This morning, a friend sent me the new Autism Speaks Employment Toolkit.

It's not awful.

It shows real movement in directions that autistic activists, myself included, have been asking for for years:

It is for adults.

It features autistic people telling their own stories.

It is focused on helping, not preventing, autistic people.

Under the leadership of new president Liz Feld, the largest and richest autism charity has moved away from the most damaging things it used to do.

For example, her statement last week on new research showing an autism prevalence of 1 in 50 was far from the overt scaremongering of the recent past:

The good news is that the survey’s “1 in 50” results suggest that increased autism awareness is helping more children get a diagnosis. However, it also shows that many children are going undiagnosed until age 7 or older – years after a reliable diagnosis is possible. We must change this – we know that early intervention helps our children do better in school and lead happier, healthier lives.

We’re also encouraged to see a number of our political leaders respond to the new findings by affirming that autism is a public health crisis needing a national public health response.

We're still a crisis, but a much less terrifying one.

I'm still not a fan of Autism Speaks.

But I no longer feel that it is a crisis.

Should you give them money or volunteer for them? 

No, please don't.

Should you keep yelling at your friends and neighbors who do?

No, please don't.

There's a flash blog happening today in response to a recent video that Autism Speaks has put out called "I Want to Say."

To watch the video, and read my comments on it, click here.

John Elder Robison, the autistic person on the science board of Autism Speaks and one of three autistic men on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, begins his big picture consideration of where the autism community is and where it needs to go in a familiar place-- anger:

What have we done for our community?  Angry parents direct that question at the IACC, the CDC, NIH and Autism Speaks every day.  They say we’ve spent hundreds of millions in research, and talked about all our great accomplishments in research, yet the lives of the autistic people around them are not one bit better.  How come?

I’m beginning my seventh year as an autism advocate – whatever that means – and one thing that’s clear is that the dissatisfaction expressed by members of our community is just getting louder.  The inescapable conclusion is that the organizations that purport to be here to help are not delivering whatever it is we want or need.

I want to respond to John Elder's piece in some depth soon, but first I want you to read his arguments without my comments on them, because what he has to say is smart and important. There's a lot I agree with and a lot I disagree with, even in his final summary and call to action:

1 – We have developed a number of promising therapies – some medical, some behavioral, some environmental – that seem to offer meaningful help to certain autistic people.

2 – We see the promise of new technologies like tablet computing/apps but we’ve left most development in the hands of private companies, which leaves the resultant products unaffordable as things stand today.

3 – History shows that some of the greatest discoveries come from basic research and I believe we must continue in that direction.  At the same time, we can’t overlook the needs of people today.

4 – The reason most new therapies are not covered by insurance is that there is not a strong body of evidence that they work, nor are there standards for how they will be delivered. Consequently, insurers wriggle off the hook saying they don’t know what they’re paying for, or if it will work.  That’s why there’s such a critical need to fund studies that build evidence, and develop standards for delivery.

5 – Changing the way our education, legal, and social systems accept, engage, and help autistic people is going to be a massive and expensive effort; one that is just now beginning.  It’s even more critical as we begin to understand the true size of the autism community (including the large numbers of previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed adults.)

Please read it and think about it.

Then let's talk.

One of my primary metaphors for the autism community is the LGBT community. And, by the way, my choice not to include other letters there is deliberate, and I will not appreciate being corrected for it. Because I'm talking about history, and history is specific.

It's hard for parents of autistic people to understand that they have power that we do not, because they are themselves a disenfranchised community. How can we say that you have all the power when you are powerless to affect the changes you really need?

Well, there is power, and there is power.

And I think it might help a little bit to think about the differences between the power that the people represented by the letters L,G, B, and T have.

I'm a gay, white, man who lives in California. There are powerful organizations like the Human Rights Campaign who are going to make sure that my interests are not ignored. If I were a trans woman of color who lived in Arkansas, who would be looking out for me?  Me and my friends, that's who.

