STOP! PRESS!
I remember the inspiration for the fictional Redmond Mountford, as he turned the tap on a Japanese-made gas cylinder, after having driven for two hours in a Japanese-made vehicle that he owned, making the offensive statement, after a mention of Japanese food, that they should be sent back to Japan. My mother made the statement that the fictional Redmond Mountford had Chinese in him (well, let's put this into context, he didn't KNOW his great-grandfather was Chinese until after his mother died, and two possible reasons I can think of as to why are, the way Australia's population and immigration policies worked or, she feared his reaction, knowing his attitudes). What he didn't consider was, no matter how racist he was, and no matter what he said (he hated anyone who wasn't Anglo-Australian) if it weren't for Asian people, he wouldn't have been born.
I have said to my mother that had we known that I'm autistic when we knew the inspiration for the fictional Redmond Mountford, she would have been able to escape the socialising she hated as Dad could have said to his wife, who was his work colleague, "I'm sorry, but our eldest son is autistic, so large gatherings like you want are overwhelming and uncomfortable for him." Bearing in mind, Redmond's wife wasn't the type of woman who would have said, "Okay, I'll set up a quiet corner for Peter and he can sit there by himself if he feels overwhelmed, or he can sit and watch TV in the games room if he wants to." Even though, Dad said, "Oh, but she would have said, "Oh, we can take care of that,"" she would not have listened to expert advice.
Yesterday, I had someone accuse me of being cruel because I said I didn't want anyone who supported a cure for autism on my friends list and they said that I was content to see someone suffer. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth!
I suggest that some parents of autistic kids when pushing for a cure are guilty of the same thing as parents who send their teenage kids to gay conversion therapy because their church doesn't accept homosexuality. In fact, I have known of gay people who have lived a visage of a heteronormative life, only to develop mental health problems, and I even remember meeting two gay men once, one of whom said that he had been married to a woman for 30 years but his same-sex attraction was always in the back of his mind. I remember also, reading about a woman who married her then husband in 1986, and after she had gone interstate for something, she noticed a packet of condoms in the boot of their car, with one missing, which she thought unusual as she was on the pill at the time. Her husband said that they belonged to a work colleague he'd given a lift to. She believed it, and the following year, they had their first daughter. Nine years later, she had been interstate for a family funeral, and what struck me as odd was, she went by herself. I would have thought that a loving, supportive partner would have gone with her. Anyway, she was away for around a week, and then, the telephone bill arrived with around $3000 worth of phone calls to a gay chat line. Her husband said that their must have been a mistake. She rang the phone company to ask about that only to find the bill had been paid with her husband's work credit card! Then, he had to confess that he was gay.
Similarly, a transwoman I remember had played football and served in the British Air Force and had been married twice. When his (NO, these are NOT the words of a TERF, this was before transition) wife was away, he shaved off his beard and bought make-up. He then broke down and confessed to being transsexual and underwent the process to become the woman she was meant to be.
Forcing a person to act in a less autistic manner is cruel. And just like the above examples, it causes mental health concerns.
A song that has been performed and covered by numerous singers is, "Love The One You're With," and this is a song that applies the wrong type of love in the wrong context. The lyrics, "If you can't be with the one you love, Honey, love the one you're with." What you have to ask is why can't you be with the one you love? If you can't be with the one you love, because they're away, wait for them to come back. If the one you love doesn't love you back, well, you'll never be with the one you love. Romantic love is required to be mutual. Love for a child is not the same type of love. If you can't have the child you want, you have to love the child you've got. So, sending a child to therapy to make them less autistic is the same as wanting a boy but getting a girl and forcibly dressing her in boy's clothes! If you wanted a girl but got a boy and he wanted to transition, well, you have to accept that. Despite what the conservatives say, parents do not force their children to undergo this, psychologists and doctors VERY CAREFULLY assess children before deciding whether they meet the criteria! It is child abuse to force a child who is transgender to act like the gender they were assigned at birth.
And just like it is child abuse to force a transgender child to behave like the gender they were assigned at birth, or to force an LGBTIQA child to behave like a heterosexual, it is abusive to force an autistic person to act like a neurotypical!