REPLACE CURE WITH MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.
E. M. Forster was an author, remembered by such works as, A Passage To India and Howard’s End, and a man who valued personal relations, thus making the statement, “If I had to choose between betraying my country or betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” But what is not widely known, other than by those interested, is that E. M. Forster was a closeted homosexual.
Like autistics, homosexuals were viewed, up until 1973, as mentally ill, and one could be imprisoned or subjected to HORRIBLE treatments for just being themselves. The decriminalisation of homosexuality and the criminalisation of homophobia, in many countries, has made the world a better place for LGBTIQA people. Not to mention the Safe Schools Project in Australia and the number of countries that have legislated for Marriage Equality.
Transgender rights are currently under threat in the USA with a backward thinking, nationalistic leader and vice, who want to take the country back to the 1930s.
All of the positive work that is being done around the world for LGBTIQA people by progressive governments is improving the rights for a minority group. The same needs to be done for autistics.
Forcing autistic kids and adults to become indistinguishable from their neurotypical peers is akin to the widely condemned Gay Conversion Therapy. And no more is this obvious than the fact that some of the former leaders of Gay Conversion Clinics have moved away and lived their lives as homosexuals.
Teach social skills, by all means, but don’t knock the autism out of the autistic person.
A painful memory I have of my school years was of an obnoxious little so and so who made the idiotic statement to me, “Imagine if you had a bump on the head and you changed.” What the obnoxious little so and so needed to be told was, “He doesn’t have to be like you. He doesn’t go looking for you at lunchtime; he’s not interested in you, so leave him be. If you want to play football, you go and play football, if he wants to sit by himself and eat his lunch and go to the library and read, HE can!”
You’re not going to like, gel with or even love every person you meet, that’s just life, but what you do NOT have the right to do is push another to be like you. Okay, I usually judge people by their politics, and unless someone who is diametrically opposed to me has a particularly good heart, they’re unlikely to be friends with me. I knew one man who was a trump supporting redneck, but his only redeeming qualities were, he didn’t push his beliefs onto others, and if someone who was from a group that he didn’t respect had a redeeming quality, he gave them time. For example, he had a kidney condition and he owed his survival for a few more years to a Chinese doctor, even though he wasn’t pro-multiculturalism, but he respected this doctor.