There are gay men who are taken seriously, like Nate Silver. There's a lesbian in the Senate. The L and the G are doing a lot better than the T, even though we aren't doing okay. The appearance of trans people on television or in sports can still give rise to shameless and outrageously bigoted reactions. Trans teens are less safe than gay teens, and gay teens are not safe. This segment of The Melissa Harris-Perry Show was unusual for showing real trans people in a substantial conversation on TV. I can see a gay guy talking about gay stuff on MSNBC every week. I can see a lesbian tell me the news every night.

I have the HRC behind me. I get heard in ways that transgendered people don't. I hate that. Actually, I don't like the HRC. I wish their top priorities were passing laws that made it illegal to discriminate against LGBT people in hiring or housing and getting LGBT people appointed to political positions. Instead, their top goals have been marriage equality and the repeals of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Those are good things, but they won't save as many lives as making it illegal to deny homes and work to trans `people and gay people in the states where that is still legal (most of them).

Do I have equality as a gay man? No.

Does this piss me off? Yes.

Do I have tremendous privilege, in comparison to trans people, especially if they aren't white, especially if they don't live in very blue states? Of course.

Is that my fault? No.

The parents of people with autism are represented by Autism Speaks and other powerful organizations. Parents may disagree with what Autism Speaks or the Autism Science Foundation do, they may cringe at some of the statements made by their leaders, but Autism Speaks is almost always going to get a seat at the table if they ask for one, just like the Human Rights Campaign. The HRC is never going to have a board made up mostly of B's and T's, just like the Autism Speaks board is never going to favor the interests of autistic people over the interests of our parents.

And in some ways this is fair and right. Gay people built the Human Rights Campaign and have contributed most of the money that makes it strong. Parents founded Autism Speaks and have paid to make it as powerful as it is. It's not wrong to have this power.

We just have to acknowledge it.

I don't think the organizations run by autistic people have a combined annual budget of $2 million dollars. Autism Speaks alone reported income of over $50 million and assets of over $20 million of 2010.

There's just no comparison.

And it's okay that it makes me angry that the parents of autistic people have something like 100 times the power that autistic people do.  This should make me angry, it's an unhealthy state of affairs.

Just like it's right for transgendered people to be frustrated that gay people have power that they do not.

And in each case, some members of the more powerful minority group buy in to the majority prejudices against the less powerful minority group. Christian Siriano, Dan Savage, and Ryan Murphy are all white gay men who have wounded the transgender community with unthinking bigotry. Murphy and Savage have both also done wonderful things for transgendered people.

Many parent advocates for autistic people have sometimes acted with unthinking bigotry toward autistic people. Several of those same people have also done wonderful things for us.

It's good for trans people to praise Ryan Murphy when he gets things right and complain when he gets things wrong.

It's good for me to do the same for parent advocates.

One place where both autistic adults and trans people still have to fight that gay people and the parents of autistic kids don't have to is get acknowledgement that we even exist. My friend Jay Jackson told me this story:

I look young and was going to play a teenage patient for the local hospital's "simulation day", where they would run medical simulations to test out their new pediatric ER. Once they found out I was transgender though, they asked me not to play a patient because "it is very unlikely that a young person would be transgender".

Even the MEDICAL COMMUNITY is grossly misinformed about transgender issues and it causes a lot of hurt.

I can imagine an adult with Asperger's syndrome being turned away for the same reason. I would not be as a gay man-- although someone might find an excuse to get rid of me for being gay, they would not tell me to my face that gay people are unusual. They might get rid of the parent of an autistic kid because they think it will be too much trouble to make things work, but they won't doubt your existence. That still happens to autistic adults. It still happens to trans people.

There is power, and there is power.

It's supposed to be about a spelling bee.

Michelle Nelson is supposed to be writing about the first autistic kid to compete in the spelling bee at a local elementary school.

Instead she demonstrates how we are teaching the public to fear autistic people.

First of all, this should not be seen as news. This is not a story about a kid who won his school's spelling bee. He's out on the first word. It's "Martian."

This is depicting autistic kids as so disabled that managing to stand on stage and spell a word is beyond most of them.  And, although that is true for many autistic people, I would guess that the number of Scripp's Spelling Bee winners who are off the autism spectrum is lower than the number who are on it.  Daniel Vance, who competed in 2004, was open about his Aspergers diagnosis and came in 16th in the country. Dylan's special interest was spelling when he was four. Spelling is a weird splinter skill that involves rote memory and patterns.  Spelling bees are, in part, a competition to see who can act the most autistic.

