is-the-autism-platform-ethical

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One of the most radical things you can do as a disabled person is live and be happy.

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I'm sorry the sniper thing is for a fanfic.

You're good. If you wanna ask more autism questions, feel free to send them to my main, authorgirl0131.

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Can autistic people be snipers? To be honest I don't know how I would cope with other snipers hunting me down since I don't know where they're at because they're so damn good at hiding. I don't know if I could work in a team because my listening skills are shit because of my auditory processing disorder.

https://www.wired.com/2014/03/hidden-snipers/

I mean, probably? My expertise is autism acceptance, not assassination, but it's probably a viable career option with proper accommodations.

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Can you look at treatautism.ca?

Sorry this took me so long. And ohh boy

My rating; Evil

Reasons

Number one, the name itself is a red flag. Anything that talks about treating autism puts me on edge because treating almost always means "curing" or abusive "therapies" that force the child to act allistic. There are a few exceptions, but it's still a red flag for me.

Number two, there is so much pseudoscience it's almost ridiculous. Cholera does not cause autism. Probiotics cannot treat autism. There is no preventing autism. Autistic children are not in pain because of our autism, we're in pain because places like this one promote fake ideas and misinformation.

Number three, they are legitimately looking into eugenics. They are looking into the biology behind autism, genes where potential mutations could cause autism. Why? So preventative action (probably abortion or, gods forbid, genetic modification of human children and fetuses) can be taken. That is actual, legitimate eradication effort.

ADHD also does not need eradicated. I like having ADHD, it helps me with stuff. Obviously many symptoms are not beneficial, but I don't think the entire disability needs eradicated. OCD, yes, treatments should be available, but treatments through pseudoscience and genetic modification are absolutely the last thing we need. I have no place to stand on tic disorders, but I don't think pseudoscience and genetic modification are what people with Tourette's want, either. Cod oil will not help, stop acting like it will.

No autistic board members or doctors I could find

They are trying to stop stimming and echolalia. I couldn't imagine trying to live my life without being able to stim. It's how I express emotions, how I release them in a healthy way before they build up and explode. Stimming is inherent in humans, even in allistic humans. And they are trying to stop it.

This place, I don't even need to look into their social media. I could not find one good thing on their website, everything was misinformed at best and outright dangerous and genocidal at worst. I'm going to warn every autistic viewing this- do not go onto this site. It is actually depressing how much these people want to get rid of us.

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can you rank, if you haven’t already- Asiam ( As I am) it’s an organisation in Ireland. Thanks

My ranking; a light-to-moderate proceed with caution.

My reasons

Apart from one major nitpick, this organization seems to do everything right. It is founded by an autistic person and there are several autistic people on the board, some of them young (I believe the youngest was 19) and some older (I think he looked 60-70,) and everyone else, apart from the financial advisors, seems to have a long history in autism. Short of paying a couple hundred dollars to read books they've published, my research doesn't lead me to conclude the allistic members should cause concern. They actively criticize ABA and warn parents away from any "treatments" (and yes, they put "treatments" in quotation marks exactly like I do) that seek to make someone appear less autistic. All articles I viewed are written in a way that suggests they were written by autistic people, though I am unable to verify if the authors are actually autistic. I can find no red flags in their practices, research, or hiring

However

This is my only worry, but this organization links multiple worrying sources in their directory and follows multiple worrying sources on their social medias- one of these being NAS, which I also did a post about. However, I should stress that this is my only issue. However, they follow just as many, if not more, positive sources.

My overall belief is that this is a good one. I simply advise caution because I'm not sure what to make of the organizations they link and how or if that affects their policies.

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National Autistic Society (NAS)

My rating- bad. In fact, I am extremely close to giving them the evil label.

