How I understand neurodiversity...

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"The Cure" approach:
Let's make the autistic children normal!

Neurodiversity approach:
You don't need to be "normal" (whatever it means) to deserve recognition as a valid human being!

What would a cure even look like, if they did come up with one...neurosurgery to re-wire everything? Just doesn't seem very feasible to cure someones neurology to make them neurotypical.

What would a cure even look like, if they did come up with one...neurosurgery to re-wire everything? Just doesn't seem very feasible to cure someones neurology to make them neurotypical.

I think both approaches are wrong. Most autistics can't become normal, except the autism is nothing but the result of an anxiety disorder.

But autists can nearly always learn more about 'normal' people and how to deal with them in better ways.

Its not really about curing autism or making them neurotypical its about encouraging & supporting medical treatments to make many peoples lives better.

Rarely does anything get cured completely, but most conditions have treatments, autism has none, over many decades hopefully science will be able to shave the worst aspects of autism that cause so much misery, while keeping the good bits.

"Neurodiversity" is largely the cult of identity or about identity politics, as opposed to disability rights.

Its disproportionatly composed of those who are "anti cure", (which inevitably means anti new treatments) at least at senior level.

Wanting to dictate autism research and being "anti cure" im afraid dont go well together.

Ive seen some of these people on tv and for them saying autism and disability in the same sentence is like watching a small child swear for the first time. Yes very uncomfortable looking.

If one looks at other pathologies you can find plenty of organisations that generally represent everyone with their respected condition.

The sad fact is many see ND for what it is and are turning away and forming their own groups or counter groups, sometimes that is referred to as autism wars.

If they just dropped the identity politics, stayed out of science and cure or not cure arguments, there could be so much more acheived for everyone.

ND movement supporters while generally anti cure are not anti treatment. ND movement supporters are widely PERCEIVED as anti treatment.

“Identity Politics” as currently defined is a pejorative describing people who view themselves and others solely through the prism of group identity. The term is used to discredit people’s opinions as invalid. When there is Columbus Day or St. Patrick’s day parade and politicians go there and mug for the TV cameras as is common practice, we don’t call that identity politics. When a person is a member of the Knights of Columbus and calls himself “Italian” we don’t browbeat him for not calling himself “American” or even “Italian-American”. People just seem to assume the person is not more loyal to Italy then America and thinks of himself as more than just Italian.

If someone identifies as “autistic” or “aspie” and is a supporter of the Neurodiversity movement so many assume that person is an and elitist ableist engaging in toxic identity politics. Why is this?

Nearly all of us who were involved in the earliest period of ANI had met many parents of autistic children, at conferences and local parent support groups. Almost invariably, the parents were pleased and excited to hear from us. True, their primary interest was in using us as resources for their children rather than supporting us in our own goals; but still, they were not hostile toward us. It seems that one autistic person at a time--and preferably a passive one--might be welcomed as an interesting novelty or an amusing diversion or possibly even a valuable source of information and insight. But autistic people organizing together, autistic people pursuing our own interests rather than furthering the interests of parents and professionals--suddenly we were perceived as a threat.

Only several years later, while researching the history of self-advocacy by disabled people (Sinclair, 1996), did I learn of the long history of similar opposition to attempts at self-advocacy and self-determination by people with a variety of disabilities (Kugelmass, 1951; Putnam, 1979; Williams & Shoultz, 1982; Van Cleve & Crouch, 1989; Lane, 1992; Shapiro, 1993; Christiansen & Barnartt, 1995; Dybwad & Bersani, 1996; Kennedy, 1996). Any attempt by a group of disempowered people to challenge the status quo--to dispute the presumption of their incompetence, to redefine themselves as equals of the empowered class, to assert independence and self-determination--has been met by remarkably similar efforts to discredit them. The discrediting tactics used most frequently are:

1) If at all possible, to deny that the persons mounting the challenge are really members of the group to which they claim membership. This tactic has been used against disability activists with learning disabilities and psychiatric disabilities as well as against autistic people. As people with these disabilities often look "normal" and the disabilities are all defined in terms of behavior rather than empirically measurable physical differences, many of us have been told that the very fact that we are able to express ourselves, object to the ways our freedom has been restricted or our rights violated, and demand change proves that we cannot truly be autistic, or learning disabled, or psychiatrically impaired.

2) If there is incontrovertible evidence that the activists are members of the affected group, to aver that they are rare exceptions who are so unlike typical members of the affected group that what they have to say is irrelevant to the group as a whole. Michael Kennedy, who obviously and indisputably has cerebral palsy, explains the destructive impact of this tactic:


3) If it is not possible to deny that the activists are authentic representatives of the affected group, to appeal to the very prejudices and stereotypes the activists are seeking to overturn, and use those prejudices and stereotypes to claim that the activists are incapable of fully understanding their situations and knowing what is best for them. Often this approach incorporates the belief that disabled people need to have their freedom restricted for their own good, to protect them from coming to harm through their inability to act in their own best interests.

These strategies to undermine credibility are not new, nor are they limited to situations involving disability. Frederick Douglass was a nineteenth-century African American who escaped from slavery in 1838 and became a well-known abolitionist writer and speaker. In his 1855 autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, he recalled that at the beginning of his career speaking to white audiences about the evils of slavery, he was presented as something of a curiosity. Most anti-slavery lecturers where white; lecturers who were themselves fugitive slaves were a rarity. As the novelty wore off, people began to doubt that he had ever been a slave. He was suspected of being an impostor because he was too educated and too well-spoken to fit prevailing stereotypes about the ignorance of slaves. He also expressed frustration with white abolitionists' demand that he confine his speeches to simply recounting his personal experiences of slavery, and allow white people to elaborate on what they meant: "Give us the facts, we will take care of the philosophy." Eventually Douglass stopped working for white abolitionists and started his own anti-slavery publication.

If it was the only way for me to able to get a girlfriend without suffering from paralyzing anxiety, I would take it.

I'd think a cure for social anxiety would be more helpful for that.

Right. And the solution isn't to shut up (as carlos apparently thinks we should) but to advocate more loudly for the kinds of treatments (and research) we believe are needed.


Right, because the Italians and Irish aren't discriminated against all that much anymore.

Only the groups that are still disadvantaged get browbeaten (by conservatives, at least) for "identity politics" -- precisely because they are the very ones who actually need to organize on the basis of group identity, and because others either (1) would rather keep the disadvantaged group in their place or (2) consider their own difficulties with the process of social change to be an oh-so-much-more serious problem than the far greater difficulties faced by the disadvantaged group.

(Additionally, alas, some members of the disadvantaged group echo the discomforts of the privileged as a reason to refuse to support the fight for their own rights.)


For a historical perspective by Jim Sinclair, in his history of Autism Network International:

I'd think a cure for social anxiety would be more helpful for that.