The current state of the autistic rights movement

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How did you have occasion to visit ASAN in DC? I'd be very interested to hear any relevant background concerning your own activism.


Under what circumstances did you meet Ari? Again I would be interested to hear any relevant context regarding your own activism.

Personally, I've studied a lot of blogs by autistic people, and I've participated here on WP, and I've attend local support groups here in NYC since spring 2018, but I don't have much on-the-ground experience with either the larger autistic community or the larger "autism community" (parents and professionals) beyond that.

In the past I've occasionally been involved in other kinds of activism, e.g. LGBT rights.

I would be interested in any advice you might have for new neurodiversity activists.

Also I would appreciate it very much if you could PM me.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 09 Aug 2019, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't disclose to my employer and if I was offered sub-monimum wage I certainly wouldn't accept it. I'd probably file suit against any employer trying to break the law.

Obama is a member of a protected class and he had all the privileges that come with being President. The homeless alcoholic cis white male is not to likely to be granted any privileges.

Thanks. I understand now. This aspect alone is what doesn't sit well with me regarding any protected groups of people. What people describe as privilege today has a lot more to do with starting wealth of the parents than it is about color of skin.

I noticed that ASAN NY merged with AANE. Too bad they hopped directly from Boston to NY. Would have preferred that both groups expand sufficiently that people like me who are halfway between them would be able to choose one or the other when outlying new groups got close enough. I guess I just need to get through all my issues myself and start my own group. Not going to derail this thread with politics. Better elsewhere.

It used to be defined that way, not so much anymore.
White Privilege

Much easier to divide and conquer when the true rulers can divide us by appearance. The premise that color of skin has more to do with financial success than starting wealth at birth is false.

Do you mean ASAN NY, or AHA? The only organization I know of that recently merged with AANE is AHA (the Aspergers and High Functioning Autism Association), now known as AANE-NY. As far as I am aware, ASANYC (the former NYC affiliate of ASAN) has never had any formal organizational connection with either AANE or AHA.


What you've said is not a derail. Indeed, part of the current state of the movement is the fact that both the autistic community and the larger "autism community" aren't yet sufficiently well-organized to have in-person meetings in more than a few places, mostly major urban centers.

May be mistaken about who merged with whom.

As I said, once I get through a few things here, I may start a gathering or group.

I'm going to try to find the opportunity to get to a NY or Boston event, but can't promise anything. For some reason, this is the only country where I can't deal with public transit. I can go anywhere I can drive (and park), if I can manage to find time.

Maybe with an Aspie group there won't be backstabbing and political intrigue. I swear, sometimes with organization politics I feel like I'd have less stress working undercover for the CIA. Still, there are several communities I'm active in.

Forget about parking in midtown Manhattan unless you're willing to spend money on a parking garage. (Dunno how much that is; that's something you'll need to research.)

Perhaps it might be more convenient for you to attend one of the small private meetings I and a few other people have been holding in Queens? PM me if you are interested.

Or you could attend one of the meetings that AANE-NY holds on eastern Long Island?


Aspies aren't immune to backstabbing, alas. But, in the Queens group I'm slowly building, we will make a deliberate effort to avoid backstabbing, via a focus on learning what I call (verbal) autistic-friendly social skills, which include:

- Assertiveness (how to be assertive without being aggressive)
- Active listening
- Giving and receiving constructive criticism
- Conflict resolution

See the separate thread Autistic-friendly social skills vs. blending in with NT's.

Note that the skills I describe as (verbal) "autistic-friendly social skills" are both (1) probably much easier for many of us to learn than the usual blending-in-with-NTs kinds of "social skills" and (2) also considered highly desirable in many corporate workplaces these days, so they have great value beyond just the autistic community.

Here's an interesting article about the history of the LGBT rights movement. I think some important lessons can be drawn regarding the autistic rights movement.

Small private meetings would be better if I'm driving to NYC. I don't mind driving, but places I haven't been before (or haven't been in many years) need to be learned. The more there is to learn, the greater the potential for added stress.

Your invitation is greatly appreciated. PM is coming at some point. This week is more complicated than I'd expected, but these complications have the potential to add to my income, so it's not all bad. I suppose life would be boring if the Universe ever stopped throwing curve balls.

Unfortunatly the Autism Rights Movement has been taken over by a very vocal minority, steering it into identity politics that will only divide people.

Autism is not like a nationality, flag or football team, its a serious neurological disorder that can destroy lives, by cutting them short or at least making life miserable for a significant number of people.

Many people dont want or like to have autism

When you introduce identity policics the vocal more functional minority who identify with their disorder take great offence when the word treatment / cure gets used, which is normal for any medical disorder by science.

This is the great contradiction sometimes called "autism wars" that freezes out significant potential asd ND followers.

Identifying with ones autism or not should be a personal thing and until ND stay out of science these divisions will continue.

ND / rights movement should stick to less divisive topics such employment opportunities, care housing solutions and public awareness of the entire spectrum not just the high functional aspies.

I have been critical of ASAN before including on page 1 of this thread. I have endlessly attacked Aspie supremacists, and ASAN for underestimating how many Autistics feel their problems are ALL the Autisms fault a view I disagree with.

That said I am so sick and tired of hearing that the ND movement is an ableist movement by and for Aspies only. ASAN has lobbied against the use of electric shocks at the Judge Rotenburg Center, lobbied against paying subminimum wages to the disabled, lobbied against sympathetic treatment of parents who murder their autistic children. The people that are being lobbied for in all three cases are not “shiny aspies” but “low functioning”.

We should separate identity politics with identifying as autistic. Identity politics is a pejorative meaning completely viewing oneself and others by their identity. Autism is not a nationality but it is heavily genetic so it has similarities to sexual identity race, etc.

If one views autism as a disease or disorder only to me it logically follows that Autism rights is a contradiction. The goal would be finding a cure and until that happens finding the best treatment. If Autism is a disorder only and not an identity there is no such thing as autistics but patients with autism so an Autism patient rights movement would be the thing to do.

Regarding the "cure" issue, see my post here in the thread Torn between being pro and anti-neurodiversity.

Regarding "the vocal more functional minority":

As far as I can tell, most of the founders of the neurodiversity / autistic rights movement, and a significant fraction of today's leaders, are people who were severely disabled as children, but then became "high-functioning" (as they were then called) as adults. For example, Jim Sinclair, the founder of Autism Network International back in the 1990's, didn't learn to talk until he was 12. Thus they saw things from both a perspective of being severely disabled and a perspective of being "high-functioning." This dual perspective is still reflected in ASAN's stance, as detailed in ASPartOfMe's post:


Now, here's a really sad thing to consider:

One would think that it ought to be a very high priority for autism researchers to conduct detailed interviews with people like Jim Sinclair and their parents, to determine what these parents did right, to help their severely disabled autistic children become "high functioning" and be able to go to college and in some cases grad school.

As far as I am aware, this has never yet been done in any wide-ranging, systematic way. Of course, the insights potentially gleaned from such interviews would be only "anecdotal" and likely not applicable to all severely disabled autistic children. But, surely, many children and their parents could have been helped directly by this kind of research, and surely it could also have been an excellent first step in the development of better therapies and special ed methodologies for autistic children.

The above is an example of a very helpful kind of research that, as far as I am aware, has NOT been done, due to current research priorities favoring the search for a "cure."

We're on the same page here. I was thinking along the same lines when I saw the previous two posts. It's only logical to find a way for low-functioning individuals to function at a higher level, rather than 'cure' the way their brains are wired. Instead of trying to get them to be NT, make the most of their neurodiversity.