Teachers hurt their autistic students by having low expectations and failing to encourage them to participate in school activities:

"He is the first student from the autism program to participate,” said Kim Wholly, head of the program at JRE. “We haven’t really had students show an interest in previous years, so this was exciting.”

Michael had to qualify for the bee by competing with his classmates. His teachers and parents said he is one of the best in his class.

“He was the top two in his class,” said his father. “He can spell the biggest words.”

“He is a naturally good speller and is at grade level,” said Wholly. “Michael’s participation was somewhat unexpected. When he told us he wanted to take part in the schoolwide spelling bee, we ran with it.”

This is Ivar Lovaas's version of autistic success-- a child who is indistinguishable from his peers.

Autism Speaks is teaching people that autistic people are dangerous by teaching them that we lack empathy:

For many families, an autism diagnosis invokes fear and hopelessness.

An autistic person generally has trouble with empathy, explains the organization Autism Speaks (www.autismspeaks.org).

Generally, smiles or frowns have no meaning to a person with autism. Moreover, those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often express themselves through physical actions rather than the spoken word.

For example, when someone says, “Come here,” to a person with autism, the meaning does not change whether the phrase is spoken with a smile and arms wide open for a hug or with a frown and hands on hips, according to Autism Speaks.

By the time the average person reaches 5 years old, they understand others have different thoughts and feelings from them, but people diagnosed with ASD do not recognize others are separate from them.

This creates confusion, difficulty communicating and repetitive physical actions. Autistic people find it frustrating that others around them do not feel the same way they do or need and want the things at the same time they do.

As a result, for many, the spoken word seems irrelevant, said Autism Speaks.

Wholly agrees with the advocacy organization.

“Kids with autism have a tendency to exhibit aggressive and destructive behaviors frequently due to lack of expressive verbal communication, which increases the level of frustration,” she said.

In case you didn't understand how Simon Baron Cohen's "autistic people lack empathy" myth is responsible for people blaming autism for mass violence, or doubted the role that Autism Speaks continues to play in encouraging people to link autism and violence, read over that again.  That is exactly how it happens.

It should become a part of accepted journalistic ethics that reporters include a quote from an autistic person when they write about autism.

Nelson is so bad at her job that she does not even include a quote from Michael. She could have written an accurate story if she bothered to speak with an autistic adult.

This story is meant to celebrate an autistic boy's success. Instead, it teaches readers that autistic kids are totally incompetent and that their lack of empathy makes them dangerous.

Thanks, Michelle Nelson!

Thanks, Kim Wholly, of Julia Randall Elementary School!

Thanks, Autism Speaks!

No, no, no.

No, Nikki Lines.

It's not okay to compare your autistic son to a terrorist.

It's not okay that you still feel like you are mourning the neurotypical child you thought you had, more than a decade after diagnosis.

It's not okay to wish he had gotten therapy when he was younger, not so he would be thriving more, but so that you and your family would fit in better.

I do not fault you-- at all-- for the fact that you are unable to care for Garrett, resulting in him going to live in a mental hospital at age twelve.  But good parenting helps more than "a bit." 

And parents who hate their own kids destroy them, whether those kids have autism or not.

No, reporter Julia Lyon of the Salt Lake City Tribune.

It's not okay to depict autistic people as monsters for a general audience.

It's not okay to keep pushing the same bigoted picture of autistic kids as malevolent creatures, out to ruin our parents lives, that bad writers have been using since the infamous 1965 "Screams, Slaps, and Love".

It's not okay to demonize autistic individuals in an effort to dramatize the need for services.

No, Peter Bell of Autism Speaks.

It's not okay for you to keep telling reporters that this is the right way to talk about autism and autistic people.

It's not okay for Autism Speaks to keep sending the message that autistic people are nothing but burdens and that our parents are our victims.

It's not okay for Autism Speaks to let you keep talking to reporters if the organization is serious about not continuing to hurt autistic people in the name of awareness