Why we must #BoycottToSiri / An open letter to Judith Newman

Content/TW: Discussions of involuntary sterilization, abusive parenting, mentions of Nazis, eugenics, intense anti-autistic ableism in general.

Why we must #BoycottToSiri

I originally wrote what appears below as a series of tweets, but they read better as a single letter. This is meant for Judith Newman, though I have no idea whether she will ever bother to read this blog post, and frankly, I would be terrified of whatever response she might have. But this must be said, by as many of us as can summon the courage to speak or write or sign it, and so here I am, urging anyone who wishes to do something to support actually autistic people not to buy this book written by a non-autistic parent of an autistic teen, in which (among many other horrifying things) she enthusiastically advocates for sterilizing her son and other autistic people to prevent us from reproducing and fulfilling our inevitable destiny to be naturally shitty parents (her ideas, not mine).

She said that she is "counting the days" until her son turns eighteen so she can gain medical power of attorney and have him sterilized. She described in graphic detail the contents and types of porn that he watches. She said that she can only imagine him ever having sex with the Benny Hill soundtrack playing along with her mental image of it, and that that means it would have to be going horribly wrong. She said that he will die alone because no girl (assuming he must be heterosexual and only interested in girls/women) could ever want him. She said he is immature (HE IS THIRTEEN, CHRIST) and so would never be able to be a good parent. She said he could never be a loving partner (assuming he wants romance now or will in the future) because he is incapable of separating other people's needs from his own, let alone putting others before himself.

This even apart from her misogynistic description and misgendering of Métis autistic activist Amythest Schaber without their consent, and her vehement objections to use of singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun in the introduction to this book (totally unrelated? hello?) while mentioning that she would like to punch her friend (who authored a book affirming and supporting her trans child) in the face for advocating for its use.

Yes, it is that bad.

[photo: graphic with image of an open notebook-style journal, full cup of coffee, and pencil on a wooden table or desk as the background. small text on the notebook says in all capital letters, "Letter to Judith Newman" and "Why We Must #BoycottToSiri." large text on the notebook says in a script, handwriting-like font, "all of this is fucked." large text at the bottom of the graphic says, "There is not enough caffeine in the world for me to deal with this shit."]

An open letter to Judith Newman:

Autistic people are human beings. We can and must make our own medical choices, especially about procedures as invasive and permanent as sterilization.

Forcible/involuntary sterilization because you're afraid of someone like me reproducing? Direct and clear example of modern eugenics.

You can't imagine your son in a sexual situation because he is autistic? You have a serious lack of imagination. Autistic people span the entire sexual and asexual spectrums.

You publicly talked about what kind of porn your son watches. In a New York Times "bestseller." I am so, so horrified, angry, and betrayed on behalf of your son.

You are convinced your son will die alone because no girl could ever possibly be interested in him. That is blatant, horrifying ableism.

You are counting down the days until you can involuntarily sterilize your son, which you want to do because he is autistic. I hope he escapes your house.

This time next year, I'll be a licensed attorney. Many actually autistic and other disabled people are too. Believe you me, we will line up to fight you if you try this against his will.

I am TERRIFIED for your son, because he has to live with you. Your book shows your true self. What kind of parent you are. What kind of person you are. And it's scary as fuck.

Your son needs love and support. Not mockery, public humiliation, condescension, and threats of involuntary, invasive, and permanent medical procedures.

How the hell do you expect your son to learn to be a loving partner to a woman, a man, or a non-binary person, if you already assume he can't be? You are supposed to teach him!

You wrote that you don't believe your son is or ever will be capable of putting other people's feelings ahead of his own. I read that and am sick to my stomach.

I'm an actually autistic adult, and I feel such overwhelmingly intense empathy for YOUR SON that I am crying thinking of what it must be like to be him knowing/finding out you've written this bullshit about him in public.

Do you know about Micah David Cole-Fletcher? He is an autistic poet and a hero in Portland, Oregon. He got stabbed because he stood up to white supremacists abusing two women of color. Two others were murdered.

READ.

