I‘ve not related to something this much in a long time. I‘ve been treated as a traitor for this so often all over my life. I can’t believe that someone actually has a theory about this that is not esoteric in some way.
I‘ve not related to something this much in a long time. I‘ve been treated as a traitor for this so often all over my life. I can’t believe that someone actually has a theory about this that is not esoteric in some way.
This is a really really interesting article, I do have one thought though.
I’m not autistic, but my partner is, hence the fact I frequent autistic spaces to help myself understand her better. If someone asked me Who are you? I’d want to answer I am kind, social and insecure, but I wouldn’t because I’d presume whoever was asking implicitly asking about my social intersectionality, because from there, they can map where we fall on wider topics, so I’d answer "I’m a D&D player and general RPG designer, I’m bisexual and living in (trendy UK city).
From this, I’d assume that they would think, well he’s bisexual, so probably progressive and supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, into D&D so probably nerdy and social, and lives in a city which is welcoming and like-minded, so probably supported in his beliefs.
I’d hope they’d unpack my values from my social intersections, but they’d also make assumptions based on if they wanted to like me or not. Someone who would answer “football fan, rocket league player and car enthusiast” may map their network from rocket league, to gaming to D&D and find that we both loved Skyrim a decade ago, leading to a good conversation about that, where we’d then try to imply our values though our conversation. They may hear bisexual and have issues with the LGBTQ+ community and try to seperate their social map from mine, and avoid making links to me, and we wouldn’t have any conversation because it’s already clear that we could argue over something like pronouns easily by them knowing themselves and my sexuality meaning I’m likely to champion other parts of my community.
However if I’d answered kind, social and insecure, you can’t unpack that the other way. You’d never know where to take that conversation to a point that resonated with both of us.
I know this isn’t a perfect take, as to my understanding, if I told autistic people my social intersections, they’d be less likely to start to automatically make assumptions to unpack my identity from it, but in a neurotypical dominated world, I’d just default to assuming whoever I’m talking to will.
I know the article ends with Non-autistic people are likely to reject this theory as it disempowers their privilege as the superior “default” neurotype and I guess I’m doing exactly that, but I really don’t believe that my neurotype is superior, but by being more prevalent, I will with strangers in a way that’s most accomodating for people without autism.
That’s exactly what privilege is, if you boil it down.
Oh yeah I know I’m in the privileged position, and that’s exactly why it’s important to me to read articles like this and communicate with autistic people. But I also feel like it’s the wrong decision to approach strangers in a way that’s harder for them if they’re neurotypical but easier if they’re autistic.
As soon as I know somebody is not in their comfort zone while communicating with me, either from a neurodivergency or anxiety or anything really, I’m happy to change my communication style to be better, but I can’t make presumptions about people before I’ve learnt that, so I need to talk to them like they’re neurotypical.
To be clear, I don’t think you did anything wrong. I was just remarking on the mechanics of privilege.
I‘m absolutely clueless what it is you‘re trying to say but I‘ll try harder to understand:
„Harder for them if they’re neurotypical“
Example: So are you saying a person is to assume someones gender because that is what cis people usually do? Instead of being assertive and listening/asking for clarification.
Because thats how it reads to me.
Being in a privileged position means you have to cater to the minorities since they are the ones nobody caters to. At least if it is fairness you‘re after.
So yes, catering to autistic identity is something that can be asked of you if you‘re in a privileged position.
I’m sorry if I’m not being very clear, I’m never the best at presenting my points clearly.
I do try to cater do all neurodivergent people, using your example of assuming gender, it’s a very small fix in language to get that right, and day by day, I’d say I do unfortunately assume the gender of strangers more than I wish I did, and it’s only when someone presents themselves in a way that gives the slightest inkling that they may be transgender or genderqueer that I actually catch myself and ask them their preferred pronouns. If someone ever corrects me when I’ve got it wrong based on assumption, I’m going to try to hard to get it right from then on of course. I sort of approach neurodiversity similarly, and I’m trying to change that mindset but it does come slowly.
I don’t want autistic people to mask and act neurotypical infront of me or anyone else, but unless they let me know how they need to be communicated with, I can’t implicitly get it right, and plenty of neurodiverse people either don’t know how they need to be communicated with, don’t want to be treated differently or would rather not let strangers know they’re neurodiverse.
If someone needs to be communicated with in a different way, they need to let me know, because any other approach may do more harm than good. Of course I’m always trying to communicate in a way that allows people to communicate back to me, but for anything specific, you need to let me know.
I’m not sure if this analogy will land but in a restaurant, it’s great for the restaurant to cater to many dietary requirements but if you have allergies, you really should let them know.
Apologies if anything I’ve said here is unclear (it probably is), I’m not great at expressing complicated thoughts.
No, not unclear. At least not anymore. I think your elaboration helped a lot. Thank you very much.
I agree. This opens up another question though: how do we make it so NDs (and especially autistic people) learn to communicate their needs and dont get retraumatized all the time into communicating nothing at all? More a general question, you don’t need to answer if that is not something you have an idea for.
I think the issue here is that autistic people are on the way of lgbtq people some 50 yrs back. Nobody knows a lot, some are nice and try to help, others are denying, even some autistics.
Our much bigger knowledge should help but I‘m afraid it does not, at least not enough.
Oh, yes. I have such chains of thought sometimes.