WHY "TOO PROUD FOR A CURE" IS WRONG ON ALL FRONTS.

Let's begin by exploring the word "wrong". A synonym for wrong is incorrect. And unlike right, which has more than one meaning, wrong doesn't, but it can have more than one context. A person can be factually wrong, for example, if you said that Hiroshima was bombed by the Germans on February 12, 1918, you would be wrong, as the correct date is August 6, 1945 and it was by the Americans, not the Germans.

But what if you had spent most of your life being told you were "wrong" when what you really were was different?

Now, if you went to Japan and blew your nose in public, you would be labelled culturally insensitive by those who knew that the cultural mores in Japan were that you sniff because it is a sign of contempt and considered dirty to return a used cloth to your pocket and if you were Japanese and sniffed in Australia, you may be considered dirty, unless you knew the difference in etiquette.

So, if you were same-sex attracted, and voices around you condemned those of a similar leaning, you would feel anxious about revealing it. And I personally, have known people who have, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be living in heterosexual relationships, but were suppressing their true sexual orientation. Not withstanding electric shock therapy or imprisonment, some of the conventional therapy for Same-Sex attracted people was, by psychiatrists, to say, "Look, find a good partner of the opposite sex, have a good sex life, and your homosexuality will disappear." Well, that was wrong, as some people have been in heterosexual relationships for two or three decades, and when they can suppress it no longer, finally come out.

The author of an article I read today, said that us neuro-diversity advocates were rebelling in the street and were too proud to accept a cure. Well, just like the LGBTIQA Community, and, to give an older example, just like the shearers in Central Queensland, who had been working twelve hour days, the eight-hour day, with the division of the day into eight hours work, eight hours sleep, eight hours leisure, came about because people said, "Enough!" The shearers helped to form the Australian Labor Party at Barcaldine, in 1891. The LGBTIQA Community said, "Enough! We are not going to be treated like second class citizens anymore!" Now, the autistic community is saying, "Enough! We do not want to be subjected to ABA, PBS, or being moulded into neuro-typicality! We want to be accepted for who we are!"

One of the arguments that proponents of a cure put forward is, "What about these others?" And my response is, "Well, you have to ask somebody who is autistic if they feel they're missing out on anything." If you ask a footballer who sustains a head injury that affects their brain and they experience a stroke or epileptic seizures, and they're told not to play football again, they may carry anger and resentment, but these later give way to acceptance and they may enjoy football as a spectator.

As an autistic, I did not have dreams of becoming a sports star. I don't even watch sport on television. Okay, I am pleased if the Canberra Raiders win a match, but that's because the coach, Ricky Stuart, has an autistic daughter, not because I like the game. So does autism prevent me from doing things I want to do? In a word, no.

We also have to consider the difference between a person who is born blind and a person who develops blindness later in life. If you'd had 20–20 vision most of your life, and you went blind due to glaucoma or had some sort of an eye injury (I remembered reading about a guy who was out and about in the city, at night, who was attacked by a gang of youths who inflicted wounds that robbed him of the sight in one eye. He found it difficult to read at lectures, but I don't know if he was angry or bitter) you may feel differently to if you'd been blind since birth and had no idea what it meant to see.

Contrary to the "experts" autistic people are born autistic. We were not developing typically until we were then exposed to an environmental trigger that caused us to regress. If anyone speaks of regressive autism, it can be if somebody is exposed to a trauma and they cease to talk, or they become stressed, but that does not mean they're suddenly autistic, they were always autistic but regressed somewhat. And many of us, myself included, don't want a cure for autism because we value the talents that autism has given us, be it memory skills, be it calculation skills, be it any number of things, AND, our experience of neuro-typicality is clouded by bullying and we do not wish to emulate those bullies.

So, it is time for the cure movement to leave us alone and let us be our proud autistic selves, in the same way as homosexuality (and this week, transgenderism) has been removed from the DSM and declassified as a mental illness. Yes, many of us may have mental health concerns (I do, too) but curing autism is NOT the answer to those.