My reasons;

Their history is horrifying. Not only were they the origin of the ableist puzzle piece, which originally included a crying child to push the incorrect message that children suffer because of autism, they have an extremely long and seemingly continuing history of taking part in research into the cause of autism. There was also a huge scandal about some very, very troubling abuse happening at their schools. The fact that none of this is acknowledged at all on their website is very concerning

Their present activities are horrifying. TEACCH, as far as I can tell, is basically ABA with a cute new name (not that the NAS website has any information on TEACCH.) In three hours of scouring the profiles of every TEACCH therapist I could find, I could not find a single one that didn't follow pro-ABA accounts or dangerous sources. All information provided by NAS puts a lot of effort into avoiding saying what actually happens in a TEACCH session, what practices are used and the goals of the therapy. To this day, NAS refuses to condemn ABA for the harm that it has done. Why am I talking about TEACCH when they apparently don't endorse it anymore? Because last time I went onto their site to find out more about them, around one month ago, that was the therapy they used. Now they use PBS, and guess how much information they give about that?

They are not giving out any information that would either back them up or discredit them. On the few pages that have a sources tab, that tab cannot be viewed. They are vague about everything they do.

There are no autistic board members, at least that I can see. If a board member has an autistic family member it is mentioned, but if someone on that board is autistic, that is not mentioned.

I know I keep coming back to this but there is practically no real information on their website. They are dancing around every point and are refusing to say anything helpful. There is no information on their website to make a solid conclusion out of. I cannot stress to you how much of a red flag this is. If this was for non-autistic people, people would think the schools and employment a human trafficking front. In order to get any actual information on their interests and practices you have to really dig and that is extremely shady.

The fact that they're followed by every single bad autism platform is worrying to me

The fact that they sent an ABA therapist to force an autistic child to speak for the first time on Supernanny is extremely worrying to me.

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So, upon investigating National Autistic Society

No. Absolutely not. Not only is their history a box of red flags, they haven't changed. They won't admit ABA is wrong and follow people and platforms that endorse it. TEACCH is, from what I can tell, way too much like ABA and the TEACCH account (and all of the therapists I've found that practice TEACCH) follows horrible organizations, ABA therapists, and some extremely worrying autism schools. This organization is Autism Speaks level bad- if anything it's far more insidious, because it looks like a good organization until you really dig deep.

Expect my full report within the hour.

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An Open Letter to the People Who Support Autism Speaks

Autism Speaks is eighteen years old. The age they should start dismissing themselves as being an authority on autism like they do with autistic adults if they cared about consistency at all.

They were founded in 2005 by a couple of Hollywood executives who grieved the diagnosis of their grandchild. This was a full dozen years after the seminal "Don't Mourn For Us" by Jim Sinclair was penned and presented.

From the beginning, Autism Speaks was anti-autism. They sought a "cure" they could use to erase our existence from the planet, they fomented anti-vax conspiracies which are still plaguing our society today, and they fostered and continue to foster an environment supportive and understanding of child-murder.

But. They were connected to celebrity. And they had the endowment and reach to become the largest anti-autism group in the nation and world.

The primary method of advertising which Autism Speaks used from the beginning is known as "fear appeal".

Typically, they frame autistic children as changeling-like creatures which replace the allistic or neurotypical child you had with one which will never love you and will tear apart your family.

Autism Speaks spotlights the worst of having an autistic family member and pulls the drapes on any mitigating circumstances or assistance. They emphasize the burden we are and the harm caused to our families by our existence.

Autism Speaks then goes on to frame themselves as being the solution and the experts on everything autism. They say, don't listen to autistic people, listen to their parents and other people who have been negatively affected by their existence. Listen to these cherry-picked examples.

They talk vaguely about support for autistic children and families while they campaign ceaselessly to find the genes which contributed to making us... so they can unmake us.

As you might expect for people who frame themselves as being the victim of their children's existences, they have been easily taken in by snake-oil salesmen and conspiracy theorists.

To this day, Autism Speaks continues to emphasize the "environmental causes of autism" even while fully knowing (from the millions of dollars of research they put in pursuing a debunked study) that autism appears to be primarily genetic and our environment really only affects our presentations as autistic, not our realities as autistic.

"Environmental causes" is a dog whistle for vaccines because they no longer feel it is profitable for them to explicitly encourage widespread death and alternative disabilities of children, so they have started only alluding to it and finally, years after the study was debunked and retracted, agree that vaccines do not cause autism.

