Aspies For Freedom

Perhaps we should take care not to endorse any particular medical or psychiatric view or explanation of our status, since history shows that these theories and explanations are subject to sometimes revolutionary change, total reverse or revision, whereas the fact that we are here and not always well treated does not change.

For example, when I was a small child in the 1950s, and said to have Kanner's Autistic Psychopathy, the explanations offered were all in terms of Freudian theory, and many books and papers were written endorsing this wholly false view.

As we have seen with the recent MMR farago, the intensity of popular belief about the origins of ASDs is no sure guide to their truth or falsehood.

In the Freudian explanation, which was thought to be "scientific" at the time, even ancient Greek legends were incorporated into the explanation -that of the Oedipus Complex - and the fallacy so general that no one noticed how unsound it was to incorporate mythological material into a scientific rationale.

Worrying ourselves over nosology - the classification of diseases by and for the benefit of doctors - does not really help us either. Much agonising about the various diagnostic criteria in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manualcould be avoided if we remembered that one of its principle functions is to form a basis of justification for private health care insurance payments which dominate American medical practice.

The fact is that we exist, and have a need for social recognition and fair dealing which is not being met, irrespective of how we came to be here.

I hope this helpful,

Stella Maru

Oh Lili you are right to say that perhaps I oversimplified the difficulties arrayed against us - some of which I'd never thought of until you suggested them.

But I will try to answer as best I can.

1. The debate here is one about Human Rights  - "Equal Rights for Aspies."

2. When a government starts  to respond to political pressure from an action group like ourselves,  it does so at first in a general way, and only  gets down  to all the details of how these rights or benefits can be granted once it has agreed in principle that something should be done.

So we should try our best not to get too bogged down in detail if we can help it, tempting thought this may well be!!!

3. Who is an Aspie? Unsatisfactory though it may well be in some ways, I think we will have to say that an Aspie is anyone who defines themselves as an Aspie.

Gay people, for example, define themselves as gay because they know they are. They don't need doctors to tell them so.

Our case is not so simple, because some of us can only survive on  DLA, where some kind of medical definition becomes necessary, or be dependendent to some extent on Social Services.

But this doesn't stop those who are  able to fend for themselves - but who  still identify with our struggle in the NT world  - from defining themselves as ASD and helping us achieve some sort of fair and equal treatment.

Perhaps a few misguided individuals will claim to be Aspergians who are not for some purpose of their own, but very few NTs would want anyone to think they were autistic!  

I suppose some people accused of criminal offences may claim to be ASD
who are not,   but I'm sure that defendents sometimes
claim  other disabilities or social disadvantages in the hope that the court
will go easy on them. I suggest.

As for worrying about who is Autistic, who is HFA, who is Asperger's, who PDD-NOS and so on, this is simply divisive.

Wherever we are as individuals on the Spectrum, the one thing we all have in common is Autism.

The word "Autistic" falls with such horror on the ears of NT parents that they have scrambled to have Asperger's Syndrome established as a phenomenon in its own right, which it is not. Anything rather than have their children labelled as "autistic" they think!

I am autistic and this is what I think.  :idea:

Stella Maru

oh ASMan I'm sure there  aren't lots of people pretending to be autistic coming to interfere with us on the net.

Of course there may be one or two imposters now and again, and some who come to make a nuisance for some reason of their own, but this must true of every kind of group, association,  or society that has general access on the web.

Even if there are people who want to come in here and other ASD places to poke fun, or harm us, or manipulate us as you suggest, what can we do about it?  Mostly, I think NTs are too much involved with their own world to bother with us.

They do their best to forget we exist in the world outside the net, so why would they come to look for us here?

Best Wishes

from Stella in Brighton.

Yes, it's entirely realistic.  As Amy mentioned, in one of her e-mail conversations with Simon Baron-Cohen, he disagreed with the idea of calling autistics a minority race... of course, he wouldn't get any funding to do amniocentesis studies on a minority race...

There seems to have arisen around us a great array of quack cures and patent medicines.

Pure natural bilgewater has been proven in clinical trials to reduce the visible signs of neurotypicalism when taken as part of an unbalanced diet.  :roll:  


Straws to be clutched at!

Stella Moo

Quack quack!

"Equality of Opportunity" is an empty political slogan.  Opportunities cannot be measured, or readily quantified.

Human Rights can be, and are, formulated as legal instruments.

Our wish to  identify ourselves as a minority group in our own right is for us alone to make.

Stella

What makes Aspergian identity politics a significant departure from earlier forms of the politics of recognition is our demand for recognition on the basis of the very grounds on which recognition was previously denied us: it is as autistics that we demand recognition. The demand is not for inclusion within the fold of “universal humankind” on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect “in spite of” our differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for ourselves  as different.

Stella

Once we have got social and political recognition as a minority much of the rest will fall into place of its own accord.

So let's not get too distracted with peripheral issues, interesting though they may well be.

We have a simple and realisable plan: to copy the tactics and techniques which  have brought legitimization and enfranchisement to other minorities such as gays and people of colour.

Following this plan will lead to success.  

Stella

Notice how, under stress, the language falls apart in this sentence, which has almost no meaning.

I believe these people are Asperger’s misrepresenting themselves as indicative of autism.

Example: "Stella represented herself as indicative of autism,"  doesn't really mean very much.

Now look at this one:

"real" autism which would include honest Asperger’s with disabilities and not just quirks.

We might think the writer was nostalgic for a lost Golden Age of "plain honest-to-goodness Asperger's like grandpa used to have"  except that Asperger's Syndrome only received its DSM coding in the last decade,  so there is no long back story for the making of such comparisons in America.

you might note that these folks in question do not define themselves as Asperger's in any event, just "autistic".


I wonder who the "impostors"  could possibly be? Perhaps we should write and ask.  I'd guess that LS  is a very cross person, and perhaps makes their living out of indignation, in the way of talk show hosts and National Enquirer journalists.

We may well hear more of this person.

Stella

Hi Roderick, welcome, I like your approach to the issue, creating our own minority category instead of trying to "shoehorn" ourselves into the closest possible existing category.

Your suggestion of "neurological minority" is similar to what is being done to promote the concept of neurodiversity, particularly on Neurodiversity.com.  I agree that this concept needs to become part of our social landscape, but Amy also has a good point that comparisons to social or cultural minorities may be easier for many people to understand.  I'd say the usefulness of a particular approach depends on the context.

As for disability advocacy, while I agree that society's view of disabilities is greatly in need of improvement, we need to be careful not to spread our focus too widely and perhaps end up with scattered and ineffective efforts.

Minority rights is what that's important.

I am also wondering abit on this, shouldn't it be possible improve the disability rights?

There's no way we can't call all autistics not-disabled.

Too many nots, corrected:

There's no way we can call all autistics not-disabled.

I sometimes like to say that autism can't be called a disability in itself, but an autistic person do often have many disabilities. Like sensory issues which can complicate things in a working environment, but is it a disability to be abit loud in public places?