WP tagline like saying Homosexuality is Not a Disease

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Fred54 posting at the bottom of page 5 on the thread ( Autism Speaks' offer to wp ) in the Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation, at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf62050-0-60.html

quotes someone called Mottrom saying that one day will feel shame that ever called autism a disorder , in the same way as any right thinking person does now about how homosexuality used to be.

The quote turns out to come from an article which I read for first time with great glee and rejoicing!! at:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/mag ... rentPage=3

I understand the main arguments against conceptualizing AS as a disease or disorder, and I think I agree with most of them. However, I must point something out.

If one's AS characteristics are not causing significant impairment in one's career, education, or social life, then one does not qualify for a diagnosis. Like most (if not all) psych diagnoses, AS is not simply a list of characteristics. The AS characteristics must be causing significant impairment in one's day to day life in order for a diagnosis to be made.

IMO: Many common AS-related impairments could easily be reversed through minor accommodations, increased understanding, and changes in attitude. Impairments that are harder to mitigate are balanced out by the abilities that often come with AS. That is why it need not be pathologized to the currently popular extent.

I'm glad someone pointed this out. This pretty much sums up what I was going to say.

Labels aren't inherently bad. Sometimes people need the label and need it "officially" in order to get things they may need to help them make it through this life. Anybody can say, "I'm not Aspie. It's a label. I'm me." Then, you better not expect anyone to make any accomodations for your "me-ness" or problems that result from your 'me-ness" because there's no help nor support out there for being just "me."

Ouinion, you've been busy thinking. Interesting thread.

About what it was like when it was considered a disease:

I've done a fair bit of reading of writing that was written during that (very long) period.

There were things that depicted being gay as tragic. I remember reading one story by a lesbian, that was supposed to be rather progressive, where the lesbian main character says something like, "Mother, why do you want me not to be dating her, when you're the one who drove me into her arms to begin with?"

As in, being gay was a tragic result of bad parenting but couldn't she just be accepted a little now that the "damage" was done? That was pretty radical for the time.

I know someone who was diagnosed psychiatrically with "maladjustment to the feminine role" which was one of the coded ways of saying "lesbian" at the time. She experienced all the psychiatric mistreatment that anyone in that system experiences (I refuse to say it would've been better if she was "really" mentally ill).

At any rate, there are a lot of parallels in terms of the way they are (in the various times that are roughly equivalent) viewed differently by different people, etc., even if the comparison isn't exact. A friend of mine told me that the autistic community right now is sort of where the homophile movement was in the fifties.

Why not? Don't many reasonable people make informal and reasonable accommodations based on the personality and life situation of another person? Why is it not okay for an aspie to say "I sometimes take things literally" or "I sometimes am overly blunt" and receive understanding from others even if they choose not to use the aspie term directly? In fact, I'd argue that this kind of specific information is probably more useful than just saying "I'm aspie", and there are reasons why someone might want to keep the actual diagnosis private. Non-autistic people also have quirks, and may seek understanding from others. Even saying something like "I'm having a bad day" is asking for an informal kind of accommodation which should be entirely reasonable in most cases. Everyone is a unique individual, after all, and I think many people recognize the value in respecting and understanding individual differences.

I think we need to distinguish between formal and informal accommodations. I agree that for formal accommodations, disclosure of a "label" needs to happen. But the idea that aspies can't seek informal accommodations, such as understanding, without stating an official label or diagnosis seems a bit unfair. My mom swears she has some degree of hearing impairment, even though I don't believe she has been officially diagnosed. I don't think it would be reasonable for her to ask for a special telephone at work without a diagnosis. But I do think her habit of asking people to repeat things more often than most people do, or chastising me when I get irritated with her for missing what I'm saying, is quite reasonable. These kinds of informal "accommodations" don't cost anyone a dime, and are simply the compassionate thing to do. People shouldn't need to utilize medicalized descriptions to make simple requests of others.

Liane Holliday-Wiley says that in a perfect world, there might not be a need for the word "Asperger's Syndrome." Perhaps rather idealistic, but an important idea nevertheless.

Anything that you're born with is not a disease. Like homosexuality, aspergers, mentally challenged, etc. What are diseases is hiv, cancer, etc.

Well, there is such a thing as "congenital disorders" - spina bifida, hemophilia, Usher syndrome, etc. Whether you call it a disease or a disorder is really just a question of semantics.

There are babies born with HIV