This looks like the site that can give us a lot of relevant legal information, I'll try and study it and anyone else if they can, and talk about any ideas coming from it-
http://www.unhchr.ch/minorities/
Amy your link doesnt work!!!
All right time for me to weigh in and make everything clear ! LOL (j/k)
I think it is ok to use the word aspie or aspergian. Words often change their meaning. There is no reason in the world why aspie and aspergian must have the same meaning as asperger. They are of course related etymologically. There is nothing unusual about this if you know anything about words and their history.
We just need to aspie/aspergian mean this to us and thats it. I think that if we stick with that one or 2 complainers will eventually go away or just resign to use the not so new meanings while all the new people will just think it has always been like that
to distinguish ourselves from those DSM Aspies who are not autisitic (let them keep the label if it makes them feel better, it's the non-auties who seem to care about such things) and I note that very few of you are prepared to tackle this issue. You think it's cruel? Discriminatory? Why, when if we can succeed, we can then help others of that kind, and will have helped them by setting a precedent! Until we acheive such seperation we'll get nowhere, to the detriment of both parties. This in part is why the DSM evolved such a woolly method of diagnosis, to prevent those of us who have the smarts from actually enforcing recognition! As long as we continue to accept this artificial imposition then we're stuck where we are.
What are u talking about?
and who are DSM ASPIE who is not autistic? tell me who are u talking about?
There already is a disability rights movement, internationally. It would be infinitely easier to get disabled people considered a valid minority (and then hash out the details of autism later if need be) than to get autistic people in particular considered a valid minority (and then one by one get everyone else's specific individual little special minority within a minority group hashed out).
I do agree on that, people are more likely accept all disabilities (including those on the Autism Spectrum) as a valid minority than one smaller group and if there is already a movement towards it, why not go with something that is already established, it decreases the footwork first and foremost and the whole thing doesn't fall on an 'individual's back. Once the building blocks are there, than add the individual smaller groups, because then you'll have an established acceptance in place as far as laws and such to place autism as well as any other disability group that would so chose to do later. This is from just a simple common sense point of view, once a generalized standard is in place, it makes it easier to add more specific standards in place than work from nothing to get to that point. This is just simple sense that works for any case situation out there, as someone once used as a quote. "Rome wasn't built in a day." Neither is a disability movement towards being a minority or an autistic/aspie minority. In order to be truly a minority, you need to reach more than those that you can online to get a truly reflective agreement on the desire to be a minority.
I have to agree on that and many other points anbuend has made as it al is simple common sense.
1. The debate here is one about Human Rights - "Equal Rights for Aspies."
i disagree - it's about equality of opportunity, and THAT is where huge strides can be made in making the world more "aspie-friendly". and it starts with education, as do most such things.
as an example, look at people with epilepsy. they used to be incarcarated in lunatic asylums, until people realised they weren't "mad", and treatment became available for them. as a teacher, i am well aware of what to do in the case of a child having an epileptic seizure ("fit"), as are most teachers - education about epilepsy has worked.
and, contrary to people here and on other boards, i really don't believe that NTs have any particular agenda against aspies specifically - most don't even know what ASD is all about, but then they don't know about what it's like to have CP, HI, depression, infertility, etc., etc., either. anyone who doesn't fit into people's nice, comfortable little scheme of how people should be causes fear and a feeling of threat, the threat of the unknown.
education is the key.
we live in a world set up for NTs. people with VI and HI and physical disabilities live in a world predominantly set up for the able-bodied. concessions have been made to provide disability access, through education and then legislation. but consider this - disability access might mean installing very bright lighting in, for example, shopping centres, for people with VI. this would be torture for some aspies, myself included. what does one choose to do in this instance? who comes first - the person with VI or the person with ASD? decsions are made for the majority (or, most likely, for the majority with the most political clout as voters 
).
the three-step process is one which tends to work - problem, solution, strategy. in this case, it would be:
1. this is what it's like to have ASD, and these are the diffiiculties we face.
2. this is what we'd like to be different.
3. this is how it could be done.
and THEN, the negotiations, start...
just thought i'd chuck in my considered thoughts, based on my experiences in fighting "political" and social causes , incidentally (several decades worth).
this is precisely why i don't post on threads like this very often here.
asman, get off my back, would you? i have no argument with you, personally, just a series of questions which, for others' information, have yet to be answered - some of them i see simon baron-cohen also brought up in his email. you think you know me so well, but you have absolutely no idea at all. i refuse to dignify the rest of your post with a reply.
sorry amy, and everyone else, if i sound as though i'm having a go at asman, but i've put up with this elsewhere, and ignored it, but it's just getting ridiculous.
posted on 1st december, 2004.
right - i need some clarification. what exactly, and i mean EXACTLY, does "declaring ourselves a minority group" entail? what would be the purpose? what political, social, financial gains or benefits would it bring? how would we go about it? what comparative examples would you cite (for clarification)? how EXACTLY would we go about it?
perhaps someone could take the points one by one for me. thank you.
"Equality of Opportunity" is an empty political slogan.
i still disagree. every child and adult has a RIGHT to an education. however, certainly in this country (the UK) and, from what i hear on this and other forums, in many other countries, children and adults with ASD do not have equality of access (i.e. opportunity) to this education. in other words, the system is geared towards NTs, and what support there is for people with ASD is difficult to come by, and exhausting for those who have to fight for it.
another point is that other minority groups may be "tolerated" (ghastly word), or even "understood" or celebrated - i'm thinking again of how multiculturalism can work and be a marvellous educational tool in schools etc. - but when push comes to shove, the cultural customs, or whatever else you want to call them, of ethnic/cultural minorities have to work within the framework of the country in which they exist, and the laws of that country, their environment, in other words. i'm not saying that aspies should just sit back and take whatever *** is dumped on them, btw, just trying to be pragmatic, and look at how present systems actually operate, at this time. maybe that's where the focus should be. i utterly disagree with the edcuation system in the UK, which is why i work within it - change from within.
sorry to harp on about education only - i could cite other examples, but don't want this to be a very, very long post.
