Autistic girl kicked off flight because captain was uncomfor

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"Attention all passengers, it has come to my attention from the fight staff that we have been informed by a parent that her kid may scratch if she gets too upset so we will not be responsible for any assault and injuries. If you don't feel comfortable flying, you are free to step off the plane and we will book you another flight and give you a free meal and first class."


Better? A warning now like all companies do to avoid lawsuits. This might come down to this if families win or faced a lawsuit and won and the family lost.

Threat of losing money makes people fearful.



People will talk about more "Autism" and what meltdowns are not with an effective campaign sans lawsuit. Now the focus is on the mostly on the mother. All sorts of legal precedents have not erased anti black stigmas and discrimination. Protests and riots seem to be changing police behavior but that is another discussion.

The only time the "powers that be" grant any status (ie, equality) is when you fight them for it. And that's the sad reality of living in today's society with autism-- we're such a small sampling of the population that we'll never be able to mobilize enough manpower to gain status.

Lol. I can handle a riot, but only if there aren't too many people there, and it doesn't get too noisy.

LBGT while more then us is not that much more then us and defiantly a small minority and they have done allright mobilizing.
LGBT demographics of the United States

That's a good point that the plane was actually probably brought down because of the mother and not because of the autistic girl.

I get where the mom is coming from but sometimes parents just make things worse. I mean its kind of ridiculous.

I agree with you there and this is what I have been trying to say all along. Who knows, maybe when the girl scratches it's just a little scratch but they didn't know that. Airlines take things very seriously and even a pair of tweezers are considered weapon or a pair of tiny scissors or a pocket knife or anything that looks sharp so they get confiscated at the security point I don't blame the girl at all and she did nothing wrong, I blame the mother. It was her, not the girl. Mind you this was a 15 year old girl who is the size of an adult, not some five year old but I still wonder if they would ground the plane if she were five instead of 15?

The LBGT community also has different dynamics. Before the last 10 years most LGBT members had the ability to "pass" as straight in society, but a majority of autistics don't have that ability, hence the reason they're on the spectrum and not merely sporting "autistic-like traits". It sounds small, but that ability to pass allowed LGBT members access to economy, and economy is huge in terms of mobilization. In modern society you can't win national support for your cause by going door to door, you have to have a large campaign. Add in that a large segment of the LGBT community are gay male couples and instantly you have a money for a campaign. *side note: a lot of companies in the last decade tried to become "gay-friendly" when their demographic studies showed no other group had disposable income as great as gay-male couples: two male wage earners + no kids = money, money, money.

The truth is a lot of autistics are unemployed, thus there is no financial backing for a campaign. The sad reality is that a large number of autistics want to work but current workplace practices don't allow them to use their full potential and thus they are labeled "slow, anti-social, disabled, unemployable." They can't "pass" like members of the LGBT community could and thus have no access to economy which is vital to their ability to mobilize and make their lives better. It's a truly terrible cycle. This is part of the underlying resentment so many autistics have with Autism Speaks-- Autism Speaks is about the parents of autistics and not autistics themselves, thus their agenda is completely divergent from ours and they have the full backing of wealthy sponsors and the social connections to money/influence that comes with it. By de facto their money makes them the most influential autism related group in the world and there's nothing we can do to counteract their message, let alone move past it and towards a more accepting world.

I will reserve final judgment on this to our Autistic LBGT members but I think you are underestimating how hard it s pass as straight especially if you are an effeminate male or a butch women. Being Autistic is not illegal, having sex with the same gender was. Hitting on the wrong person got you beat up. Bars were was raided and the names of the "degenerates" were published in the newspaper. You had to hear people all the time say negative things about the "fa***ts" and "queers". And to me the rich gay man in the arts or fashion design seems as much of stereotype as the "genius" aspie programmer.

Look at this 1967 program that was "forward looking" for its time. It's 45 minutes but worth anybody's time to see where LBGT was 50 years ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it was easy-- it never is for outside groups. But unless the LGBT person in question is autistic as well they will most likely understand the social game, and understanding it makes it easier to navigate. For a lot of autistics they just completely don't understand, which makes it impossible for them to pass if they don't even know what passing looks like.

I'm for enfranchisement of all outside groups, I can't morally clamor for my own rights while at the same time argue the opposite for another group.

I think it's not fair. They should apologize to her family now. Why can't airplanes have hot food? Airplanes need microwaves.

i fail to see any connection between autism and sexual preference.it was not the knowledge of autism diagnosis or whether autistics can pass as neurotypicals.
it was the belief that severe autistics could engage is behaviors that could scare other passengers,and yes i think that was prejudicial

since when do gays and lesbians have a rep. for disrupting flights.even fred phelps never thought gays would disrupt flights.

example..... people are nervious if arabs are on a flight,but thats because of 9-11-2001 no other racial minority
group has ever made airline customers uncomfortable,even in the days of jim crowe at jackson,mi airport blacks would sit in a colored only section.but no one imagined they would disrupt flights

the issue is peoples belief that certain people might disrupt a flight not random bigotry

AD NAUSEAM.... How many times have I posted Beegle's quote, proving there was no threat made. It just isn't a threat because you say it is.






Even on wrongplanet you have people inferring it wasn't discrimination. The suit will show, once and for all, that it was indeed discrimination leaving no ambiguity in the mind's of the people. It IS discrimination, it is wrong, and it is unjust. That's why, I believe, the suit is needed, to remove the; "Well, it doesn't look like it's discrimination" nonsense from the conversation entirely. From there people can look at it objectively, and gain an understanding as to why removing people that talk about AS is discrimination.






Small groups of people can and have impacted major changes, I believe it is possible.

Disagree. People will think what they think. For most it will be just another example of a legal system run amuck unfairly punishing the airline for trying to protect the passengers. I might be Autistic with different thinking but that does not preclude me from listening to people for 5+ decades and gaining some understanding of how people think around here. If she sues and loses neither you nor me and many who think it was discrimination /wrong are going to change our minds based on the legal precedent set.

I can't disagree with that but we're not most other groups either. We're talking about social change here and the #1 deficit autistics have is social interaction which is a significant hurdle.

People already think that by default, regardless of the suit.




I've already thought of that, and it seems Beegle has too. Yes, that's what will happen should she lose, but it also carries the same result as doing nothing. Worse still, should you not start a suit; that will be seen by some as an admission that United Airlines did the right thing. I applaud Beegle for making the right choice.




In that case I think it's definitely possible, especially when you consider the strides made in social media.