On last Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes, the panel discussed how the success of the gay rights movement might be imitated by other groups.  Their discussion focused on Linda Hirshman's new book Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution.  I think people who are interested in the autistic rights movement will find the discussion useful enough to watch for themselves-- it's embedded at the end of this post.  

Hirshman focuses on four obstacles that gay people needed to overcome in order to improve their status in American society-- she calls them The Four Horsemen of the Gay Apocalypse:  people thought homosexuals were sick (or crazy), sinful, criminal, and subversive. 

One of the reasons it was important for people to reject the word "homosexual" was that it was a diagnosis from the time when being gay meant being sick. I don't think it's realistic or advisable for us to move completely away from seeing autism in a medical way, but I reject the idea that doctors and scientists know more about autism than autistic people.  Autism is, and should be a diagnosis, but is also a difference which should be celebrated.  We must never stop working to make autism less disabling, but we must also never stop working to create a world in which autism is not seen as a disease.  What we want is a world where autistic people have the medical, educational, and therapeutic support we need in order to be happy, independent, equal autistic citizens.

Autistic people are in many ways considered sinful or criminal.  Our meltdowns can result in the police being called and us being shot.  People consider us such a burden on our families that they can be unsettlingly sympathetic when our parents murder us.  We are seen as "free riders": we take more than we give. 

This will change as more of the young autistic people who are considered an epidemic and a crisis today enter the workforce and make gigantic contributions to our economy.  In twenty years, we will have multiple examples of a Mark Zuckerberg or a Bill Gates who actually grew up diagnosed.  Everyone will know that Temple Grandin is not unique. 

One place where I could not disagree more strongly with Dr. Grandin is that she is distressed by the extent to which young autistic people seem to have adopted autism as a special interest.  I think she fails to recognize that autism is a growth industry-- effective treatments are more likely to be developed by autistic researchers and autistic people can work every effectively as teachers and therapists to our peers. 

And we all need to learn how to support each other without getting paid for it, too.  One of the ways that gay people lost our "immoral" label was by stepping up and helping each other during the AIDS crisis.  Autistic adults have a similar opportunity now-- so long as autism is being framed by the media as an "epidemic" or a "crisis", we have everything to gain by showing that we are the kinds of people who step up to help families through it.

Parents learn to love Autism Speaks because it does provide real services for them.  And they spend only 4% of their budget on services!  It would not take a unrealistically massive amount of money for an autistic-run organization which did nothing else to outstrip what they do there.  And the budget for an organization that offered real services and earned the love of the little diagnosed Einsteins, Grandins, Turings, and Zuckerbergs who will be among tomorrow's billionaires will eventually outstrip the budget of an orgnazation like Autism Speaks, which ulitmately derives much of its clout from its association with a dying television network.  We're playing a long, long game here.  Let's be smart about it.

Providing services like education, mentorships, and respite care could help gain us the moral high ground.  Hirshman suggests that groups who want to emulate the success of the gay right movement must do that.  She says we must also keep our focus narrow, with clear goals that we never lose sight of.  And she says we need weekly meetings.  I know that ASAN, GRASP, Meet Up, and other local organizations are filling that function for many people, but we need to have more choices and stronger networks.

Click here to watch the discussion from Up With Chris Hayes.

Abed in 8-Bit

Tonight's three-episode Community season finale will include a story about Abed and his friends entering  a vintage video game.  Click here to watch a clip.

Because NBC just can't let this show have nice things (the worst possible time to schedule it: opposite The Big Bang Theory, a popular hit with similar appeal), they have to interrupt with an episode of 30 Rock.  I stopped watching that show after one of its stars compared kids with intellectual disabilities to chimpanzees, so this annoys me.

Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle is unrepentant after criticism of his use of autism and school children as punch lines:

The pupils of Bay House School in Gosport, Hampshire, won a new world record by arranging themselves in the shape of the Olympic logo.

But the Mock The Week star wrote in a national newspaper that their effort was "the most autistic response to a global sporting event".

And added: "For the kids of Gosport, learning how to stand bewildered in a blue jumper is all they need to qualify them for a life of working in 99p stores."

Several people were sharply critical:

Andrew Monaghan, the chief executive of the Hampshire Autistic Society, said of Mr Boyle’s column: ‘The comments that have been reported are clearly uninformed and show a deep lack of understanding in regard to autism and the impact of autism on the individual.

‘If Mr Boyle would like information and assistance in raising his understanding of autism we would be more than happy to help him with this.

But Boyle is unconcerned:

Late last night he tweeted: ‘Dear Britain, I write thousands of jokes a year. If you find one tasteless, don’t tell me about it. Ta x’

His previous "jokes" include one about an autistic child sexually assaulting his own mother.

Margarita Tartakovsky mines Cindy Ariel's book Loving Someone With Asperger's syndrome for some good advice for neurotypical partners.  Her first tip, "Don't put the blame solely on your partner" may be the most important, and understanding what she says about reframing behavior will help a lot with doing that:

You might think that your partner knows precisely what you need but purposely ignores it or intentionally does something to hurt you. And when you think your partner is cold and mean, you not only get upset and angry, but you also might view all of their actions and intentions negatively, Ariel says.

Reframing your partner’s behaviors helps you refocus on your relationship and work to improve it (vs. stewing in the negativity). It also might help you come up with creative solutions.

You still might disagree with their actions and feel hurt. But you may better understand your partner and work to move forward.

It's time to upgrade this website.  It's slow and not friendly to all devices and the design is a couple of years old.  I want thAutcast to have a real community here that extends beyond Facebook.  I want you to able to use your own account here to connect with other people.  I want you to be able to publish your work here.  I want classified ads and a dating section and a virtual classroom and more.

You are smart and vibrant and important, and need to grow beyond me.

I will need your help to make that possible.

First of all, I need someone who understands and uses Drupal 7 at a professional level to help me upgrade the current site, move to a new server, and build new features.  I am hoping that we have a Drupal developer in the thAutcast community or that one of you has a close friend who does that for a living.  Please send me a message if you have the knowledge, the experience, and the interest.

And I am going to need to help from many of you to pay for this upgrade.

You can donate now by clicking here, but mostly I want you to be prepared for a couple of major fundraising efforts that I will rolling out over the next couple of months.  Please help if you can and please don't be negative about them if you can't.