AUTISM PRIDE.
My second cousin told me that when he was a boy at school in 1942, the principal told his teacher to cane him to stop him from using his left hand. His teacher refused. If corporal punishment was not used, some kids had their left hand tied behind their back and told to write with their right hand. One of my ironies is that I write with my right hand, but I find it easier to text with my left.
One thing I have heard is, why should people be proud of what they can’t control? To which my answer is, “If you had spent your life being told that who and what you are was wrong, and you were finally able to live as you were intended, why shouldn’t you?”
To examine a movement in which we intersect, I think of the LGBTIQA Movement and a biblical passage frequently referred to as it being unnatural for two people of the same sex to be attracted to one another. In the biblical context, natural means customary, but it does not mean that two people of the same sex are wrong to be attracted to one another, it’s how THEY were intended to be.
I remember being in a church and seeing a flyer that said, “Are you experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction? Talk to so-and-so who has experience in this matter,” to which I say, “They want to make people into someone they’re not,” and left the church soon after.
Once homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973, and the horrific treatments to which people were subjected, such as electric shock therapy, aversion therapy and others, and once it was decriminalised in some countries, people were able to march in freedom. The right-wing frequently carries on with, “Why do they need this? We don’t,” but what they ignore is, if you had to spend your life being ashamed of who you were, why wouldn’t you want to celebrate being able to be who you are? One night a year the streets of Sydney are closed off for the Mardi Gras, but these people are allowed to live as LGBTIQA every day and night. These people also have the right to live their lives without fear of physical, verbal or non-verbal abuse from those who may not like them.
One of the most offensive statements I saw from an anti-gay protestor was that God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. And well, I hate to break it to you, but if you believe God created all human beings, then God did create Adam and Steve.
We were born autistic. We did not suddenly become autistic following a vaccination or some other incident. Nor did we suddenly become autistic when we started school. We can’t control the fact that we’re autistic, but the general public CAN control how it reacts to us.
Looking back on my own childhood, I can remember pacing the backyard with a story going on in my head. I can remember my mother and my maternal grandfather telling me that it was stupid and that I would be locked up. What I needed was an autism expert to say, “No, your son/grandson is NOT stupid. He’s autistic. We are NOT going to tell him to mask his symptoms, we are going to help him find the right school where he can be safe.”
The fear of being locked up stayed with me for a long time. I even remember my father jokingly saying, when I said I saw a police car driving up and down the street, that they’d probably come back to check out my friend and I before getting on the radio to say, “Wolston Park, Wolston Park, are you missing two inmates?” I was not, of course, a criminal, but I was led to fear institutions.
I am trying to teach my nephew that he has two uncles and I say to him, “Uncle James is your neurotypical uncle and Uncle Pete is your autistic uncle.” I believe that if people are exposed to differences from a young age, they will be less fearful and more understanding. But part of that has to come from the parents. Parents need to teach their kids that difference needs to be accepted.
Autistic people should never be shamed for being autistic or bullied for being different, we need to be accepted and a sense of pride needs to be fostered. And a sense that you don’t need a cure, you need to be accepted for who you are and be proud of it. Just like you can’t look in the mirror and say, “I don’t want to have brown eyes, I want blue.” Or, “I don’t want to have curly hair, I want to have straight hair,” you don’t get a say over whether you’re gay, straight, bi, left or right handed, or autistic or neurotypical.
The last word really goes to Stephanie Elizabetta Germanotta (aka Lady Gaga), “I’m on the right track, Baby, I was born this way!”