as small as a world and as large as alone, hiya! would you mind specifying on what exactly is...

9:16am June 26, 2014

Anonymous asked: hiya! would you mind specifying on what exactly is wrong with autism speaks? as someone who doesn't think there needs to be a cure for autism, i don't necessarily agree with their mission, and i also loathe the fact they never (or very rarely) have actual autistic people represent them or work for them. would you be willing to fill me in on any more reasons? enjoy your evening :))

autisticfandomthings:

madeofpatterns:

withasmoothroundstone:

I’m sorry for not answering this directly, but I asked around for someone who’s compiled a lot of information on the matter, and got this link:

http://goldenheartedrose.tumblr.com/post/89338501188/autism-speaks-masterpost-new-updated-6-20-14

Also understand that Autism Speaks is only one in a long line of destructive autism organizations, some of which have actually merged with it over time, others of which have merely influenced it heavily. Many people will describe Autism Speaks as originating practices that it did not originate at all, it’s just currently the one doing them the loudest.

I find this statement of the problem easier to understand:

http://autisticadvocacy.org/2014/01/2013-joint-letter-to-the-sponsors-of-autism-speaks/

The most important test of whether an autism related organisation is good or bad is this: Do they have autistic people in decision making positions or positions of power?

If they don’t it’s a really bad sign. It shows two things.
1. They don’t really care about what autistic people want or think
2. They can’t be bothered accommodating autistic people within their own organisation.

If this is the case, how we possibly rely on them to advocate for us?

It’s not foolproof though. I’ve seen autism organizations put autistic people in positions of power, but only hand-picked token autistic people who won’t make any waves or go against the nonautistic people. The ASA was always really good at doing that, once they were forced to accept us in power at all. Autism Speaks tried something similar, but they didn’t even put the guy in a position of power, they just threw him on an advisory board or something where he had no real role except for them to say “We have autistic representation, see?” (And don’t get me started on the Autism Speaks and GRASP “Articles of Understanding”, where Autism Speaks used the guy who ran GRASP as the “representative of the autistic community” and they wrote back and forth about how Autism Speaks wasn’t really about high functioning people and how they both understood that. That was done by the same woman who was in the video talking about killing her child, IIRC. Mind you, GRASP was never “the autistic community” and had a long history of discrimination against “low functioning” people itself…)

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