Boycott Autism Speaks

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Yes, of course. I'm the one maintaining the memorial site, remember?

But what good would it do to ignore and exclude people who disagree? They can say what they like--there's no way to stop that. The fact is, they are autistic too, and in just as much danger as we are, and facing the same prejudice. They deserve human rights just as much as any other autistic person.

I am not saying that they have the right to call you defective or insist that you should have your brain modified; nor should they be allowed to bully others; nor should we stay silent if they were to promote something that would violate the rights of autistic people. But are pro-cure autistics the only ones who do that? I seem to recall a little bit of autism supremacy floating around, people who think that NTs are inferior, or that high-functioning people are more important than low-functioning people. Both sides are capable of nasty behavior, and nasty behavior is a very good reason to kick someone out of a group. Much better than a differing opinion, anyway.

We don't need perfect unity and it would be kind of stupid to insist on it because that would just silence minority viewpoints. We do, however, need to be able to accept that we think differently and work together on mutual goals regardless.

^You're doing a good job maintaining the site as well.
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I feel that the sooner we reach our goals, the better off we'll be. The murders and kidnappings will stop. I also wish that abusive parents would admit to not accepting their autistic children and give them to the people who are accepting of all children and who will be capable of loving them. That would be much better for the children than those ex schoolyard bullies torturing and murdering them. I feel that couples must be able to accept any child that God gives them before they think about starting a family. I apologize if I've offended anybody on this site.

no they aren't the only ones, but we have to educate them about how what they think isn't really true.

Some of it isn't true. Some of it is a matter of opinion and so it is neither true nor false.

For example, "Autistic people can never be happy," is a false statement, because you can falsify it by pointing to one happy autistic person and proving it false.

"I would be happier if I weren't autistic," is a statement that is either false or true, but it is impossible to tell which because it talks about a hypothetical situation. We don't know whether the speaker would be happier if they weren't autistic.

"I am unhappy to be autistic," is a statement of opinion. The statement is about the person's emotions and opinions, and unless they are lying about their true feelings, such statements are true for them even if they are not true for you.

In the second or third cases, where people are making either an unprovable claim or a statement of opinion, that's not something we can say is untrue. If an autistic person does not want to be autistic and thinks they cannot be happy while they are autistic, that feeling is real and valid, and they are just as autistic as any other autistic person. You may attempt to convince them that it is possible for them to be happy by pointing to other autistic people who are happy; you may counter any claims that this is not possible. However, in the end, the way they feel is a real thing that needs to be respected. If they start stepping on other people's rights or claiming to speak for all autistics, that's not cool. But then, it's not cool when anti-cure autistics do it, either.

Those are strange options. They have nothing to do with why I think that.

I can lose or gain IQ points depending on what time of day, which day, what my various symptoms (not just due to autism autism) are like, etc. that I take an IQ test. My "actual" IQ score is rather ephemeral to me.

I am not only recognizable by my autistic signs and symptoms, but I do not know who I would be without those. I do not just assume that one can subtract those traits which are themselves an inherent part of me, even if they are not the entirety of me, and still remain who I am. I cannot even imagine who I would be if I liked being around people more, felt lonely like ever, depended more on my emotions, expected more from my emotions, thought differently, perceived differently. Being autistic affects every aspect of who I am. Again, it is not everything that I am, but it touches on everything that I am.

Your bad example manifested in, among other things, your attempt to claim ownership of civil rights struggles and assert that autistic people had no right to our own.

Me and Goldfish have butted heads and we will again but he has a right to seek treatment and cures and those that want a cure should have the option to have it. I can sit here on my high horse and say cures are no good but I do not know how it feels like to to have continuous excruciating pain due to sensory conditions or be extremely disabled. So who I am make a judgement that their desperation for a cure is wrong? What I do have a right to judge negatively is people who are not autistic spending endless money to describe our condition as some sort of satanic like entity kidnapping peoples children and ruining marriages and believe that cancels out whatever good they do. I do have a right to negatively judge people autistic or not who won't accept the possibility that my reluctance to take a cure or identify as Aspie might be valid for me just because their experience is radically different.

My view is the way science is advancing the cure or cures is coming, it is just a matter of when and most importantly how it is used. I have to conclude that the combination of Autism Speaks power, money, and connections plus the hate spew may mean that a cure ends in genocide. Even if you believe that Autism Speaks is not part of some eugenics conspiracy, that they are just blinded by idealistic do-goodism you have to admit they are playing with the most dangerous type of fire. So why support a right to a cure? Doesn't this case cry out for an end justifies the means approach? We do not know that this actually will end badly. The Sandy Hook fears were for the most part unjustified. The community even those that fanatically support Autism Speaks goals uniformly are abhor their tactics, that is reason for hope. And two wrongs do not equal a right.

Yes, I agree we're fighting genocide here. It reminds me a great deal of forced sterilization of "feeble-minded" people in the US--they were trying to prevent the births of more "feeble-minded" people. They used fear/pity/hate propaganda, just like they're doing with autism. The goal was to exterminate an entire group of people by preventing any more from being born. Now that we have genetic testing and abortion, that's started to happen with other disabilities. Down syndrome diagnosed prenatally usually ends with abortion, for example. Once there's a prenatal test for autism... well.

They probably won't bother to find a cure after there's a prenatal test. The funding will vanish as "prevention" becomes possible. I think it's very likely that there will never be a cure for autism. Just a cure for the existence of autistic people.

However, I don't think that excluding pro-cure autistics from the fight for autism rights will do any good. It would be like saying, "You have to think what we think, or else you don't deserve the rights we're fighting for."