"Environmental causes" is also a dog whistle for things like heavy metal poisoning causing autism and various other external things that can be "taken care of" via chelation therapy and bleaching our insides. Yes, Autism Speaks is at least partially responsible for spreading bleach "cures".

I believe they've taken it down since I first started advocating for SPLC to recognize Autism Speaks as a hate group—something autistic persons have recognized for years—but as recently as a year ago they were still directing people to seek out these "cures".

They worded it in such a way that it was, "These 'cures' do not work and can cause harm, but you should talk to people who tried them for their children and see for yourself."

It's cruelty for cruelty's sake. Or it's believing scientifically disproven things in a way that promotes the torture of children.

Which brings us to arguably their biggest crime against humanity and against autistic people specifically thus far: the advancement of behaviorism or behavioral conditioning as the "treatment" for autism.

Behaviorism, that is, conversion therapy torture. When done on autistic people, it is commonly called ABA or PBS.

This is another reason why they cling to "environmental causes", because behaviorism is entirely consumed with external presentation.

Autism is a pervasive neurological state which colors every aspect of our lives. Their "solution" is to deny our reality, break us to their will, and have us pretend to be "normal".

Through their efforts, they have ensured conversion therapy is not just used, but frequently the only choice for covered treatment of autistic children.

I say "choice", but the torture is sometimes court-mandated (and this is more common when the parents are marginalized-by-society in some way themselves).

Autism Speaks is so very proud of their government influence. Shortly before I started the petition, I watched in horror as their testimony scuttled a bill at the state level intended to help autistic children which had the support of their parents because not enough torture was included in the "help".

People say they've "changed", yet it's not like their institution is so hallowed and sacrosanct that it is necessary to keep around even as it is continues to encourage harm and death to autistic children and autistic adults.

Autism Speaks is the multi-headed hydra of anti-autism rhetoric and hate in the world today. They have so many branches and have infiltrated so deeply that many of their supporters ( I hope ) are not even aware of the hateful rhetoric and active harm they spread.

People tend not to even question the premise that autistic humans are better off dead than alive, people have for ages not even thought of us as human. Autism Speaks recommends starting behavioral conditioning as early as possible in children as young as two. The least intensive programs they recommend are for dozens of hours a week.

This is what they recommend, push, and lobby for with *all* autistic children.

If they become able to accurately recognize autism in a fetus, then their genocide and eugenics will only accelerate. I am pro-abortion, but no one should be coerced into an abortion with lies and one-sided propaganda.

Showing hateful rhetoric and catastrophizing about our existence to a newly pregnant person is similarly abominable as the sort of thing anti-choice people do.

Autism Speaks has not changed, though they have gotten better at pretending normality. Maybe they put themselves through conversion therapy torture to learn how to pretend to be a force of good while being sympathetic of child murderers?

Or, you know, they've hired publicists and PR people.

If you were duped by them, I'm sorry that their hate is not more well-known. Can you imagine if the first place you felt supported you and understood your struggles was the bad guy? Who would think that by default?

But they are the bad guy. And they're using you. Preying on your isolation and desire for community and support.

They start early. Constant public outreach. Working with cops. University chapters. There may even be entire branches under their umbrella that are actively dedicated to good. But they support the hate and harm by supporting Autism Speaks.

If you support Autism Speaks, then you support the elimination of autism.

If you believe their fear-driven propaganda designed to earn more money for themselves, that may sound like a good thing to you.

But you cannot eliminate autism without eliminating the autistic person, too.

We cannot turn off our autism, some of us can pretend normality—frequently to our great misfortune—but others can't do that either. It's similar to what happens when you force queer people through conversion therapy torture / behaviorism regimes.

There is not some hidden switch in our brains to "fix" us. Even if there was, we would not be ourselves, we would be different people. You cannot separate autism from the autistic.

If this letter spoke to you, I hope you will consider signing my petition to get the Southern Poverty Law Center to track anti-disability hate and to recognize Autism Speaks as an anti-autism group.

You can find the petition here:

Thank you for reading, Zero Richardson

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The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network- ASAN

My rating- Proceed with caution

While perfect in all other regards, ASAN follows multiple ableist accounts, such as National Autism Society and the Global Autism Project, on social media. This could be a matter of them not looking closely as they have been openly critical of the ideals these places push, but I remain skeptical and advise you to proceed with caution.

