My support worker team from my self-directed services: Iona Northern edited this post with me.
Autistic people have rights the way everyone has rights .
Autistic people grow at different paces while others may just grow at the same pace as their physical age. Because of that we are often thought of as less than human, deviant from the norm, and due to our impairments many in society look down upon us thinking we do not have a mind of our own nor are we able to make logical decisions about the life we want.
Autistic people are vulnerable, and depending on the impairments, that can determine how vulnerable the individual will be. It does not matter if the person is less impaired, they can be more vulnerable. Many think that way because Autistic people feel so many emotions at once, so that at times we either do not know how to use our emotions, we scale inward. or we use our emotions too much. This is considered to be over-emotional, rageful, and illogical. Whichever way Autistic people are, we are misunderstood by society as a whole.
From all of this misunderstandings and misguided ideas of a perception that someone with cognitive and sensory impairments is not capable, not competent, causes one to pause and be grateful that some in society are finally learning how wrong they have been. The tragedy of this kind of thinking has created a disconnect and unmet need between Autistic people and the rest of society. There are a lot of people who need to take responsibility for causing this rift.
Unfortunately, the mass media has contributed to this by conforming to the ideas of this subjective interpretation. Many people are suffering from a society that lacks understanding. This war against Autistic people is really a war against humanity and human nature. The battle to fight for either correcting the genome from disability to embracing the genome and realizing cognitive disabilities like the way Autistic culture is, is something that needs to be accepted just as many other neurodivergences need to be accepted.
How far do we go to changing the human genome? Is it our right to change the genome that mutates and changes randomly over time? Who gets to say which parts of the genome are bad or not? And, is the human genome really a bad thing as many medical researchers are trying to correct it to make a perfected flawless human being? Is eugenics or genetic counseling really needed?
My feelings as a person who is Neurodivergent from outside the norms of society and as an Autistic person leads me to believe that I often feel like pushing to be who I am while getting push back from society to make me the same as others. The fine line between autonomy and being who we are versus depending on others to conform to the standards of society is enormously thick, yet we need to pull one way and push another to be included in the community. Autism Speaks as an organization has been through a rough war because many people feel their misguided thinking for almost 13 years has been too hurtful to many who feel they want to embrace who they are regardless. This makes me feel that everyone needs to re-think what we have done in the past.
Hope everyone enjoyed this 3 part series of articles. The next 2 parts will be coming soon.
Be around to see the next part!
TheamazinJ