We actually autistic people are constantly scrambling with extremely limited resources and the challenges of multiple disabilities to save each other from eviction, institutionalization, and abuse, every day.

That's autistic empathy.

Every day I know of actually autistic people, most of whom will never get news media coverage, sacrificing every second of their time and every bit of their available effort, to fight against violence and harm.

When you describe your son as lacking in empathy, compassion, and the ability to put others before himself, you directly attack the core integrity of some of the most self-sacrificing humans on this planet.

What about Jennifer Msumba's courage in speaking up against the JRC for torturing disabled people? Of facing the very people who abused her and still justify it, because it might get others out and make the torture stop?

That's autistic empathy.

Look, every autistic person will not have a romantic or sexual relationship in their lifetimes. But that's not either a core trait of being autistic, nor is it a reflection of lesser personhood.

The point that I am trying to make, that I sincerely doubt you will ever be willing to listen to (but yet hope against hope you will), is that your son is a full human being.

Not despite autism.

He is autistic and human and these are not contradictory.

One day, if he hasn't yet, your son will read what you wrote about him, publicly, and my heart breaks for him for when that day comes.

This is betrayal.

This is betrayal.

This is betrayal.

You wrote that your son should not reproduce because he could never be a father. This is wrong.

Autistic people around the globe are already proud, loving parents of children -- autistic and non-autistic. Being autistic does not mean we cannot love or care.

An autistic person dropped everything and drove three hours nonstop to get to me when I was in the middle of a mental health crisis.

(And surely you must know how much we hate interruptions to routine/sudden changes.)

That's autistic love and care.

I know an autistic person dedicated to finding and supporting the most isolated human beings locked in inhumane conditions in prisons with no budget and no donors, traveling from prison to prison in the face of violence.

That's autistic love and care.

My partner (also autistic) and I drove 18+ hours through 8 states to support two other human beings in getting to a safe place to live and escaping homelessness.

We don't want praise or money. Just to do what's right.

That's autistic love and care.

I know an autistic person with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses who performed life-saving labor for another disabled person who was almost left for dead, even at the expense of their own physical health.

That's autistic love and care.

You say your son cannot be a father or a loving partner because he can't love or care for others. Because he can't put others before himself. If he still loves you after finding out about this horror show of a book, he will have already proved you wrong.

You say he should not father a child because he is immature. Do you realize how many grown-ass, NON-DISABLED men are out there with children who are immature/unempathetic as fuck? (Hint: Some of them are called Senator and Representative. One's called President.)

As an autistic human being, I am enraged and devastated at Harper Books' decision to publish this garbage. Because it's not only your son this has/will hurt. It's many, many more autistic people whose parents will read it.

I teach a college course on disability police and social movements. In one unit, we discuss in brutal, graphic detail the long and continuing history of involuntary sterilizations of disabled people, PoC, and disabled PoC specifically. It's called eugenics.

The idea that disabled people are incapable of parenting, shouldn't reproduce more disabled people, and shouldn't be having sex ... That's called eugenics. It's the very same idea that led to the Nazi's T-4 program. They called us "useless eaters."

You know who else thought we shouldn't be reproducing? The mass murderer in Sagamihara, Japan, who last year stabbed 19 disabled people to death and injured 26 more. He said he wanted to rid the world of us.

You think you're nothing like him but you're wrong.

Here's what you share:

* A belief that disabled people cannot be full human beings

* A belief that disabled people shouldn't be reproducing

The difference is that he stabbed people. You wrote a book with these ideas. But I'm afraid others might be inspired.

Now I know that on the off-chance you ever read these messages, your first reaction will be to tell me how mean I am. (Because you get to be upset if I'm harsh, but I'm just mean because I obviously lack empathy and social skills. /sarcasm, of course)

Your second response will be to tell me that I'm nothing like your child. You will tell me that I'm articulate, intelligent, obviously functional, and successful. You will say that I have a very mild form of autism.

These are ableist distractions.

No, I don't know your son personally. No, I have not lived in the same house as him. But I have lived in a harsh, violent world my entire life with a brain very much like his. (And I'm older than your son. By about ten years.)

