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Two Tylers: Bullying and Why Autistic People Need to Know About Gay Rights

Submitted by Landon Bryce on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 13:26
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Last week, ABC's 20/20 was about bullying. The hardest sequences for me to watch was this one, which is about Tyler Long, who was bullied because of his Aspergers. He hanged himself, and the school took no action when other students made fun of his suicide by wearing nooses around their necks.

There are two Tyler's in this video: Tyler Long, whose parents were unable to convince his school to even hold a moment of silence for him, and Tyler Clementi, a gay student who also killed himself, and whose death has caused demonstrations of mourning across the nation.  I have the traits that caused both boys to be a target for bullies: I am autistic and gay.

If you can stand to watch the video, I think it's really worth it, to understand how important it is that we all work to help and protect each other. Click here to watch it,  and read some further comments from me.

 

 

As the concept for this blog has developed in my mind, I have decided to write about both gay issues and autism issues. It is important to me be openly gay in the autistic community because some people with autism who I have known have found it an unusual experience to interact with a person they know is gay. I think this is partly because people with autism tend not to know that many people, and also because we may not notice the sort of subtle social cues that people often use to let others know about things like sexual orientation.

I think it's important for people who care about autism to know about gay issues because I think the gay rights movement gives us the best model for our own civil rights movement, just as the African-American fight for equality was the best model for gay people to follow. There are a lot of differences between being black and being gay, but the two groups faced some similar problems that arose from being minority groups subject to legal and societal bigotry. Gay people used the campaign waged by African Americans both as a model for our own actions and as a metaphor to help people understand our struggle.

In his superb profile of Ari Ne'eman, the first openly autistic autistic presidential appointee, Steve Silberman draws the parallel between the gay rights movement and autistic rights movement:

The notion that autistic people — often portrayed in the media as pitiable loners — would not only wear their diagnosis proudly, but want to make common cause with other autistic people, is still a radical one. Imagine a world in which most public discussion of homosexuality was devoted to finding a cure for it, rather than on the need to address the social injustices that prevent gay people from living happier lives. Though the metaphor is far from exact (for example, gay people obviously don’t face the impairments that many autistic people do), that’s the kind of world that autistic people live in.
 
I think one of the best things that people with autism can do is learn about the ways that gay people have succeeded in changing the ways that society in general talks and thinks about us.  Gay people do not have equality, but we no longer live in a world where it is impossible to see positive models of ourselves or messages of support.  Most people are now uncomfortable displays of blatantly cruel statements about gay people.
 
Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" Project is an excellent example of the sort of support gay kids have now that was unthinkable when Savage and I were kids.  Savage created the project in response to the rash of suicides of gay kids that has taken place in the last month.  The idea is for adults who are gay or who support gay poeple to use YouTube to speak directly to gay kids who feel discouraged.
 
I'm not sure it's true yet that it gets better if you have autism.  For some of us it does; for others, it doesn't.  What is undeniably true is that people with autism are treated with more respect and care now than at any time in the past.  And that we have the power to keep making progress.
 
I do not hope to live in a world when people with autism are regarded as equals.  That world is too far away.  The questions regarding our identies and abilities are extremely complex, and we have only just begun to explore them.  But change is not only possible, it is happening.
 
There is, for the first time, an openly autistic person, appointed  by the president, working for the government to help people understand us.  Autism Speaks, although still not my favorite organization, has been helping Alex Plank to produce Autism Talk TV.  This year, their Night of Too Many Stars event has pledged that the money raised will not go to seeking a cure but to "Autism education."  This is how change happens.
 
Let's do everything we can to encourage it.  Starting by supporting each other.