It’s April, so you know it’s about to get real bloody frustrating trying to be heard over the like of Autism Speaks and other problematic groups claiming to represent “people with autism”.
When it comes to the notorious Autism Speaks there is one thing in particular that we should facing up to. Cure culture.
Cure culture is the ultimate way to show autistic people that you do not accept them for who they are. It starts with better known interventions, such as ABA, and spreads all the way to dangerous quack cures such as Miracle Mineral Solution/Chlorine Dioxide abuse.
Why does society want to cure us? Because it values the status quo over the beauty of human diversity. Unless your quirkiness somehow makes you economically valuable, the world seeks to stamp it out. It’s the ultimate way that capitalistic society harms autistic people. Some people will literally murder autistic people rather than embrace our neurodiversity.
Let me lay it out for you. There is no cure for autism. Taking autism out of the person is like taking the engine out of a car. The car no longer functions as a car. Being autistic is our physical wiring, without it, we would not be who we are.
This is what upsets me so much when I see parents and carers seeking to “cure” their autistic children and loved ones. Yes, we face daily struggles, but how much do you have to resent your child in order to want to change them into a completely different person?
That’s what it comes down to. Resentment. The world resents us for existing. It resents us because we demand equal rights, and the world has to put in work to meet those demands. The old rules of “more rights for me, does not mean less for you” has never rung more true.
If I could stamp out one thing this April, it would be cure culture.
This April, please listen to and amplify #ActuallyAutistic voices. Be an ally to the autistic community.
