WP tagline like saying Homosexuality is Not a Disease

Post Reply New Topic

sexuality is a spectrum, not a switch with gay, straight and bi as the only settings.


Merle

What I'm saying is that I was born with neurological problems that lead to me being autistic. I tried explaining this before I learned about autism and even though I know about it now, it's still hard to understand and explain so I'll try my best.

I don't fit it because I feel so "out of it" most of the time. Everyone is different. NTs aren't all alike. Their similarity is they like to socialize and be a part of a group but everything else about them is different. Everyone finds their own group of people to be friends with but I didn't fit in anywhere. People could tell I was a bit aloof.

I have trouble with verbal communication because I forget what people say before they finish talking (poor short-term memory) and people I'm a little slow processing information. My speech is also slurred but not due to a speech disorder so a speech therapist was unable to help.

When people are sick or have the flu they feel a little different and aren't as sociable. I feel like my brain is infected with something all the time. I also feel like people do when they're stressed or don't get enough sleep.

I value independence and standing out from the crowd. If I ever recover, I'll probably be a leader and let others follow me if they want. I'm a little more normal than before since I tried alternative treatments for autism and understand people better so I have an idea of the differences between NT and HFA.

Excellent post ouinon.

Having thought so much about AS since my assessment very late in my life, I came to the understanding that it was not necessary to medicalise and pathologise me and so many other people with HFA/AS.

We just have different types of brains. That's all.

The real reasons we don't 'fit' with NT culture are to do with

1. medicalising us opens up a potentially huge pharma $$opportunity and a whole lucrative 'treatment'/therapy industry

2. power and control - NTs love to control others, doctors' raison d'etre is to play God in this sort of way

3. NT's lack of respect and value for any diversity - look at the way black people, women, those of other religions from the prevailing norm, etc are still treated.

4. 'we' are not allowed to medicalise and make fun of many other 'different' people now (.e.g. different races, gay people etc) so 'we' have to go hunting for others to pathologise and make inferior: AS people are an easy target (we generally don't like confrontations, we don't gather together to socialise let alone protest, we are still very ignorant about the fact that we just have different brain wiring; overweigh people and those who smoke are also targets of the hunters now)

PS - sexual orientation is NOT a choice. To those who declare that it is, I would ask what experience you have of being anything other than heterosexual (i.e. 'normal')?? Please do not pronounce on things you have no experience of.

Ouinon,
Excellent topic! I've been thinking along similar lines recently. I suspect that with regards to public opinion on the status of Neurodiversity, we're at a point similar to where homosexuality was maybe 50 years ago.

Perhaps we're missing the point when arguing about the exact nature of homosexuality. The main point is that a way of being that was very recently considered as a psychological defect, or even a disease, is now considered (by many) as an acceptable variation from the mainstream. Different, but not essentially a disorder. Further, opinion has now shifted to a position where heterosexuals are legally obliged to make the effort required for homosexuals to feel that they are not discriminated against. So maybe Aspergers could go down the same road in the next 50 years?

Rather than the current situation where the AS sufferer is expected to make the efforts to learn to get along in a world geared to those of a different neurological type, the NT's will have to make the effort to ensure that their ways are not causing us discomfort. So, to conjure up the first scenario I can think of, currently when wording a job advert (in most of the Western world), you have to ensure you have not discriminated against physically disabled and gays, you will also have to ensure you have not said things such as "must have excellent communication skills and be a team player", you must focus totally on the skills to do the job.

War is a group activity. Also mindless consumerism. The exploitation of resources for private profit is a group activity. Basically following the lead set down by the alpha-males requires just "fitting in" and getting on with "doing your duty". They don't want anyone thinking independantly and challenging their starting assumptions about who are the good guys and bad guys. What is the right way and the wrong way of existing for a human being?

I feel that those on the autistic spectrum are less able to "go along with the majority". To us and the planet as a whole, this is a virtue. To the cynical exploiters of this planet, it's the ultimate evil.

All this debate about whether homosexuality is a choice seems irrelevant. A gay person has never needed a diagnosis from a doctor to tell them that they're gay. The thing that changed with its exclusion from the DSM is that a doctor can't tell someone that the condition itself is a mental illness that needs to be treated.

It doesn't seem as if pharmas are making their money off of ASDs--definitely less than if they had stayed with other diagnoses. If you're an adult you have the choice to not go to a doctor but based on my questions about early diagnosis, many people benefited from having the therapy and treatment when they were younger.

Hypothetically the ADA should cover ASDs but in practice it probably doesn't. Team player and communication skills seem essential to most jobs these days, especially when people talk about jobs that won't be outsourced to other countries since supposedly the non-creative coding intensive jobs are expendible. Given that some issues such as lack of eye contact and trouble picking up on emotional cues are common to other cultures, maybe that should be part of diversity training to at least make that part easier. But everyone is still making generalizations about NTs and AS people on this topic so it seems to go against the idea that the category shouldn't exist at all. The argument is that the distinction just shouldn't be considered an abnormality?

The money being made from ASD is raised by and for charity fundraisers (looking for the cure, science research grants, autism societies). Big pharma can and does make money on ASDs when there is also a "comorbid" or when the ASD is seen as such a debilitating condition that drugs are introduced (Riperidone, ritalin).

The ADA covers autistic children in the public setting. Autism is a disability and so you can't discriminate against an autistic child at school. The protection is murky, though when dealing with so-called "behaviors". Disabled people can and do get kicked out of restaurants and stores when they present in a way that other customers find offensive (frequent choking, screaming, pacing).