The truth is, no matter what specific struggles or skills I have, I'm autistic like your son, and you ... you are not. I am like your child.

I cannot comprehend why or how someone who is supposed to love me the most could hurt/hate me so much.

You may believe you love your son. But we, autistic people, hear what you have actually said, which is that you hate him. You love a version of him that does not exist.

(Learn from Jim Sinclair.)

You have put something incredibly, horrifyingly dangerous into the world. You can't take it back, not completely. But you can and must make amends for your flagrant abuse of your privilege, power, and resources.

For the sake of your son.

For the sake of others like him.

For the sake of those to come after him.

We deserve to live free of fear of violence, especially from the people who are most supposed to love and protect us.

And make no mistake -- forcible, involuntary sterilization, and legal authority over another person's medical decision-making, these are forms of violence.

You are plotting to take away your son's right to control his own body.

You are plotting to become the biggest, worst, and most inescapable abuser in your son's life.

You still have a chance to stop and backtrack. To be a supportive, actually loving parent.

But your window of time is shrinking, fast.

You need to start with apologizing to your son and coming clean about what you've done if he doesn't know already.

And then you need to do your damndest to combat the dangerous messages you've put out there in the world.

You need to make sure that your son knows that he and he alone controls his own body.

He and he alone gets to decide what, whether, when, and how other people can do anything to him -- sexually, medically, reproductively.

That means apologizing for violating any tiny sense of privacy he might have ever had.

That means apologizing for thinking of him as less than a full person.

That means apologizing for publicly humiliating and mocking him.

That means connecting him, ASAP, to autistic adults who can mentor and support him coming into adulthood as an autistic teen.

That means making sure he gets real, meaningful sex education about reproductive choices, reproductive healthcare, and what consent is.

That means promising to him and to yourself that you will not be counting the days until you can legally steal from your son his right to control his own body.

(Yes I am stuck on that. Because it's disgusting and morally appalling.)

If you want to show to your son how to put others' feelings ahead of their own, retract the book. Demand the publisher ice it. Forgo the royalties, the speaking engagements, the press.

Put your son ahead of yourself. Put his dignity and his humanity first.

If you still want to write another book later, let it be an honest book. Let it be a book where your son is humanized instead of dehumanized and mocked. Let it be a book where you are a flawed human instead of a hero/saint/angel/martyr.

Until you are ready to accept full responsibility for what you have done to autistic people present and future as well as your own son, and take appropriate action to rectify it, we have nothing further to discuss.

I will take my rage and weeping apart from you.

________________

Interested in putting $$$ where it counts?

Harriet Tubman Collective @HTCsolidarity: badass group of Black Deaf and Disabled organizers

Autism Women's Network @autism_women: intersectional powerhouse/support network

HEARD: @behearddc: fights Deaf wrongful convictions and coordinating community trainings

Autistic Self Advocacy Network @autselfadvocacy: leader in D.C. policy advocacy

Disability Visibility Project @DisVisibility: amplification of disabled activism

Ramp Your Voice @RampYourVoice: Black disabled woman-centric project

NOS Magazine @NOSeditorial: magazine by/for neurodivergent writers and language access

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund @DREDF and Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law @BazelonCenter: cutting-edge legal advocacy

Sins Invalid @sinsinvalid: performance project centering sick/disabled QTPOC

Krip Hop Nation @kriphopnation: PoC-centric disabled cultural activism via hip-hop

Barking Sycamores @BarkingSycamore and Deaf Poets Society @thedeafpoets: Disabled/neurodivergent/Deaf literary ventures

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (contact Mia Mingus @miamingus)

Ala Costa Adult Transition Services @alacostaACAT: direct services agency run by autistic adults

National ADAPT @NationalADAPT: grassroots direct action against harmful legislation (saved Medicaid repeatedly)

National LGBTQ Task Force @TheTaskForce: First LGBTQ+ org hosting disability justice project led by disabled TWOC

Sylvia Rivera Law Project @SRLP: legal advocacy for low-income, people of color, immigrant, and incarcerated TGNC folks

