they made you wait that long, although no doubt it was extremely frustrating.


Reading this, my first thought is to wonder whether this is "all fabricated and BS" or perhaps the result of a a series of misunderstandings. Perhaps at least some of the women may have genuinely perceived sexual innuendo where none was intended?

As autistic people, we do tend to be misunderstanding-prone -- especially with NT's, but also, though to a lesser extent, with each other as well. IMO autistic support group leaders should keep this in mind and have a commitment to identifying and resolving misunderstandings where possible.


Many women are afraid to be assertive with men, partly out of social conditioning and partly out of fear of violence. So, alas, it's not surprising that a woman might feel threatened by you for whatever reason, but never tell you.

Even worse, if an autistic woman is young enough to have been subjected to ABA as a child, that might make her even more afraid to be assertive.


You certainly should be given an opportunity to clear things up.


Understandably so.

It's possible to have genuine misunderstandings about perceived sexual innuendo. Some people could genuinely perceive sexual innuendo where you meant none.

However, given what you said in another post here about how quiet you were, I'm now wondering something else:

Perhaps what's going on here might be a case of mistaken identity? Was there another member of the group who looked a bit like you? Some autistic people (including myself) are very bad at recognizing faces, so it's not inconceivable that whoever accused you might have you confused with someone else.

No one looked like me. I was one of several guys in a majority women group, and I was the only young guy so I stood out. The group I was part of was part of a larger group for mental health support, and because a good chunk of this organization actually was for survivors of sexual assault and brutal rape many of the people in my group weren't actually autistic but had other mental illnesses and were survivors of rape. I call it an autistic support group because that's one of the demographics it's tailored for but it isn't exclusive to Autiscs, although there were several like me who were autistic but we weren't the majority; the vast majority of people in the group were women and girls who had other mental illnesses and were survivors of trauma, mostly rape.

I don't know what I said that could possibly be construed as sexual innuendo. I don't even have a clue.

Thanks for your clarification on what kind of group this was. This clarifies the whole situation A LOT.

Given that "a good chunk of this organization actually was for survivors of sexual assault and brutal rape," it's no surprise to me that this organization would be very biased towards believing -- and protecting -- the accuser. Indeed it would be an extreme surprise if it wasn't biased that way.

This isn't a consequence of the "#MeToo" movement. Rather, the "#MeToo" movement is, itself, a recent popularization of ideas, goals, and attitudes long held by the sexual abuse survivors movement, of which the organization you were involved in is evidently a part. Attitudes like "#BelieveAllWomen" have been a more-or-less permanent fixture in the sexual abuse survivors movement from its very beginning, way back in the 1970's.

These attitudes are a reaction against the contrary tendencies of all too many police departments to (1) not take rape allegations seriously enough and (2) question the victim in ways that are re-traumatizing.

Also, being biased toward believing and protecting abuse survivors is an intrinsically necessary part of the job of supporting abuse survivors.

EDIT: In another thread here, I've posted my suggestions on how you might go about finding another, better support group.