differentblogtitle

to those fuckers who argue that those who are pro-neurodiversity and anti-cure have opinions on autism that aren’t meaningful because we don’t speak for every autistic person and we “don’t know what it is like to be severely autistic”  

first of all, “severely autistic” is not a real thing. BUT if you mean (for me specifically) that I don’t know what it is like to be completely nonverbal or need a constant care-taker (since that is usually your classification of “severe autism”) … well, you are right. I don’t have that experience personally. 

you know who does? countless number of autistic self-advocates who are also pro-neurodiversity and anti-cure. so fuck right off and go listen to them if you won’t listen to me. 

stop pretending you are against us because you are for “the severely autistic”. it’s perfectly clear you don’t really care because you don’t listen to them either. you just don’t want to listen to any of us, you want to listen to the echo chamber of the ableist society you live in. 

neurowonderful

Just off the top of my head, here are some non-verbal autistics who support neurodiversity and autism acceptance and who are anti-cure:

Yeah, that’s a pretty good representation! And yet, as I find in my conversations with non-autistic parents, educators, “allies”, etc., sometimes there is just nothing we can present or show or explain well enough to get through to people. They have already made their minds up about us, and those opinions are inherently ableist and feelings-based, and so that’s where they operate from.

Like differentblogtitle​ said, most people who use functioning labels to discredit autistics who can speak with their mouthparts (who can appear or pass as “high functioning”) are not actually concerned with the wellbeing of the autistic community, and they are certainly not allies to the autistic community. Real allies care about what we are saying, listen to us, want to actually help us, and follow our lead in doing so.

Those false allies are the same people who say, “Well you’re high functioning, you can’t speak for really autistic people”, and then when you show them autistic people who fit their narrow definition of “really autistic” and who support acceptance or are anti-cure/anti-ABA, will turn around and delegitimize those autistics with yet more ableist nonsense. Some real examples I’ve seen include, “They aren’t really typing for themselves/their parents are writing that”, “It is clearly a hoax”, “AAC is not real speech/they’ve just been trained to press buttons for treats”, “Well they are smart but they are a rarity/an exception, most low functioning autistics are intellectually disabled/mentally a child/need someone to speak for them”.

This kind of person is just angry and ableist and probably driven to argue about this by hurt or fear. These people are often the parents or family members of autistic people, and so they have a lot of baggage, and they are likely scared of change, of the idea of autistics having power and autonomy and control of our own lives. I’d bet that the thought of confronting their own prejudice and things they’ve done wrong would be pretty scary as well. That anger, fear, or hurt is their motivation for using whatever they can to invalidate and silence autistic voices, so that they can dismiss us and carry on in their wrong beliefs or harmful actions with a clear conscience.

If you listen to this kind of bad ally, as an autistic person, you’re in a no-win situation when it comes to advocacy— either you are

a) so “high functioning” that you’re “not like my child”, you’re just “quirky” and “not really autistic”

or

b) you’re so “low functioning” that you are completely incapable of understanding yourself, what it’s like to be autistic, what you want out of life, or what is going on around you, and so you need people to speak for you and make all of your decisions for you and control you

That’s why I highly recommend not listening to that nonsense, and that everyone just keeps doing their awesome autistic thing.