Autism Spectrum Navigators at Bellevue College @BellevueCollege: peer support/full integration/autistic culture symposium

All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism edited by Lydia X. Z. Brown, E. Ashkenazy, and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu: first anthology by autistic racialized and people of color

Disability Intersectionality Summit: what it says on tin/contact @IntersectedCrip

Alliance for Citizen Directed Supports @CitizenDirected: association for real community integration and self-determination for ALL people with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Another awesome publisher centering multiply-marginalized #OwnVoices: Cuil Press @CuilPress led by disabled founder Michón Neal

Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind @ColumbiaLight direct peer-led services for Blind/DeafBlind/Blind+Disabled people

Youth Organizing YO! Disabled and Proud @Yodisabledproud: disabled youth leadership+empowerment

And lastly, if you're reading this, learned something, and have privilege and money? Consider donating to support me and my work (much of which I do not broadcast publicly but directly benefits/supports marginalized people). PayPal Lydia at autistichoya dot com.

________________

(Note -- in writing the original tweets, I was torn between naming people without their consent, versus describing them without naming them to avoid potentially unwanted naming/outing/visibility -- which itself can often be dangerous, exploitative, and abusive. I erred toward not naming people since I did not have time or spoons to ask each person I was thinking of for their consent. Where people are named, it is because they have already spoken/written/been described very publicly and as an autistic person.)

My heart breaks for your child.

Trigger warning: Brief homophobic/heterosexist quote, and extensive quotes and descriptions of ableist and eugenicist rhetoric.

__




"I don't want a handicapped child."

I read that line in a mother's story of her disabled child's birth and first few weeks, and it gave me that awful, wrenching feeling--you know, the one where your insides kind of shrivel up and your breath catches somewhere in the back of your throat, hinging on tears or gasps or other sounds of enervated shock.

It's easy to be angry.

After a while, you stop being angry. You stop feeling indignant rage whenever people say oppressive bullshit and you start to just feel tired. It's an aching, gnawing weariness that sort of nestles in your bones and grows deep roots around your heart, squeezing and holding it captive in their entangled curtain.

So when you read one frightened parent's outburst -- "I don't want a handicapped child." -- you just feel all the energy drain out of your body. Your shoulders droop, you forget whatever rules you once memorized about posture, and you want to crumple in your seat or against the wall, wherever you are right now.

I'm reminded that I'm one of those children who wasn't supposed to be born.

I'm one of those children new parents are afraid to have.

That's not a reality that I like to think about much. Who would?

"I don't want a handicapped child."

I'm pretty sure that's what's meant when parents say, "I wish my child could be normal!" if you really get down to it.

It reminds me of the same kind of feeling I got when Judi Dench, playing J. Edgar Hoover's mother, said, "I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son," in J. Edgar (2011).

So is being disabled the same as being dead? Or is it, as Jim Sinclair put it, that

 Therefore, when parents say,

    I wish my child did not have autism,

what they're really saying is,

    I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.

Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.

"But don't you think those parents would want their [intellectually and developmentally disabled] daughter to be normal? Don't you think they'd give anything for her to be normal again?"

The sad fact is that if they're like most parents, they would pay almost any price for their daughter to look, speak, act, and think "normal."

We are not wanted, not as we are.

Though human existence is fraught with frailty, it is our debilities that become stigma -- visible marks of our deficiency, of our defect, of our worthlessness.

It's not so much that my voice doesn't matter as much as the voices of those who clamor that people like me shouldn't exist, that people like me are a burden on society and a devastating medical mystery destroying families, that murdering people like me is an act of mercy to spare us from suffering to live...

In these conversations, which pervade public discourse and dominant rhetorical constructions of disability and disabled bodies and minds, my voice doesn't exist.

How can victims speak?

When you say "I don't want a handicapped child!" what you really mean is not that you want us to live lives that are meaningful and happy for us as we are, but for us to disappear, replaced by perfect, recovered, cured people who were once broken and who now have been healed.

I am happy with the way that I am, and my happiness should never, never be considered lesser than that of someone whose physicality and mentality have been centered as normative and ideal at the expense of those of us whose bodies and minds have been disabled and marginalized.