Pro-cure people might not be as enthusiastic about things like inclusive education, establishing the right not to have our brains tampered with, or ending job and housing discrimination. But there are many who want to help with that, rather than sitting around feeling sorry for themselves and thinking everything will be solved when they get their magical cure. If a person is willing to advocate for autistic rights, including our rights to be who we are, it shouldn't matter whether they personally want to be neurotypical.

Autism isn't the only disability where this is an issue, you know. I've talked to people with physical disabilities--some want a cure; some wouldn't take it even if it was offered risk-free. People with other disabilities have to work together, too, despite that some of them don't want a cure and some do. The Deaf community, notably, is arguing over cochlear implants and probably will be arguing for a long time to come.

If you have the experience of being autistic, of being part of that minority group, experiencing discrimination, wanting to do something about it, believing in human rights and the rights of disabled people, then that's the important thing.

I think it would be impossible to cure me at this point, I'm too formed by what I've seen by being treated as "the other" all my life. Maybe not though, maybe they could zap my brain and I'd be really social and all of sudden it would just seem like a twisted dream. I don't seek that though.

However - it would be inhumanely cruel to make the choice to bring a child into the world with Autism, absent the child's ability to tell you it wants to have it if there was a cure available. Nobody has a right to do that to anyone if there is a cure available.

As for aborting fetuses, that's a different story, but I wouldn't blame any mother who did it. I wouldn't curse any mother who didn't either. That's just a choice nobody can make but the parents.

Just out of curiosity, why would it be inhumanly cruel to bring an autistic child into the world? What precisely is it that makes simply being autistic inhumanly cruel, and not say how people treat you because of it?

I mean, there's an argument to be made that bringing anyone into the world is inhumanly cruel and unethical and should not be done, especially since no one is able to consent to being brought into existence before they actually exist. Why draw the line at autism?

as much as they have a right to believe in a cure, it's our duty to educate them so that they don't want one anymore.

Verdandi - that's very true, that bringing anybody into the world could be considered cruel. And I get what you are saying that the problem is how we are treated, not that being Autistic is bad - but if there was a cure for all the evils of society, we would say the same thing. It's cruel to bring them here and not give them access to it.

I think for me there are too many tools missing. I'm sure I'm considered high functioning if I could even get a diagnosis at all since I've worked all my life, but I would just never do this to another person. It's not even just the rejection, but it's the way my brain fails me when I need it.

I'm really glad I never got pregnant and was forced to make that difficult derision.

There is absolutely no evidence that genetic research is anywhere close to developing a definitive prenatal test for autism..

IN fact genetic research is making it better known that the complexity of what is abstractly currently described in the DSM5 as a collection of behavioral deficits..has an innumerable count of potential causal factors..

For the people who think there is some kind of Eugenic Conspiracy associated with genetic research to eliminate all individuals with the behavioral deficits described as Autism..it simply is not a logical concern...

There is no genetic test that is going to definitely determine whether or not a person is going to have difficulties with reciprocal social communication..behaviors and repetitive and restrictive behaviors..

For one thing..purely environmental factors..can lead to conditions that approximate and mimic these behaviors described as autism with real definitive causal factors.. such as fragile X syndrome...

But anyway for anyone who wants to waste their times in efforts against the hugely successful Autism Speaks organization..go for it..no one is listening in the general public..except for a relatively few people out of over 300 million people..

And the ones who donate are continuing to pour the money in.. as the organization..last year.. increased their donations by 10 percent..in a time of economic difficulties with most other charitable organizations..

Technically the time spent addressing a boycott against Autism Speaks is a lose lose proposition..

But people do that in life..most unfortunately all the time anyway...

Banging their heads against a brick well..for no true effect in reality..overall....

Those are simply the facts..never mind me..i just researched them shared them..that is all..

Autism Speaks has no place in my life..but they do fund research for children like mine who did die from a co-morbid conditions associated with autism...

While they do not speak for me..as a so called 'higher functioning' individual with Autism they definitely do speak for children like my son who have succumbed to death as a result of co-morbid conditions associated with Autism..

Particularly auto immune system issues associated with genetic disease....

But nah..no one here likely cares about people like my son..otherwise they could have cognitive empathy for issues like this...

why? Says who? That may be your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but myself and many others disagree. No amount of "teaching," me about your opinion is going to persuade me to agree with it, for I believe that searching for a cure is in fact right.

Again, not going to happen.

I, and others like me, don't need to be educated about our own Autistic traits that we find to be a hinderance to our lives and would rather be rid of.

Further, like I've said before, I've managed to reduce my own symptoms almost completely via diet and herbal treatments and I am happier and healthier than I have ever been in my entire life and there is no amount of your "educating," that would ever make me want to go back to having strong Autistic traits, thought processes, behaviours etc that screwed my life into the ground. Zero chane that I'd ever choose that again.

I can't imagine that anyone who was able to reduce/eliminate their symptoms as I have done, became happier and healthier, would ever consciously choose to revert back to being much more Autistic if they had the choice. It's possible some might, but personally, from my experience, I can't imagine that once someone experiences the freedom of relieving symptoms that they'd ever ever ever choose to go back to a life of anxiety and Autistic misery of not fitting in with the world all around them. That's just my take on things, ymmv - but keep in mind, I've experienced both sides - which I consider something that puts me in a unique position to be able to comment on this.

I support understanding genetics of autism. Understanding the many genes likely involved in most forms of autism is going to improve understanding autistic brain functioning. My research is focused on behavioral/cognitive/brain, but I want to do some genotyping/biomarking too, to understand those results in broader context and bester.

For people waiting for cure, don't wait for cure to kickstart your lives as nts, instead try to live with you have and can improve, because a cure ain't coming anytime soon, we are incredibly confused about eberrything in research and can't even say what autism really is.