...I need a hug or some shit. Goddamn.
So I was watching John Oliver’s segment on anti-vaxxers and why their arguments are absolute bullshit, right? And so I go down in the comments section, never a good idea, I know, but I am a slave to my morbid curiosity. Anyways I was reading the comments, and when I had been watching the video it genuinely concerned me that while John did agree that vaccines don’t cause autism, because there are mountains of evidence that it doesn’t, he never mentioned anything about that being an inherently harmful argument that is in support of the concept of eugenics I was hoping people would call this out in the comments, but only one or two people did. The rest either said nothing or said that “the mother should have a choice of whether to vaccinate her child or let them get a debilitating mental illness” (which A. is bullshit because autism isn’t a mental illness, it’s a disorder, big difference there Janice, and B, I’m all for cohice when it comes to abortion, but this is a completely different situation), because fuck neurodivergent people, am I right? Am I fucking right?
But the worst of it came when on one of the comments of someone defending the autistic neurotype there was a reply that, in one part, read “If I could snap my fingers and cure autism, I would” That’s like offering someone a button to turn every gay person straight! Sure, SOME people might be relieved, but most people would just fucking hate you for it!
And I don’t think I ever considered - bear with me on this, but while I have always hated martyr Autism moms who want us gone off the face of the planet, I don’t think I ever really took in the full effect of what could happen if eugenics was allowed to flourish and succeeded until I read that comment. It was absolutely downright horrifying and- and this never happens to me- my blood ran cold.
Like, you’ll see one of these ableist assholes on Instagram or Twitter, right? And you’re like fuck you Karen, I LIKE being autistic, or fuck you Janice, I’d rather be different than dead! But I never really thought of it in terms of hat a world without autistic people would look like. When people say they want to “cure” autism, they’re not saying they want to cure us of an inconvenience, they’re saying they literally want every single person on Earth who doesn’t conform to their standard of neurotypicality DEAD.
We bring so much variety and individuality to the table but they refuse to see it. Instead they project their eugenicist fantasies onto us wishing it was reality. Autism is known to increase creativity, for example. Them eliminating all of us would put out many, many potentially-amazing or already-amazing authors, artists, singers, etc. And we don’t just make up this tiny tiny part of the population. Taking autistic people out of the picture is not only depressing but the artistic industries might have major setbacks. But that’s not the point of this post and that’s not why I’m here typing this at 11:11 PM at night. The existence of autistic people shouldn’t have to be justified just because they can benefit society in some way, shape, or form.
The point is, the reality of a dystopian future without neurodivergent people in it is a lot more chilling than I realized. And upon imagining and realizing that it’s not just these specific people - it’s the anti-vaxxers, the martyr moms, Autism $peaks, it’s people who call the police on autistic people or stimming in public. It’s not just this one select group of people. It is, at best, hundreds upon hundreds of people spread out through this country, all of whom, if they could, would change the very infrastructure of our brain to rewire it to conform with the standard brain functioning of a neurotypical human being, without considering whether or not we even WANTED a medical procedure like that to happen to us.
When you go into surgery in a doctor’s office, there’s something crucial called “informed consent” they need from you (and it’s not a perfect metaphor because if you’re too young they just get the guardian or parent to sign, which would be wrong to apply to this scenario, but bear with me, again) and if you DON’T consent to them performing their metaphorical medical wizardry on your body, they legally CANNOT PERFORM THE FUCKING SURGERY. Now what this person in the comments was saying wasn’t explicitly suggesting surgery, but it’s basically the same scenario as they were imagining, just less magical thinking involved.
So these people are literally saying that not only do they want every single one of us dead for being different, they would literally violate our fucking MINDS - without ANY form of consent - if they knew they could cure us.
And that is absolutely horrifying.
Tl;dr: If neurotypicals found a way to cure us, there is without a shadow of a doubt, that they would try and find a way to force it on us, and if they didn’t, they would at least be fantasizing about it.
@ “non-ableist” neurotypicals who are going to shed NT tears over this post, inevitably: this isn’t about you. it’s about your asshole brethren. unless you are one of them and just don’t think so, in which case: fuck you
