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Mona Pereth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Sep 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,811
Location: New York City (Queens)

22 Nov 2018, 2:04 am

Here, in the thread Hostile column:

Fnord wrote:
Mona Pereth wrote:
... we need to build autistic-friendly subcultures...
Great idea!

Now, how do we accomplish this in a world that considers us somewhere between amusing (at best) and useless (at worst)?


This will take time -- at least five more years and probably at least ten years -- but I think we can build it in phases, as follows:

1) Create more and more in-person, local support groups. These already exist in major cities such as NYC. They can and need to be created in smaller cities and towns too. Here in NYC, it would be helpful to have groups in the outer boroughs, rather than just a few centralized groups in Manhattan like we have now, and eventually it would be highly desirable to have support groups in every neighborhood.

2) In addition to general support groups, create more specialized support groups, e.g. groups for people working in or desiring to work in particular professions. Also, groups for autistic people with various co-morbid conditions.

3) In addition to support groups, create social groups for people with particular interests, to make it easier for autistic and autistic-like people to find friends. These groups would need to be carefully structured to ease the stress of socializing.

4) While building all these local groups, try to build bridges to the local NT-dominated "autism community" (parents and professionals) groups. As the autistic community itself manages to grow and develop, it will eventually be taken more seriously by the NT-dominated "autism community" -- which already does have some significant political and social clout.

5) In collaboration with concerned "autism parents," the afore-mentioned groups for people working in or desiring to work in particular professions could develop strategies to make it easier for autistic and autistic-like people to work in those professions. In some regions at least, the local "autism parents" groups already have sufficient local clout that they could persuade at least a few local employers to try new ways of accommodating autistic workers.


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