When you say "I don't want a handicapped child!" what you really mean is that you are incapable of loving and accepting us as we are for all of who we are, and can only conceive of love as belonging to idealized children with brains and bodies that fit constructed notions of normal and healthy.

I want to be loved, along with all my frailties and debilities, not in spite of them or in the futile hopes they will one day disappear so I can earn the favor of the able-bodied and neurotypical.

When you say "I don't want a handicapped child!" I don't feel sympathy toward you, but my heart breaks for your child who will grow up with the constant message that people whose bodies and minds diverge from typical don't deserve to live.

I have been that child, conditioned to believe that the only appropriate response to disabled people is pity for the tragedies that have rendered them confined to lesser bodies and minds, rather than outrage at the systems that have institutionalized and industrialized ableism against them.

I know, I know. I should be grateful that I can type this. I should be grateful that I wasn't aborted, that I'm fortunate enough to breathe the same air as people more worthy of life than me, that I wasn't locked in an institution.

I've been told all my life I should be grateful that I'm allowed to exist.

"Your dreams will be reduced down to breathing. And you will be grateful."

I've been told all my life that I am the problem.

"If you work hard enough, maybe no one will know."

The answer is always to put us away or force us to stop communicating and moving naturally, not to stop attitudes that allow abuse and bullying and violence.

"At least he never hit you."

Violence enacted on disabled bodies is never violence, never abuse.

I know.

It's for our own good. It's so we can learn to behave, so we can become disciplined, so we can get better. So "strangers you can love will move in behind our faces."

I tried to forget.

This knowledge that I'm one of the children whose births are dreaded and met with regret rather than joyous anxiety? I tried to bury it away and let it turn, however slowly, into a scar.

Then you said, "I don't want a handicapped child." 

And I remember now.

How could I let myself forget?

Letter to the parents of Autistic children

Note: If you are seriously considering suicide, please call the suicide hotline immediately at 1-800-273-8255. If you are seriously considering hurting or killing your Autistic child, please call the crisis hotline immediately at 713-468-5463. 

__________

To the parents of Autistic children:

We need you.

Sometimes in public discourse, Autistic adults and non-Autistic parents disagree over very important issues that affect each of us personally. Sometimes this disagreement is spectacularly explosive.

But there is no way for the autism and Autistic communities to move forward without creating some type of group cohesiveness. Yes, that means that we will have to enter into painful dialogue and discourse, and yes, that means we will have to accept the validity and legitimacy of the ideas and feelings of people with whom we may disagree. It does not mean that we have to set aside all of our differences, because that would make us self-deceivers. But it does mean that we have an obligation to each other and to ourselves to recognize what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "inescapable mutuality."

Every Autistic child, youth, and adult had parents. Many of those parents were non-Autistic, and some were Autistic, and others were likely diagnosable as Autistic. Many, but not all, of those parents were good parents. Most had very good intentions and wanted what they understood to be the absolute best for their children. Others were abusive, emotionally or physically, and did not care much for their children's welfare.

And parents have always been deeply involved in the conversations about autism. Many times, non-Autistic parents have been the primary and only voice speaking about autism while Autistic adults have been excluded from the conversation. Many times when Autistic adults ask or demand to be included meaningfully in conversations about issues that affect us, we are told that we don't or can't represent or understand the breadth and diversity of needs and abilities of the whole Autistic population.

The truth is that all of our voices are valuable, important, and necessary, particularly when we disagree among ourselves and between each other.

The truth is that we do not merely deserve to be validated, but that we must be.

The truth is that we, Autistic adults, youth, and children, need you. We need you to support us. We need you to love us. We need you to listen to us, and to believe that whatever we have to say, write, sign, draw, or communicate in any other way is of vital importance whether or not you agree with it.

Without your help and love, we might not make it in the world as adults. Many non-Autistic parents worry about what will happen when their Autistic children will age first into adolescence and then into adulthood. They worry about whether their children will ever be able to live independently, and if not, what options their children will have to live as independently as possible. They worry about whether their children will ever be able to get and keep a job, and possibly support themselves.

