Guest post: An unwelcome ‘queering’ of disability
Originally a comment by latsot on Rainbow autism.
The forced-teaming of T with medical conditions and disabilities has been going on for quite a while. We’ve seen it most with DSDs (for the obvious reason) and with autism. In the latter case it is certainly at least partly because of autistic people being over-represented in the newer part of the alphabet community, as others have said. I’ve spoken about this to quite a few people with autism and they say there’s a strong sense that autism is completely captured and perhaps now intractably tangled. They feel that autistic people like them, especially children, are targeted because they are more susceptible to the concept of a magic bullet and less likely to change their minds…. and that messages like these are an aggressive and disturbing part of that targeting.
Messages like “no [condition or disability without the alphabet]” are relatively new (the past year or so) but are increasing in frequency and scope. In the last few months I’ve seen it directed at all sorts of conditions and disabilities and most often at disability in general.
This is very obviously an unwelcome ‘queering’ of disability, which is unlikely to have a good outcome for disabled people. Be clear: the claim is not that Gender Dysphoria is a disability or mental illness; that is still a forbidden message. The claim is that, like disabled people, trans (etc) people need certain help in order to live their lives on a somewhat level playing field to everyone else.
I’ll leave you to speculate on what I think about that claim.
The main problem is that so many of the medical condition and disability charities (especially the latter) are 100% captured. A large number of alphabet people have or claim to have disabilities. So it’s proving hard to resist the forced-teaming.
Sites like the revolting Steph’s Place were quick to capitalise on this. I won’t link to it, but the intention is rather clearly and prominently spelled out, there. It says something along the lines of “there will always be transphobia, but you can’t criticise disabled people…”
It’s saying that’s why being trans should be considered a disability, because then nothing trans can be criticised. It’s No Debate 2.0.
I read an essay written by the mother of a son who was both autistic and severely disabled because of it — couldn’t walk, talk, understand basic concepts and needed virtually round-the-clock care. She took him to an Autistic Convention hoping to find support and assuming that the organization involved was prioritizing getting needed health care financing, developing programs, doing research etc.
Instead, she was shocked to discover that the focus was on celebrating the autistic “identity.” People with very mild levels of autism who were functioning well enough to attend college and hold down prestigious jobs gave talks on how their quirky differences allowed them to thrive “in their own way” and that everyone needed to spread the word that autism was a Difference, not a Disability. Much applause.
When she stood at the mike during Q & A and explained that her son’s condition was indeed a disability and many autistics were struggling with simple tasks and needed more than reassurances that they were valid she was hastily shut down. Both those presenting the convention and those in the audience were upset and didn’t want to hear it. No sympathy, no camaraderie, nobody coming up afterwards with stories of similar struggles. The people with autism who were the most vulnerable, the most in need of assistance and advocates, were basically made invisible. They weren’t real enough on the Autism scale. It’s apparently hard to celebrate diversity when you have to avert your eyes from someone having spasms and wailing while being spoon fed in a wheelchair.
Harder to make a romanticized, sanitized, inspirational Hollywood blockbuster out of a story like that.
Oh jeeeeez, Sastra. That’s horrific. Did you read it online? I’d like to read it.
Is it this?
https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/viewpoint/its-time-to-embrace-profound-autism/
Same article or not, it’s well worth reading.
I’m not a big fan of Freddy de Boer, but I thought this column about this issue was well done.
Screechy: I used to follow FdB years ago. This seemed spot on. What are you not a fan? Just curious.
Brian M., it’s not any particular issue or view of his, I just find that his hit-to-miss ratio is quite low for me. (And by “miss,” I don’t just mean “I disagree with the conclusion,” but also “I don’t find anything interesting or thought-provoking in the argument.”) Every now and then he writes something that I find worthwhile, but I’m happy to wait for someone else to link it rather than wading through his entire output in the hopes of finding a rare gem.
Good title at least.(Haven’t read it yet.)
This has been a serious problem in many of the “Autistic Communities” for some time.
Previously, the primary division was between the “Autism Warrior Parents” wanting everything set up to serve them, and the “Actually Autistic” groupings pointing out that autistic children will grow up to be autistic adults, who need a certain amount of representation and support that is focused on adult support needs rather than only young children – not “one or the other”, but both.
These groups did not get on. It was disturbingly common for a certain type of parent to behave as though everyone else was a naughty five-year-old and should just do what the parents told them to do, and stop kicking off about adults making decisions, because we’re too defective, the Normies know best. This included the various quack cures, and attempts to discredit the experience of the adults, since the Warrior Parents always knew best. As a result, a number of groupings split off to focus on various things.
Then there was the whole “Shiny Aspie” thing, where the association was with the brilliant “genius” type (always male) who was just so brilliant he didn’t have time for all that boring, trivial “social stuff”. He was just so special, and didn’t have any major support needs, so all that could be ignored. This is the variant that lots of people wanted to “identify” with – the Outcast Genius, with the few “cool points” that geeks could ever get.
This always ignored those who needed more support, who were never going to be Shiny Genius-types, who still have value but it’s never recognised. The ones who are always left behind by trendy Identitays, because “eww! Who wants to be like *that*?”
So many of us resent being held up as the Shiny Aspie type, because even when we can just-about function in the Normie world (at a considerable cost), it’s *still a disability*. Yes, it’s part of why I’m good at what I do, for example, but it still affects everything. There’s a price, and it can be quite high. Some of us don’t really see a big difference between ourselves, and our siblings elsewhere on the Spectrum. We know that it could have been us needing that additional support – it’s more about luck than anything we’ve done, and we try to fight for the recognition of those support needs, because it’s not acceptable to leave our siblings behind. They matter.
The take-over by the Gendurr Brigade is perhaps unsurprising. If there’s any group totally ill-equipped to fight off a coup by a bunch of Cluster-B nightmares and their supporting nitwits, it’s Autistics. We just can’t deal with them. Combine that with the literal, black-and-white thinking that many are prone to, and the idea of someone promising that we no longer have to be stuck on the outside looking in. That we, too, could be heroes, even if just for one day. That we could be the in-group this time, the special ones, the Chosen Ones. Not everyone will be seduced by this – some of us understand that we’re really different and can’t be magically “fixed”, so we accept reality – but many will. Some will do anything to no longer feel broken and defective. To be cool, just once.
The sheer cruelty of promising that everything will be fixed if we just do what these people are saying is beyond belief. All these interlopers wanted the “cool points” of the Shiny Aspie Genius, or the social lassitude to make “mistakes” in conversations, to have people leaping to their defence if they’re rude or cruel to others – “He can’t help it, he’s Autistic!” in those horribly righteous tones, and to re-establish “No Debate” as apparent attacks on Autistic people.
(Note that nobody will *ever* say “She can’t help it, she’s Autistic” about actual females. That leeway is only ever reserved for males. The one time it might be said is when the dude is wearing a dress.)
The takeover is complete. Those of us who understand reality are systematically hounded out of what were once “our” communities, those who are looking for help and support for their loved ones (such as the example above) are ignored at best, attacked at worst. There is no community left for us.
The Gendurr Monster has swallowed everything.
@ Ophelia;
No, it wasn’t that article, though it was excellent. As I recall, it was an impressive Twitter thread.
Two good things instead of one.
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