#leepacey

saw this and thot you’d enjoy it (i hope this works and actually sends 😭)

Rare personal post for a moment.  Now I don’t tend to talk about my personal life on tumblr very much, because it is my personal life and it is tumblr.  But yes, I am autistic, and no, I don’t talk about it very much, and yes, I do have something to say about it for once.  

A little while ago, a chap known as @leepacey had a post where they had a list of characters who they believed were Autistic.  Most were characters who I didn’t know or I agreed with, but some on the list were characters like Zuko from Avatar, Flynn from The Force Awakens, Elphaba from Wicked, Hermione from Harry Potter, and Lilo from Lilo and Stich.  All of whom are characters who I don’t think are autistic, just socially awkward.  In fact I really think there is a problem with the way autism is understood in popular media where anybody who is uncomfortable socially is labelled autistic. This makes talking about the condition on its own terms rather difficult.  And I said as much. But then @leepacey here PMed me this: "hi are you autistic? also did u read that screenshotted post at the top of my post before running your mouth? also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness” and then this: “also before you respond saying anything, please know: i don't care about literally anything you could say to me unless it's an apology for interacting with my post.” I said that yes, I was autistic and they responded with this:

“i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too”

Later on they made more than a few mean remarks about my dyslexia

Oh did I forget to mention? I am dyslexic, which should come as absolutely no surprise at all to anybody who follows me. Anyways.

I was surprised to find that I felt legitimately. Long time followers know that I don’t get hurt very often by internet drama, but there is something uniquely upsetting when somebody who claims to represent my interests spits in my face.  Having your experience invalidated is never fun, and so you can consider this post the closest I get to an emotional outburst on the internet. But since it’s me, I want to re-frame this whole thing in terms of politics because...of course I do.  

So....couple of problems here.  The blog is decently popular and far more importantly, seems to be about autistic rights.  It is claiming to represent autisic people, but has this really nebulous way of using a legitimate issue as a cudgel. And I see this behavior with a lot of people in a lot of different movements.

And no, this isn’t a “SJW are terrible” post because I’m pretty sure I’m an SJW, if that term means “somebody who acknowledges that social inequality exists.” One of the difficulties of social justice is that it is very difficult to talk critically about it without inviting alt right GamerGate reactionary trump voting assholes to leap in and declare the entire notion of social justice fundamentally wrong. So let me just say: Anita Sarkeesian is not a conman.

There is no White Genocide.

Autism isn’t abnormal.

But I can’t help but notice people use issues as way to abuse power, and so here is a helpful list of tips of how to identify those who co-opt causes for their own benefit. ‘Cause you find these people in every movement, and they are always toxic.

Since I am as always, horrible with technology, I still haven’t figured out how to screenshot personal chats, so I am posting the transcripts at the bottom here for those who want to see the details. A few things that keep happening:

1) There’s no possibility of reasonable, non-bigoted disagreement.

My original post was ‘I don’t think these characters are autistic because X” That was about the sum of it.  Now, maybe I was wrong, maybe I am completely and utterly wrong, but this person didn’t really allow for there to be any way I could disagree with their conclusions without being somebody who wants to make autistic people miserable.  I have to have an ulterior motive, I need to be motivated by something other than “I disagree with the actual content here,” because then they would have to respond to my arguments. It’s not as if addressing my arguments here was particularly difficult or upsetting--the only thing at issue is whether a fictional character is autistic or not.

And It’s not as if I wasn’t open to being wrong. For example, upon reflection, Lilo being autistic actually does make a good deal of sense, @chaotic-good-milk-hotel made a good argument for why it makes sense to read Lilo as autistic.  We can talk, disagree, have a conversation about this without anybody having an ulterior motive or ill intention because you know...its just people’s head cannons.

2) They immediately go for the throat.  

Again, this is a conversation about somebody’s headcanon that Zuko from Avatar is Autistic.  This is the definition of a conversation that doesn’t need to get mean spirited in the least.  But right off the bat I am hit by “also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness.” Because there is a certain type of person who really conflates any disagreement with the worse levels of disagreement.  At the risk of going armchair psychology, I imagine that they want me to be the type of person who thinks Autism Speaks is legitimate, so they can feel more justified by lashing out at me cause you know....anger is addictive.  

3) Massive hypocrisy:

Am I the only one who notices that they are like “I fight against ableism” but continued to mock my spelling after I told them I was dyslexic?  Cause it isn’t really about the issue, the issue is just a way to put somebody else down.  

4) Strawmaning

Here is my original response.  Nowhere in this did I say I wanted to hurt autistics, nowhere did I support Autism Speaks, nowhere did I say that I wanted there to be less autistic representation, yet I am evidently dismissing the entire notion of autistic people being acceptable.  Again: “i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too”

5) Conflating what is good for you with what is good for the larger movement.

This is the big one I really want to talk about. The rest are more personal gripes, but this is the biggest danger you find in communities for the marginalized: people who take their own personalities and make them into the supposed personality of the community. Throughout the chat leepacey continues to refer to any disagreement with themselves as a disagreement with the movement as a whole.  So if you think “That character is not autistic” by extension you are saying “I think that autistics have no value whatsoever”. In essence “I speak for the autistics, if you speak against me, you speak against autistics.” Hmm, that sounds familiar. Speak. Autism. Autism. Speak. No, it’s not coming to me.

And you can find this kind of really dangerous attitude all the time in marginalized communities, because when you are legitimately oppressed by society, it is really really easy to rationalize all your behavior as just a response to oppression.  When you do good work fighting against obviously evil people, it is easy to see anybody who opposes you as part of that same evil.  And that’s how you end up attacking members of the group you’re supposed to be fighting for.

Criticism does not equal persecution.  There is real legitimate persecution out there, you don’t need to elevate normal criticism to the level of oppression. And once you get into the realm of reading all criticism as persecution, then your movement has begun to attack itself.  

This is the reason I rarely talk about my autism: because this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. The autism “community” which always winds up hurting me more than it ever helps. This person claims to represent autistic people, but they sure as hell didn’t represent me.

Happy April Everyone.

Chat logs are below, if any of you know how I can screenshot them and post them to confirm them as legit, please let me know because I don’t really like asking people just to take me for my word.