And the truth is that the best outcomes can occur only when all involved work to give us as much independence and self-advocacy skills as possible. The more we can learn to express ourselves and communicate with the people around us, the better we will be able to advocate for our own needs and desires. The more we can learn to cope with anxiety and sensory problems, the better we will be able to navigate a world that was not built with the needs of Autistics in mind. And you, parents, are placed in a unique position to be able to encourage the lifelong development of self-support and self-advocacy skills.

Sadly, many parents of Autistic children do not receive support from their families, friends, neighbors, or communities. You may feel isolated, alone, and overwhelmed. Most of you did not expect to have an Autistic child, and most of you don't enter the world of autism understanding all of its subtle nuances -- how to negotiate an IEP, how to navigate the confusing array of "therapies" and "interventions," how to plan for the future, how to appropriately measure and evaluate your child's development. Being thrown into a new and unexpected situation can be confusing and stressful. It can be worse when family members refuse to acknowledge your child's special needs or worse yet, blame your parenting for producing a "defiant" or "stubborn" child. Many of you probably cry when you think no one can see you.

But there are some things we want to tell you.

Don't give up. No matter how overwhelmed you might feel at times, we need to know that you are determined to do everything you can to ensure that we have a place in the world as we grow into it. We need to know that of all people, our parents have not given up on trying to make the world a better place for us to be.

Seek support. National organizations like the Autism Society, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Autism National Committee, and the Autism Women's Network have chapters and members across America and sometimes abroad (and frequently have partner organizations and connections to people in other countries.) You will not like or agree with everyone you meet in person or online, but you have to surround yourself with a support net of people -- whether other parents, Autistic adults, or professionals -- who can appreciate the struggles that you and your child face.

But seek support especially from Autistic adults. Even if you disagree with the ideas or beliefs of some Autistic adults, we are people who have been in the same places as your child. We share many experiences, including the ways in which we experience and perceive the world around us. Some of us were head-bangers. Some of us cannot speak. Some of us cannot live independently. Some of us went to segregated classes or schools. Some of us went to mainstream schools. Some of us also have mental health conditions, and some of us have also been tested as gifted. Most of us stim. Some of us can "pass" for "normal," but many of us can't. We are not identical to each other or to your child, but we can identify with your child. We have been Autistic our entire lives, and we have survived the transition from childhood to adulthood. We can offer insight into the ways your child behaves, acts, and processes information from firsthand experience. And we can tell you what has worked and what hasn't when we had to transition into adulthood.

We, Autistic adults, are the continual reminder that what you do as you raise your children will have a lasting impact on the next generation of Autistics. What our parents did for us -- both the good and the bad -- has permanently and undeniably contributed to who we are today. Be the positive force of encouragement and support for your child.

We needed to know that our parents loved us exactly as we are. We needed to know that instead of being obsessed with fixing or managing us, our parents wanted to blaze a trail for us to live and thrive as Autistic people. We needed our parents to understand that it is okay to be Autistic, even though that means we are also disabled. We needed our parents to guide us into your world -- the world of people who aren't Autistic and who don't understand what it is like to live Autistic. We needed our parents to be there not only when times were good and we were coping well, but also when times were bad and we needed more support than usual.

Your child does too.

Your child needs you to know these things, to do these things, to understand these things.

Your child needs to know that Autistic doesn't mean less or worse or defective or broken. Your child needs to know that you value being Autistic. Your child cannot become a healthy and happy adult unless you show with both words and actions that your child is loved exactly as is, and that your child will be supported and guided to as much independence as is possible.

It is not easy to be Autistic in your world. Your world was not made or meant for people like us. This is why we need you. Without that love and support, we might not make it in the world, and if we do, it will be harder than if we had that love and support.

We live in a society where ableism, the idea that people are superior or inferior on the basis of ability or lack thereof, has been thoroughly institutionalized in our attitudes, systems, service provision, and language.

