Aspies For Freedom

Go Zoran!

I am not disabled by my autism.

I am not disabled by my gender.

I am not disabled by poverty.

I am disadvantaged by all of them.

I am disabled by my arthritis, heart disease and neurological problems.

Disability is being prevented by my own disorders from doing things I want to do.

Disadvantage is being prevented by wider society and its prejudices from doing things I want to do.

I agree on the point that autistic advocates are part of the Civil Rights Movement. But we are part of the Disability Civil Rights Movement, which is within the Civil Rights Movement, which embraces the civil rights of all these groups mentioned.

The whole point of disability rights is that we're whole as we are, that our disability is something we don't need to "eradicate", but to help people understand, and to gain needed supports. Non-disabled gay people don't need these kinds of supports; just things like legal and social equality, the acceptance angle.

I do understand that there are people on the autistic spectrum who don't consider themselves disabled, people whose only autism-related difficulties are the views of society. But that is not representative of all autistics; most of us do have such troubles, to varying degrees and in different areas. I understand this because it seems inaccurate to say that someone either is autistic or they aren't. Even very NT people will have autistic traits, if only from time to time, but for them it's not a big, integral, or even very noticeable part of them.

Disability entails that the individual would have their disability, and the difficulties of it, even if in a different societal setup. Just because one can imagine a society with proper supports designed for people with that disability to limit or erase the disability-related difficulties doesn't mean something doesn't count as a disability. If that were true, then people requiring wheelchairs wouldn't be considered disabled.

I'm not being very clear, but I find it rather strange to argue that autism isn't a disability. It kind of blows my mind. Especially when people start to argue that "Well, we're not disabled, but those poor suffering LFAs sure are" crap. My diagnosis is Asperger's, and I score high on IQ tests and do well academically and have friends, but guess what? I am disabled. Like the blog points out, that doesn't mean we should assume the shame and pity that some people people confer to those in the category.

Disability is used as grounds for oppression. That doesn't mean that everyone facing similar oppression must by that logic have a disability.

As I see it, the problem with saying that AS is a disability is that it's pretty arbitrary. Sure, perhaps I act sort of weird, but I can also recite the Drake equation and the significance of all the factors. There are a lot of trade-offs like that, so it would also be possible to say with an equal degree of validity that neurotypical people are disabled because they feel compelled to spend ridiculous amounts of time and energy socializing, usually lack the ability to form obsessive interests, etc.

I know you say you don't want to hurt anyone - but if so , why choose words the way you do and then post them on a forum such as this? If people choose not to see their asperger diagnosis - or if they have adapted their lives to cope - why (in specifics) would you say they are disabled.

And why should anyone trust you - to determine whether or not they are disabled.  Your words come across as being condemning and judgemental. Aspergers can be disabling - but it can also have advantages.

Dove in nested towers - do you see yourself as being disabled by autism - if so, how are you disabled?

I left as words - I should have said ....... If people choose not to see their asperger diagnosis as disabling - or if they have adapted their lives to cope - why (in specifics) would you say they are disabled.

That's exactly my point--it's possible to pick certain stereotypical qualities of either neurotype and then use that as a reason why that neurotype is a disability.

i would say that autism is not a disability on it's own heels, since i don't feel disabled because i'm autistic, but i feel we are a social minority like homosexuals and at least in the west, non-white.

I think that it is right to question the frequent move of those in the autistic community to deny that they are disabled because they don't meet some criterion that is considered as requisite to being disabled. WHen in fact, many such criteria are NOT part of what it means to be disabled, and are misconceptions that disability activists have been trying to dispel for some time now.

For instance, if someone requiring a wheelchair is able to get around and access things like education and work opportunities because of accessible buildings, then, because they have the right supports in the society, they do not experience a significant impairment. But does that make them any less disabled?

It is inaccurate, to my mind, to assert that any autistic person who is disabled is disabled because of something besides autism. This does not acknowledge the disabling aspects of autism. And the point here is that disability does not mean inability, although it can entail this. Sure there are some inabilities that are aspects of disability, such as a deaf person is unable to hear. However, this does not mean they are unable to receive the meaning of communication, just that it must be through an alternate mode, such as signing. But the important thing about the concept of disability is that the inabilities, whether still impacting the individual or inconsequential due to supports/accomodations, are not the important things, and do not constitute any lessening of the worth of the individual.

Disability, I don't think can be defined purely socially, but it is helpful to look at disability as just another category right alongside those others in civil rights: of sex, religion, race, orientation, and every other oppressed group, because that's what it is. Whether you personally identify as disabled or not, I don't think particularly matters, but to state across the board that autistics are not disabled seems to presume that everyone's definition of disability is the same, as well as that every autistic does not experience difficulties related to autism, and if they do, that this is some separate disability that is not autism.

Are these words directed at me? I am struggling to see where I have made judgements about what disablity is or what disabled people are.  If I have made judgements - show me where I have done this. My objection was the judging and condemning tone of the post. No one has the right to impose their judgements or opinions on to another, I hope I have not done this.

I have only just started to look at the various blogs and articles in the last few months, but I have found that I identify strongly with the things other people in the disability community have written on their struggles with discrimination, and these issues.

