Beginning to round out the autism threads now, bringing them back home as to why this all belongs on Global Dark Theme.

Hashtags that've brought matters along to this point :

#Spring2020AutisticLockdown (~18)
#LatN (5)
#GDTautismIntro (8)
#WhoTalks (13)
#LivingInFear (2)
#DPSO! (7)
#traumapants (next)
#pantrauma (later)

Spoiler: none of this, it turns out, has anything to do with autism.

It has everything to do with trauma.

An experience not at all limited to autistics.

In sum then, this account's focus is the drama of civilizational overshoot. Autism informs that drama more than I'd realized. So I'll be posting about that intersection as well.

Perhaps of special interest to Twitter refugees is that autistics recognize Elon Musk as an "Aspie Supremacist."

Don't, in other words, blame us. Remember, we already distanced ourselves from Asperger.

*And no, it didn't escape me that "creatures of the swamp" is a dehumanization. ¯\(ツ)/¯

[fin]

#GDTautismIntro

Here on Mastodon, you're boosting hopeful links about yet another newly identified "cause" of autism.

All while you'd be outraged to read the same story as applied to LGBTQ folks.

It's Mastodon, dude. We're safe here to unplug from the Matrix and not be smarmy, genocidal creeps.

Grant money is plentiful for that sort of work, yes.

Reputable researchers just don't apply to receive those grants.

Came real close to unfollowng you today.

Decided instead to write this thread.

#GDTautismIntro

Autism is inherent and innate.

No one "has" autism.

We are autistic.

Yet, young autistics and their parents, penned in by stigma and fear, are factory milked by an industry offering abusive therapies and hopes of "cure," to the tune now of four trillion dollars annually.

This grossly distorts the incentive structure for autism research. Also for media coverage of autism and autistics. To the point that as regards autism you yourself are almost certainly asleep in the Matrix.

#GDTautismIntro

As we watch "creatures* from the swamp rewrite their own Mein Kampf," remember autism is a creation of Nazified Austria.

If there's any one place where what we're all so freshly fearful of has set agendas for us all along, it's in our "understanding" of autism.

Autistics disowned Asperger when his clinic's archives were finally unearthed. A few years earlier even, autistics in the circle I used to run in successfully lobbied to get Asperger's Syndrome removed from the DSM.

#GDTautismIntro

Autism is a war zone.

Autistics, trying to live our lives.

And an obscenely well-funded, decades-old mis- and dis-information campaign that puts into perspective today's struggle over accurate info in a time of pandemic.

This pandemic, granted, may last for decades.

Autistics however already have generations of struggle under our belts.

Not against autism.

Against inaccurate, dehumanizing models of autism.

#GDTautismIntro

This thread then is an fyi, a position statement mostly for non-autistics who may be new to the perspectives of actual autistic people.

If you'd like to argue, take these two books:

Steve Silberman's NeuroTribes

Shannon Des Roches Rosa's Thinking Person's Guide to Autism

Set them up on a sturdy music stand, and shake your finger at them while explaining how wrong we are and why.

They speak for me, at any rate, and are widely embraced by other actual autistics as well.

#GDTautismIntro

I've been fascinated, and horrified, by the interplay between autism and society for 25 years now.

Some of those years, I was well-connected and active daily in autism self-advocacy circles. In a position that involved seeking out and amplifying the work of autistics who were blogging about autism.

When I conceived Global Dark Theme, I'd no idea how much I could post about autism and civilizational overshoot. But we're about due here for me to set the table on this topic.

#GDTautismIntro

@jonielena:

"... I am once again BEGGING journalists to learn the meaning and history of the term "Aspie Supremacist."

You literally cannot understand Elmo's mindset - or longtermism - without it.

As always, my respects for the autistic people - especially nonspeakers and those with high support needs - who successfully organized against Aspie supremacists and kicked them out of the Neurodiversity movement.

This is a decades-long fight and people should know the history."

#GDTautismIntro