This Tuesday, the sixth of March, the mother of a twenty-two year old Autistic son shot her son and then herself. She said that she was tired, lonely, and unable to care for her son anymore. The article reporting the murder-suicide quoted neighbors and other people who knew the family describing the mother as a wonderful person who loved her son, was under a big strain and depressed, and who had no respite. While I'm not inclined to spend my words vilifying Elizabeth Hodgins, this is not the first time a parent has murdered an Autistic child and was all but absolved for the crime in the media simply because raising a child with special needs can be overwhelming and stressful.

When parents murder children who are not disabled, the public is typically enraged and demands justice. When this happens to children with developmental or intellectual disabilities, it is far more typical to read comments and quotes expressing support for the parent who killed rather than condemnation of the societal conditions and attitudes that drove the parent to such desperation to commit murder of a human being.

When we Autistic adults read this type of article -- and this is only the most recent in a long train of killings of Autistic children -- it terrifies us. When articles reporting on these crimes spend the majority of their words not merely expressing sympathy for the perpetrator but calling for readers to understand that the difficulty of the situation somehow justifies the murder of a disabled person, they also inadvertently send the very powerful message that the lives of people with disabilities are not equal in value or worth to the lives of people without them.

Don't let your children grow up in a world where society devalues their lives.

It is parents, albeit a very small minority of parents, who visit these atrocities against their children, against children who needed their love and support. Thus, it you, parents, who bear the great responsibility to make your voices heard throughout your communities and networks that you love your children as they are, that you want the best for your children even if it means making enormous sacrifices, that you want to be part of the collective community in uplifting and empowering the next generation of Autistic children so that one day no parent will feel compelled or driven to murder and that no Autistic child will grow up thinking of him or herself as defective or broken or a burden.

We need you, because we can't do this alone. Your children need you, because they deserve to grow up in a world where things are better for them than they have been for us. Your children need you to dispel ableism from their world, little by little, so that one day there will be a future where ableism is no longer institutionalized into our society and systems.

Be here.

__________
12 Oct. 2012: I am adding the following text (trigger-warned and in white color to prevent inadvertent triggering) to this page in case people who are contemplating suicide, murder, or both go to Google:

I can't deal with autism anymore
I can't live with autism anymore
considering suicide
thinking about killing my kid
thinking about killing my child
can't put up with special needs anymore
can't tolerate autistic child anymore
legal to kill autistic child
sentence killing child with autism
what happens if i die before my child with autism
child with autism won't survive if i die
frustrating putting up with autism
special needs end of my rope
want to give up kid with autism
nowhere to turn autistic child
no support autistic child
I have no support from my family child with autism
want to kill my child autism
end suffering autistic child
mercy killing child with autism
can't go on parent child with autism

There's something wrong with you

Trigger warning: Extensive discussion of ableism and identity.

An accessible audio recording of this post:

There's Something Wrong With You - Autistic Hoya by autistichoya

--

"I do have [autism] but I don't like to be reminded that I do. It makes me feel abnormal."

"There was something affecting and influencing my mind that wasn't...me."

"It's like I have a disease and there's something wrong with me."

Each of those quotes come from Autistic teenagers whom I know. And in all three situations, I felt powerless and terribly on edge, triggered by the statements that had just been made. The first came in a private message from a young woman, and was disguised as an offhand remark. The second came during a conversation over instant messenger during a conversation about sensory issues, and was written by a young man. The third came from a young woman during a social skills group therapy session, and at the moment she said it, she was crying with her shoulder shaking.

Each situation triggered me badly, but in every instance, the most adequate word to describe my emotional reaction was devastated. I was -- am still -- devastated that young people grow up believing that difference is bad, that autism is something terrible, that there is something wrong with them for being different, for being disabled.

That's how pervasive ableism is in our societies. The most well-meaning of parents, teachers, and professionals unwittingly, and in most cases, unintentionally, perpetuate this mindset -- that something is wrong with you if you happen to be Autistic. If you're different or disabled at all.

