-a huge amount of emails from christians trying to tell me that I was wrong, that I needed to listen to them, that I needed to stop saying these things.
And like... no. I believe what I believe and I'm going to keep expressing my ideas on the world and my experiences of it.
Conversation
Much as I'm not *actually* hurting the religous people; I'm not punching them, removing their rights, burning their houses down, I'm also not *actually* hurting the autistic people. The pain they feel, while real and valid, comes out of *their* perspective on the world.
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In this sense, the people who are hurt are hurt because they believe they should be hurt, not because I am actually doing anything hurtful.
So... I know they're telling me to stop, and that they're hurt. But I'm not going to stop. I think they should update their worldview.
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Much as religious people would probably experience greater freedom and less pain if they left their religion, I also think autistic people would experience greater freedom and less pain if they left their framework that leads to them getting hurt by me expressing myself.
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Unfortunately - that’s not how it works. We can’t just suddenly not feel insulted by people debating our existence
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Right, I agree! I would like to be able to lay out enough information such that we can learn to not feel insulted by these debates, though. It seems like a super useful skill.
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I think you’re missing my point there - doesn’t debating about whether or not we should exist feel strange to you? I think most people would feel odd thinking about others having an opinion on their existence in the world..
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Not at all? I can see how a reasonable person, who views autism as a really painful thing that makes life hard and creates suffering, might think that it would be a loving and kind thing to do to stop future autism from existing. I saw some autistic people express this sentiment.
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And I also will add that the frustrating part for a lot of us is that this kind of notion about autism being some horrible awful thing that’s no good - is exactly the misconceptions alot of advocates are trying to fight against.
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But I don't wanna go into this discussion *assuming* there's a right answer - this is one of my complaints and thus parallels to religion.
I agree that they believe it's a misconception - but it's still a discussion we can have - especially because some autistic people disagree.
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This is an argument I"ve been seeing pop up in response to me on twitter lately - "Don't even ask that question, X group views the discussion as harmful." And then members of X group who disagree with them are completely ignored. The conclusion is assumed as a starting condition.
This also is circling around a larger point or value I hold - that suppressing discussion, or limiting voices who are allowed into a discussion, as a general rule, is a dangerous and exclusionary thing to do.
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For example, I strongly believe men should be allowed into the abortion debate. It doesn't affect them, but that *doesn't matter* - their opinions on how a good world runs are valid no matter what.
Ofc, I can view their opinions as less important to me because they are men.
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I too understand that paradox, and social media has only exacerbated that issue. But there are ways of having that discussion that involve both sides and multiple perspectives, that doesn’t involve being insensitive to any of those groups