Is it against the law to kick out a screaming child who is having a sensory meltdown? Is it a violation of their rights?

I remember having a furious argument with my mother (when I was a boy) with her paper she was writing on Alcoholism is a Disease. "Not it's not!" I would argue.... to me "disease" means an infection of virus or bacteria, causing a problem in the body.

To many (most?) people, "disease" simply means anything other than perfect health. That means obesity, alcoholism, mental dysfunction, you name it... it's all disease.

So no, homosexuality is not a disease, nor is autism... unless it's caused by a really nasty virus we don't know about?

ManErg - you are obviously linked to my brain...you said it all so much better though!

A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.
Obsolete. Lack of ease; trouble.
[Middle English disese, from Old French : des-, dis- + aise, ease; see ease.]

you know, like diabetes or alcoholism

Merle

I know that. It was my rapid shorthand objection to another statement declaring that homosexuality was a choice. And yes, as i said in earlier post the reason why many gays prefer the word "queer" now is because it avoids the dichotomy/black-white opposition of homo-hetero( with bi like ambidextrous in the middle).

Thank you, Merle, and also mcSquared, for the details, and precisions, about changes in dx re: homosexuality. I hadn't realised it had taken quite so long.

I went to bed with these questions in my head:

and:

and i think the answer is that the pen is "marriage" and, most importantly, parenthood.

This morning i realised that perhaps what hurts most about the term aspergers is that it isn't really about "us". "We're" almost irrelevant, suffering from a side-effect of a measure of social control. "We" are goats who've had dog/wolfskins strapped to us and are being used to frighten the sheep.

All those adults enjoying the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities of parenthood, all those people living free of all that parenthood thing, either cos never had children or have left them with other parent, are a source of anxiety to a stable society. By labelling solitary behaviour and lack of sexual relationships pathological it hopes to scare all of those who CAN, into making an effort, into accepting restrictions and sacrifices of freedom and independence , into being parents, by suggesting that those who live alone do it because have a medical condition, that there is something wrong with them.

"WE" are being used to scare them back into the fold. But to do so we can not carry on simply being goats; goats don't scare sheep. We need to be dressed for the part; as dog/wolf.

Which is why i am feeling so down about the acceptance on here of the term aspergers. (Even when saying that it is not a disease we are giving the word life.) We are letting ourselves be used as a measure of social control. All the outcry about autism and aspergers ; it's not out of concern for us; it's to frighten the sheep into behaving like good stable reproductive elements.

Faced with this kind of pressure, the size of the operation, the number of lives thrown away/made misery in order to spread the message, to enforce the measure, most people will feel fear, will want to fit in, will examine their slightest "anti-social" tendency or social "inadequacy/anxiety" for fear that it might mean that they are autist/ASD/on the dreaded spectrum. Many of those who can possibly do the family thing will, and those that can't society isn't interested in seeing reproduce anyway.

It is very like the invention of the word homosexuality in the late 1800s which was used to "encourage" all available men to marry the tens of thousands of women "still on the shelf" (because of war losses) . It came too late to avert the crisis though; women revolted, they went out and got jobs etc, basically refused to carry on waiting for men to take them off their fathers hands.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 Dec 2007, 7:57 am, edited 2 times in total.

Touche! [snappy salute]

I guess I mistook the word "disease" to mean what "infection" does. Bad me! Bad!
Pardon me while I messily flog myself with the Salmon of Correction. *sshhThwack*

I think that the term Aspergers is also very like Homosexuality in that it won't work either; putting the fear of autism into people is not going to push them back into family-founding/childrearing behaviour fast enough to avoid revolution, while child-rearing remains so similar to residential care for the disabled crossed with prison warder.

If "homosexuality as disease" had worked in time, if women had not found out how to leave home without a husband, i suppose homosexuality might still be seen as a disorder/dysfunction.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 Dec 2007, 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are many who believe that "coding" and "programming" are VERY creative jobs. Apologies as I know my reply is totally OT, but I've seen this phrase a few times round here recently and I feel it's about time the assumption was challenged. Put it this way, the best software is developed by the best developers who invariably talk of "the art of software development".

Thos who believe programming to be a mundane drone task seem to me to be either a) clueless managers or b) developers with no basic aptitude who got into the business because of the "get-rich-quick" mentality of the 1990's.

Straying back on-topic, I'm sure that 2 or 3 AS type developers with a natural understanding of software will always outperform any amount of "team playing" "skilled communicating" NT's who are not truly interested in the product, just the individual status boost they may get from it.

I was thinking that one possible reason for societys unease over the increasing numbers of people living alone and not reproducing, is the "old-people-bulge". "Too many" old people.

Society, in the West, thinks that it needs to get people reproducing again, urgently, and so far doesn't seem prepared to change anything about childrens status to render parenthood a more attractive prospect.
Instead it has created a bogeyman to frighten people into behaving "very socially", bonding, living with someone, taking on full adult responsibilities like children etc, because behaving otherwise is now seen as dysfunctional, a medical condition in fact.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 Dec 2007, 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Just this moment thought; i didn't like Night Shyamalans film "The Village", mainly because it turned out that there was nothing to be scared of, except the village leaders that is, ( telling lies for the good of the community), and someone so strangely and terrifyingly blind that they can make their way through a forest on their own but can't see that a monster is a friend in fancy dress and so kills them, but was just wondering, can anyone remember who it was that dressed up "usually" in the "scary creature" costume that the village leaders had made to increase fear amongst the villagers? ....



Thinking that perhaps i was rather too quick dismissing this film.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 Dec 2007, 10:25 am, edited 3 times in total.