Autistic people can speak for themselves

Illustration of Cheyanne Abel

Terror, the act of deliberately arousing the fear or alarm of the public in the face of a particular problem, has always been a powerful tactic.
Fear and hate are what motivated the separation images in the MCCC library.
Racist public campaigns describe black children as criminals. Fat people are often cruelly considered stupid and without dignity. The KKK, white nationalists and other groups have used fear as a means of demonizing minorities.
These examples of extreme hatred have reminded me of another eugenic group.
Autism Speaks (AS) plans to "cure" the world of autism. Bob and Suzanne Wright, grandparents of an autistic child, were founded in AS in February 2005.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a guide created by the American Psychiatric Association to diagnose mental disorders, people with ASD have: difficulties in communication and interaction with other people, restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, and symptoms that interfere with the person's ability to function properly in school, at work and in other areas of life .
AS may mislead others with its concerns for people with ASD, but its goal is to remove children with ASD.
When I was in high school, I created a presentation on ASD.
For this presentation, I used several information providers, including Autism Speaks.
I later discovered how dangerous and dishonest SA was and, on behalf of Autism Awareness Month, I thought I would share my discoveries.
When you search for Google's "Autism," Autism Speaks is the first thing that pops up and leads internet users to a collection of lies. AS describes autism as something to be eradicated and those who suffer as helpless and indifferent.
To include people with autism in the discussion, I spoke to my youngest sister, 17-year-old Isabelle Younglove, who was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in primary school.
Asperger is a developmental disorder characterized by severe difficulties in social interaction and non-verbal communication, as well as patterns of behavior and narrow and repetitive interests.
Isabelle discussed her views and thoughts on ASD.
"Imagine a glacier in which the person who makes the ice cream (the brain of the person) chooses toppings (neurodivergence symptoms) at random," Younglove said.
"Some toppings might be tastier than others. People could confuse cones with some other trimmings with the words "without trim."
"Some people are fools who deny the fact that a cone of ice cream is ice cream because of the toppings. Sometimes a filling is detrimental to the general taste of the cone or sometimes it makes it even better. Sometimes a cone does not have any trim at all. "
AS considers spectrum users to be suffering on the basis of the organization's advertising messages and the site's own words.
An example of AS's twisting and lying on autism can be seen in their advertising. The "I Am Autism" advertisement has been removed from AS's YouTube account, but it can still be viewed through other cruel and alarming advertising publications that describes autism as a disease.
The ad shows videos of children seemingly autistic. Viewers know that they have autism because of a serious voice that speaks of sinister music.
"I'm visible to your kids, but I'm not visible until it's too late," the ad says.
"If you're married, I'll make your marriage fail. Your money will fall into my hands and I will bankrupt you for my own gain.
"I do not sleep so I make sure you do not sleep either. It will be virtually impossible for your family to easily attend a temple, a birthday party, a public park without struggle, without embarrbadment, without pain.
"You have no cure for me."
This is just an example of AS describing autism as something to be feared, and those with it are infected and are not really your children.
"Autism Speaks is not a safe organization," Younglove said. "He does not care to accept the autistic, and his messages inspire fear and hatred towards them."
In November 2014, Suzanne Wright spoke in front of the Vatican and then presented her point of view on the ASD.
"Let's all be honest: autism is unlike anything we've experienced before," she said. "And there is a lot of suffering in our autistic families."
Wright even compared those in the spectrum to lepers in the Bible, the pariahs of society infected with a chronic infectious disease.
"Autism forces parents and caregivers to slow down the fast pace of our modern world and look into the eyes of our loved ones, as did St. Francis with the leper. "
It is this attitude that deters people with ASD from the organization. These are the voices we should listen to, the ones that have an ASD, not the ones that demonize it.
Autistic Advocacy is an honest organization that badists and represents people in the spectrum because its members actually have ASD.
According to Autism Advocacy, only 1.6% of the Autism Speaks budget is dedicated to Family Service Grants. It is the means of financing the services of the organization.
"Autism Speaks spends 10 times more, or 16%, in fundraising," says the site.
"While Autism Speaks has not prioritized services that have a practical impact on families and individuals in its budget, its executive pay rates are the highest in the world of autism: some salaries exceed $ 500,000 a year.
One of AS's main criticisms is the lack of board members or members of the organization who are truly autistic.
Some members of the organization with autism, such as John Elder Robinson. According to Robinson, the author resigned from AS in 2013 after a series of outrageous comments by the company's founders.
AS sees autism as a disease to heal, something deadly that needs to be removed from the gene pool.
The search for a cure for autism not only harms the autistic community, but constitutes a personal attack on their very existence.