AND i want to say that i am not against the whole idea of aspies as a formal minority group - just trying to iron out the wrinkles in my own mind, about the pragmatics of the modus operandi.
Becca wrote
Then i read Donna Williams book and thought that was it. But by then i already lost my mind a bit and was diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders and given medications for the next few years. This has made it very hard to explain myself and very angry too. A couple of psychiatrists gave tentative aspergers diagnoses but with no suggestion of what i should do. Those who have been part of my support system do not think i am AS because their experience and knowledge of autism is with children and not adults. I have many one to one skills i have learned to use to impress people because i cannot be confrontational. perhaps i should lose my temper but then thats when they think i am psychotic and i get doped up. It hasnt happened too often but the experience is too traumatic.
Are you being forced to take medication when they think you are psychotic? Do you have the legal right to not take these drugs? If you have been misdiagnosed as psychotic, I think you really need to try to get that misdiagnosis changed, because that diagnosis has important implications.
Have you seen this web site before?
Autistic People Against Neuroleptic Abuse (APANA)
http://www.dinahm.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
Excuse me if you have disclosed this before, but have you been officially diagnosed as autistic, or are your doctors just vague and indecisive about this diagnosis? It sounds like you are in the care of people who have inadequate knowledge of autism/AS, which is inexcusable when you consider that New Zealand is an affluent and developed country.
Take care, Becca.
Tenacious, your name suits you!
Myself, I'm anything but tenacious with regards to finding or keeping a job. Trying to play that game has made most of my adult life miserable or frustrating, so I figure that I've done my bit for Australia, and I've sworn to never send another CV or waste my time in another job interview in my life. But if by some sad necessity I have to do another job in which I have to interact with NTs a lot, I might try to follow the strategy of complaining about their bad behaviour before they get a chance to object to anything that I do that they don't like.
Alison wrote
My point is, there are jobs out there that could suit if we can think outside the square - and who better to do that than an Aspie?
I have no doubt that there are heaps of jobs in which aspies would be competitive or superior workers. But how do you actually win any job if you not capable of giving the interviewers a warm and fuzzy feeling during a job interview? You have got to do that to get the job, it doesn't matter how qualified you are.
And how do you keep the job and avoid being resented and treated strangely or bullied by others at work if you can't or won't play all the social games that go on in workplaces, and don't want to befriend your work colleagues or supervisors? I once had to leave a job after things went pear-shaped after I failed to respond to attempts to start a friendship by a female supervisor. Just because "Being the bosses' friend" and "Being friendly with colleagues during breaks and after-work social functions" are not items written in duty statements, that still doesn't mean these are not essential requirements of most jobs.
Iron Man, how could AS affect the muscles of the fingers?
Couldn't we just take a short-cut to minority groups status by declaring ourselves a distinct human race? Then we would automatically be covered by the racial villification laws that already exist, and we wouldn't have to lobby for amendments to such laws or new laws to gain legal protection from the kinds of people who create web sites such as ASPAR etc. This isn't as flakey as it sounds, let me explain.
Recently a documentary series was screened on TV about the idea of race in history, and it explained how this idea was created to give people an excuse to steal land off ethinic groups and turn others into slaves. It exposed the lack of scientific basis for the idea of race. Genetic differences between individuals are greater than genetic differences between people identified as belonging to different races. So a black-looking woman might have a lot of genes in common with a person from Latvia, but not as many genes in common with another black-looking person, for example. So our racial categories are not really based on significant genetic differences, just on superficial appearances (probably from just a few genes for skin colour etc).
But the autistics community could, and most likely will be demonstrated as being, a category that can genuinely be sorted from non-autistics by genes. It seems inevitable that genes for autism will be positively identified soon. Some have already been identified. So we could then argue that our community is the only genuine human racial group, if race is defined as significant genetic similarity. Then we could argue that we are supremely entitled to minority group status as a racial group, (as well as a cultural and a social group).
I guess it could turn out that defining genetic differences between NT and autistic will be a complicated matter that will undermine the idea of neat categories. But isn't it already true that informed people do not believe in a neat, clean line of demarcation between autistic and NT, hence the idea of the broader autistic phenotype? I myself believe being an aspie is a matter of what one identifies onself as, in addition to having the autisitc neurotype. I know people who are SO aspie in abilties and neurology, but who are totally NT in their aspirations and values. Of course, they have problems with depression and low self-esteem, but who's fault is that?
I think it could also turn out that the gentic differences between NT and autistic could be surprisingly simple. Just consider the gentic switch that sets human foetuses on the path to becoming either male or female in body plan. Just one little gene (SRY), on one very undersized chromosome (the Y chromosome) triggers huge and complex differences in body form in members of the same biological species, and it does this very reliably (hermaphrodites are rare, and a result of chromosomal duplication rather than a genetic glitch). Sexual dimporphism is a marvel, when you think about it. And as autism is probably biologically similar to a sex difference (the extreme male brain etc), it seems quite possible to me that autism could be the result of a number of different versions of one simple genetic switch.
ConLang wrote
The whole premise here seems to be that "we're all not so different afterall, so we should be treated equally." I believe that the second part is absolutely true, but the first is simply rediculous. We are NOT all the same, and to give sameness as a reason for equality will only ensure it's further denial.
I fully agree! (but your spelling isn't perfect).
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