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Is The Autism Platform Ethical?

Hi, my name is Aaron, he/him, and I'm autistic. I recently noticed how many horrible autism blogs there are out there, and how hard it can be to tell, so I'm making this so you can be sure. All rankings will include my reasons for the ranking so that you can form your own opinion.

My methods- I examine any applicable website or social media to see what they promote. This includes looking at likes on Facebook, the resources tab on their website or at the bottom of webpages, and their followers on Instagram. I will also pay attention to if they are endorsed by bad organizations.

Ranking system

Good- this autism platform I have absolutely no issues with. I cannot find anything worrying about them.

Proceed with caution- they haven't done anything, but some of the organizations they link on their sites or blogs they follow are worrying. This also applies to organizations that have done bad in the past and claim to have changed, but there isn't any evidence either way yet. If there is no information on the members of their board and whether or none of those members are autistic, or if all members are allistic but I don't catch anything extremely concerning, the organization will also fall into this category. Oudated information may be in this category within reason.

Bad- they promote pseudoscience, abusive therapies, child abuse, abusive schools, defend caretakers who murder or attempt to murder their autistic charge, they push misinformation, they seek to "cure" autism, they will be in this category. This category means they are explicitly harmful to autistic people.

Evil- if someone attempted to murder their autistic child, their blog is evil. If a place electrocutes autistic students, that place has an evil ranking. Evil is reserved for the worst of the worst.

Uncertain- there is not enough information through my sources to come to an educated conclusion.

See below the cut for certain criteria I look out for.

Good

Autistic board members or autistic people sharing their stories

No endorsement of abusive therapies or bad organizations

Do not promote ABA, TEACCH, or floortime, and actively criticize any therapy, medication, or pseudoscience that aims to make autistic people act less autistic

Do not seek a cure and actively criticize the idea of "curing" autism

Promote understanding of autistic people and our acceptance

Do not follow any worrying sources

Proceed With Caution

No autistic board members or autistic admins to the account, but nothing concerning (involves looking into why they have no autistic board members)

Follow something extremely worrying- for example, following National Autistic Society or linking back to NAS

No active promotion of abusive therapies, but no warnings against it or they follow or link back to a source that does promote the therapy

No active promotion of a "cure," but do not mention the notion at all or link back to sources that do promote a cure

The puzzle piece

Seem indiferent to autistic voices but there is no evidence they are being actively malicious

They follow or link back to concerning sources

They were a bad organization in the past and, while they claim to have changed, there has not been any evidence to confirm or deny this.

Promotion of TEACCH therapy, as the therapy itself is worrying bordering on bad

Not autism related, but if I notice that any source follows something concerning (for example, an ableist organization for another condition,) I will mention that

Bad

No autistic board members because they either don't hire autistic people for board or they make board so miserable for autistic people that the autistic person quits

Actively promote abusive therapies, abusive schools, abusing an autistic child, and/or other bad sources

Express sympathy to caretakers who kill an autistic charge

Actively try to "cure" autism, may even have a hand in autism research to find this "cure"

Not only fails to listen to autistic voices, but actively works to force us into silence

Spreading misinformation in a way that is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, malicious

Demonizing autism in any way

Have been instrumental in legislation against autistic people

Say that vaccines cause autism or search for the cause of autism

Linking back to Autism Speaks at all is an automatic bad and there is no changing my mind on that

Evil

Extreme cases of child abuse, attempted murder, advocating for eugenics in a very open way, or push the belief that all autistic people should be locked up or killed and should have no rights.

All of these are subjective but this is my general criteria. I am always open to learning new things so, if you see a flaw here or you later find a flaw in one of my rankings, feel free to discuss with proper sources. Remember that I am a human being and do occasionally make mistakes, and that I may not always have full access to all of the information. Also remember that I am no medical professional and that my authority on this matter is the fact that I am autistic.

Feel free to correct me, but don't come into my inbox with something ableist and expect me to change my mind.

Aaron