If you follow the rationale behind the vast majority of therapies and interventions for Autistic people to its natural conclusion, the end goal of most of these therapies and interventions is to make the Autistic person appear and act as non-Autistic as possible. Applied behavioral analysis works feverishly to eliminate stimming behavior. But the vast majority of stims, such as hand flapping or rocking or pacing or fiddling with objects, do not harm anyone. Including the person engaging in the behavior. What's wrong with stimming? The only thing wrong with stimming is that the vast majority of non-Autistics don't do it, and view most stims as bizarre or frightening. That's all. It's an attitude.

What is the purpose of most social skills therapy? To make an Autistic person indistinguishable from his or her peers. And of course, some therapies from out of left field like chelation, which have the explicitly stated purpose of looking to recover or cure Autistic people. (The point being to make the Autistic person actually become non-Autistic.)

This does not mean that all therapies or services are bad. Certainly not. It's a gross misconception at best and an egregious slander at worst to assert that "Autistic self-advocates" somehow oppose all forms of therapy or services or accommodations. There are positive means of therapy. Plenty of non-Autistic people benefit from seeing a counselor. So can Autistic people. Some Autistic people benefit from medications, often for co-occurring conditions like depression, anxiety disorder, or bipolar disorder. Many Autistic people can benefit from the services of a part or full time aide, whether to assist with travel or seeking employment or with taking care of hygienic needs. Some Autistic people might need more services and supports in order to live happily, while others might need far fewer services and supports -- and some might be able to thrive with none.

It's when the goal of therapy is to eliminate autism -- or the appearance of traits associated with autism -- that there is a problem. This is a reflection of ableist ideas in our society. Even the language commonly used when discussing autism reflects this ableism.

Despite best efforts from both person-first language advocates and Autistic people who oppose person-first language, major newspapers still write that people suffer from autism, or suffer from Asperger's syndrome. Reputable news sources often refer to autism as devastating and frightening and mysterious. Autistic traits are frequently described as deficits. Parents asked about their children often say, "I knew something was wrong with my child." Some parents talk about their children -- young or adult -- in this way even when their children are in earshot or sometimes the same room.

We understand what you are saying. We hear very clearly that something is deeply wrong with us. With our brains. Or with the way we are.

That's more than troubling. It's beyond frightening. The year is now 2012. People have been talking left and right about the successes and advances the autism and Autistic communities have made in the last year. Plenty of folks look forward to expanding initiatives, launching projects, continuing good work. It's the New Year. The prevailing attitude of a new year is always one of hope and optimism. Away with the old; it's a clean slate; we have a chance, 365 days of chances, to do something good and right and worthwhile. And that's perfectly fine.

But unless we can begin to grasp the depth of the ableist backbone to societal attitudes toward disability in general and autism in particular, we will not make any progress to combat these attitudes. More young people will break down in tears, confessing their deep-seated fear of being looked at as abnormal. More young people will be marginalized and made to feel alone. The societal insistence that something is wrong with you will drive more Autistic people into depression and anxiety and learned helplessness, and in some cases, to suicide. This external attitude, all pervasive in our societies, will turn into an internal mantra -- something is wrong with me.

Autistic children need to be taught from an early age that they are okay. That nothing is wrong with them. That there are people like them. That some of those people have gone on to become happy and successful in pursuing their passions. Autistic children need to know that they are different, but that different doesn't mean bad. Autistic children need to know that being Autistic means being disabled, but that disability doesn't mean inability to live fully or happily. Autistic children need to be around other Autistic children, so they'll know there are kids like them. That they're not alone. Autistic children need to have Autistic adult role models in their lives, so they'll know that people like them can grow up and learn to cope with the challenges of being Autistic in a world dominated by non-Autistics.

One Autistic child at a time; that's how the paradigm of something is wrong can change. That's how institutionalized ableism can be fought. Little by little.

I have a dream that one day, no Autistic children or youth will be subjected to something is wrong with you. I have a dream that one day, no Autistic children or youth will be found crying, terrified that some "disease" makes them "abnormal" and less than human. I have a dream that one day, all Autistic children will be raised to have confidence in themselves as people. I have a dream that one day, all Autistic children will know from an early age that they are okay. That nothing is wrong with them.