They're Going After Autistic People for a Reason

RFK Jr. is making headlines again, this time for linking autism to Tylenol in a press conference led by the president. The claims are unsupported, and downright dangerous. It's what we've come to expect from MAGA politicians, but let's face it. The mainstream media has done a terrible job at representing autism. For decades, they've let celebrities go around spouting misinformation about us without consequence. Many of the worst offenders, like Jenny McCarthy, are still allowed on air to host shows and special events whenever they want. So, here we are.

It's because of them that large swaths of the public view autism as a disease or a condition that has to be treated or cured. The DSM-5 still classifies it as a "neurodevelopmental disorder." Look, many of us on the spectrum understand autism for what it is. It's a condition that lives on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, people need care and accommodation, but they're not helpless.

I'm on the spectrum.

I've got friends and family on the spectrum. For every supposed weakness, there's a strength. You've been hearing from us a lot lately, so I figured it would help to delve into some of the facts. In short, many people would do well to have some autistic minds on their zombie apocalypse team.

Let's go.

First, autistic people are known for hyper-focus. They can devote themselves to a single topic in ways that neurotypical people can't. They develop incredible expertise in those topics because they never stop studying them. They never get tired or bored learning about them or talking about them. Their passion can look like an obsession to someone else. We just don't understand how quickly others get bored. We get excited, and we assume that everyone else wants to know what we've learned.

Psychologists have treated our hyperfocus as a "maladaptive" trait until recently, when researchers finally started to realize maybe the problem was how they were framing our behavior and responding to our intense interests.

In a world that runs on distraction, it's a good thing to have a small group of people who can still spend countless hours learning about a particular subject and sharing their knowledge with the world. We just have to learn that most people can listen to someone else talk for a minute or two at best.

Maybe our intense focus isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is what everyone else keeps complaining about, that apps and algorithms are shrinking attention spans and bombarding the public with so many distractions that they can't concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. (By the way, who does that serve?)

Autistic people are problem solvers and nonconformers. More recent research on us suggests that a "deficit-based diagnostic process can overshadow the value" we bring to our communities and the world.

One meta-study finds that autistic people demonstrate immunity to the Asch Conformity model, choosing the right answer to questions regardless of how many people in their group choose the wrong answer. We're less likely to change our behavior when we're not being watched. We're less likely to make selfish decisions. We're less likely to lie or deceive our peers. We're more direct, even at our own expense.

All of these traits are positive, but psychologists and society at large have framed them as weaknesses or deficits. What does that tell you about the world? It tells you that "most people" will conform to social pressure, even when they know better. They'll make immoral, selfish decisions, especially if they don't expect any consequences. They'll choose to be indirect at best, dishonest at worst.

We're supposed to conform to that???

Enlightened perspectives on autism show that we have a strong orientation to detail, and we seek solutions to problems until they're solved, with a dedication that far surpasses a neurotypical person's threshold.

In social situations, that might irritate our friends and family members. In other settings, like a workplace or a longterm emergency, you want people like us who keep digging into problems until they're solved. It's those small, seemingly insignificant problems that ultimately cause disasters down the line. When everyone else gets tired of a problem and moves on, we're the ones who keep working on it.

Autistic people often demonstrate a high sensitivity to justice. We're more likely to speak up about unfairness, inequity, or inequality. We ignore subtle hints to drop it. We ignore social pressure and stigma to move on. Judgment simply doesn't affect us the same way, even if we notice and feel hurt by it. We get confused and angry when we see people in our lives accepting or perpetuating any form of unfairness.

As you probably know, we're blunt.

Autistic people tend to say exactly what they think. We don't drop hints. We don't use euphemisms or circumlocutions. We get to the point. It frustrates us how often the people in our lives won't just say what they're thinking. We find many of society's unspoken rules about etiquette and politeness inefficient, contradictory, and often incomprehensible. We just can't do it. Our directness often comes off as rudeness, as if we're trying to offend someone. We're not. If anything, we're trying to show respect for everyone else's time and emotions by getting to the point as soon as possible.

Autistic people tend to express muted emotions. In truth, we just can't fake them the way many neurotypical people can. We can't smile on cue.

We can't cry on cue either.

We can't engage in the kind of spectacles the world recently observed at a high profile memorial service. We're not like that. The smiles or tears you get from an autistic person are real, and they're probably rarer than we're taught to expect. Maybe we make everyone around us uncomfortable because we remind them just how many of the feelings they express aren't actually real, they're just performing them to further their own goals, or to meet tedious social obligations.

The world often blames autistic people for failing to read body language and facial expressions. When you understand that many neurotypical people actually use their bodies and faces to contradict or obscure what they're saying or thinking, maybe you can understand. People smile and laugh all the time when they're expressing animosity or pure hatred toward other human beings.

An autistic person like me can take classes on sociolinguistics and communication, and we can eventually learn how to navigate the bizarre, byzantine world of human interaction. It can make us a little pessimistic.

Autistic people are also less influenced by advertising.

We want to avoid sweeping generalizations about a population in either direction. The bottom line is that we can find just as many strengths in autistic people as weaknesses. We're no worse than the rest of the population, and more research is suggesting that with the right support, we can be a net positive. Of course, none of us should have to tout our superpowers in order to justify our existence.

While autistic people would rather be honest and direct, we find much of the world prefers to spend their time lying and deceiving each other, often over the most pointless personal feuds and prejudices. When you understand how the world operates, then it makes a lot of sense why autistic people struggle so much to fit into it. If everyone followed logic, if they were less petty and judgmental, less passive-aggressive, less willing to tolerate injustice, then we wouldn't have a problem.

Instead of seeing our traits as strengths, instead of trying to be more like us, instead of teaching us how to change the world, many of those in power simply want to change us. They want us to conform more. They want us to lie more. They want us to tolerate more injustice and destruction. They want to act like we're the ones with the problem. They want to blame our "condition" on everything from vaccines to Tylenol. They'll let celebrities spend decades spreading misinformation about us.

Why?

Deep down, we bother them. We bother them with our ability to hyperfocus on problems and solve them. We bother them because we can't be lied to, propagandized, or distracted from pandemics or the climate crisis. We bother them because we won't bend to the status quo. We won't submit to vibes in the face of genocide. We call out hypocrisy when we see it, on both ends of politics.

In the end, we're hard to deal with. We don't respond to social pressure. We don't respond to threats. We don't respond to alienation or bullying tactics. An autistic person who understands themselves and the world poses an ultimate threat to narcissists who crave endless money, power, and attention.

That's why they want to get rid of us.

That.

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