While I am disabled, I didn't start to really identify with the experiences of people with other kinds of disability (such as physical disabilities) until I started to online read some of the articles and blogs. The experiences resonated so much with things going on in the autistic rights movement, not just my own personal experiences. It was nice to read something different from the usual stuff that people get exposed to about disabled people's accounts - of how they struggled to overcome their terribly pitiable lives to gain some semblance of normal.

It was nice to read from people who, while acknowledging their real challenges, saw them as no barrier to happiness, pride, or any reason to be inferior. If other disabled people could have this perspective, even with such a negative medical / popular view, then surely this applies to me and other autistics as well.

This is how I see it: we are treated in such a way, and for such reasons, as other disabled people are treated. There are such parallels of experience, and while I am increasingly less and less concerned with a naming debate, or these abstract theories of why label X should apply and label Y shouldn't, in the realities of not only mine, but also others', experience to be qualitatively the same. If one's theoretical framework cannot allow the conclusion to be that they are qualitatively the same, then at least they can be acknowledged to be similar.

Well, I think one thing here is that a lot of what is being referred to in arguments is the models, which, anbuend has pointed out, she doesn't fully believe in the strictly social model. I think that's something very important in such a discusion as this - models are limited, and while we can come up with some very good ones, or at the very least some handy ones, to reject some notions put forth by a model (such as the social) simply because you feel the full and literal application of its definition is not helpful (as in that every minority, by race/class/religion/etc. is disabled).

This is not really to anyone specifically, perhaps, to clarify: in such an instance as this, where the reality is more complex than these models we are discussing the various strengths and weaknesses, I think it is okay to understand disability using some of the ideas of the social model, while rejecting the way it seems to absolutely define every minority as disabled. Of course, we could have a whole debate centered over whether this assertion might be accurate or not, but the point I mean is that is doesn't particularly matter. Models are just guides; we should modify, adapt, or change it in whatever ways we need to so as to give a more accurate and useful description of the reality we experience.

So, some people think that Aspies who don't regard themselves as disabled are somehow looking down on those on the spectrum who do. I don't happen to believe this is true.

When I made my post about not being disabled by my autism I did not intend to come across as elitist. I certainly don't think that makes me 'superior'. It just so happens that my fifty years on this planet have not been marred much by my neurotype, and I would be lying if I said I have ever knowingly been discriminated against or failed to achieve anything I wanted to just because I appeared eccentric, apart from some school bullying - and that was put down to the other child suffering because of her parents' divorce, and taking it out on the only solitary child in the class (me).

Inwardly I have had problems, but I have learnt to cope. This is where my age is probably an advantage. The old three-tier school system was perfect for me, and eccentricity wasn't a disorder until the nineties.

Now, the discovery of Asperger's Syndrome has been something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand it has enabled the contact with many more people who think like me than would ever have been possible without it, and has explained why I could never see in autistic people I met the strangeness, or 'otherness' that everyone else assured me was there.

On the other hand I am now supposed to see myself as disordered and disabled because of my neurotype, which comes as a small shock because I don't need any accomodations for it. I certainly need accomodations for my other disorders, which are truly disabling!

The really big, and pleasant, shock is that people with other disabilities see us as part of their group. I had rather expected the reverse - "Of course, you Aspies aren't really disabled like the rest of us, you can get by, you've been getting by forever, clear off!" the way the curebies have been treating us.

I thought that they would think we were jumping on their bandwagon. anbuend put it best, I think. "Disability rights for the things we need and civil rights against discrimination". You do not have to regard yourself as disabled to be in favour of disability rights. I would be thrilled to be registered disabled because I have real difficulty coping with my health problems and it would mean they were being taken seriously. I just don't happen to need anything from wider society anymore with regard to my Aspieness.

So sorry erkolos! In mitigation, I'd like to say that I have a stinking cold too...

*Passes erkolos the box of tissues and a hot honey, lemon and ginger drink*

I don't think that we can do anything here except 'agree to disagree'.

As to autists going off on our own path, ignoring the crowds of disabled who have done this already, well DUH!!! We're autistic, right? That's part of the parcel!

The 'wider disabled community' doesn't seem to understand that for us it is not a question of feeling superior to other disabled, just so different that we have to do things our way.

We may appear to be all here, in a group, at AFF - but in reality we are in our own little rooms, sitting at separate keyboards, thousands of miles apart.

You can't herd cats.

Ethel, as usual you have clarified wht I was thinking waaaay back on page one...

The reason I have resisted the 'disabled' label for so long isn't because I felt myself to be superior to other disabled people - but because I felt inferior.

These people have overcome so much more than I have had to cope with, it would feel like walking into a crowded hospital after a major disaster complaining about a splinter.

It took until I could no longer walk more than a few feet without wheels before I applied for a disabled parking permit. Not because of some vague fear of 'stigma', but because I didn't want to deprive a more worthy person of the place. And I wonder if that is really the underlying reason behind us staying out of the wider Disability Movement? That many of us see people like that blind mother and feel like we're queue-jumping for scarce resources? That we might be seen as elbowing aside people who need far more accomodation than us?