• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Intersectionality & Autism Organizations

Magna

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Intersectionality:
  1. the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
    "through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us"
The autism society in my state, of which I'm an active member, emailed a survey recently asking for feedback regarding its interest in increasing focus on intersectionality of certain types of autistic people.

From my experience, there seems to be a stronger acknowledgement of autistic people in the LGBTQIA+ community in autism organizations. I say this not only because of the autism society, but also based on other organizations such as ASAN and also based on some breakout sessions I attended several years ago in a live autism symposium.

I fully support the acknowledgement and I think it's a positive thing because autism is not limited by race, sex, gender, creed, etc. Therefore autism organizations, unless they purposely represent only a select group and are forthright about their selectivity, should represent, advocate for and support ALL autistic people.

The danger I've seen in intersectionality and autism organizations is that intersectionality can result in politicization and end up limiting the scope of representation, advocacy and support for all autistics.

There are most certainly autistic people in the LGBTQIA+ communities and should be acknowledged supported and advocated for by autism organizations who wish to support all autistic people. Just as there are autistic people who are...
  • Atheist
  • Agnostic
  • Democrat
  • Pro-Choice
  • "Liberal", "Left", etc.
  • Anti-Trump
There are also autistic people who are...
  • Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc
  • "Right wing", "Conservative", Ultra-Conservative, etc.
  • Republican
  • Pro-Life
  • MAGA
An autism organization purporting to be there for ALL autistic people must accept ALL autistic people or they're not really an autism organization for ALL autistic people.

The fact is, there are autistic people that look like you, think like you do, act like you do, believe the things you believe, etc. And, there are autistic people that don't.
 
I'm likewise gladdened to see that many groups are acknowledging or starting to acknowledge that their demographics, or portrayals of who they serve, are in fact quite diverse in a multitude of ways.

It's definitely healthy when the objective is to move towards being more inclusive, and to recognize that some individuals have different needs or challenges that existing programming or services may not work well for.

With social justice sometimes people fall into a trap where people from different disadvantaged groups end up fighting over who is more disadvantaged / more deserving of employment equity etc., which isn't productive since rather than fighting over how big of a slice of pie we each get, we should focus on getting a bigger pie so there's more for everyone :)
 
I just have a problem with LGBTQ+ trying to annex autism.
It is so independent of gender identity & sexual preferences.
 
Last edited:
I just have a problem with LGBTQ+ trying to annex autism.
It is so independent of gender identity & sexual preferences.

You've summed up my point in several sentences while it took me paragraphs. The only thing I would change personally in relation to what you've said is that I have a problem with ANY group trying to annex autism since the potential for annexation isn't specific to one single group.
 
Yes. Reflecting something that applies to all people, IMO. Defining the one common denominator of how humans interact with one another. Based on their individual wants and needs first and foremost. A concept that was taught by one of my political science professors in the late-seventies.

That all human relationships are ultimately political relationships. Which tends to subjugate all other considerations and priorities. Even down to the partner you pick on purely a romantic level. -That it's still ultimately a political relationship. A give and take process of compromise that may or may not be amicable or reflect purely good intentions.

Humans may appear to carry on as if they are capable of monolithic thinking, but ultimately it's those individual wants, needs and baser instincts that drives them in whatever ideological direction they choose to go. Autistic or not. In essence, any sense or spirit of inclusiveness goes only so far. That it's not "a danger of happening" because it's simply inevitable.

"EVERYTHING is political." - Dr. Unja Lee, 1977
 
Last edited:
Yes. Reflecting something that applies to all people, IMO. Defining the one common denominator of how humans interact with one another. Based on their individual wants and needs first and foremost. A concept that was taught by one of my political science professors in the late-seventies.

That all human relationships are ultimately political relationships. Which tends to subjugate all other considerations and priorities. Even down to the partner you pick on purely a romantic level. -That it's still ultimately a political relationship. A give and take process of compromise that may or may not be amicable or reflect purely good intentions.

Humans may appear to carry on as if they are capable of monolithic thinking, but ultimately it's those individual wants, needs and baser instincts that drives them in whatever ideological direction they choose to go. Autistic or not. In essence, any sense or spirit of inclusiveness goes only so far. That it's not "a danger of happening" because it's simply inevitable.

"EVERYTHING is political." - Dr. Unja Lee, 1977

Does that mean in your opinion it's not possible for an autism organization to represent all autistic people?
 
viking 1928 still.jpeg


If I throw in with anyone it's going to be Vikings and Valkyries. And I think the Valkyries actually prefer the quiet bookish type. It's just too bad we don't have a 'V' name.

;)
 
Does that mean in your opinion it's not possible for an autism organization to represent all autistic people?

Any group can claim to collectively represent any group or person. However that doesn't mean that it truly or accurately reflects the self-interests of individuals who are willing to be represented by it. That it really comes down to what motivates them to want to be a part of such an organization in the first place. That their self interests may- or may not parallel the interests of the organization they belong to in whole or in part.

On occasion many of us may march in lockstep, but it doesn't mean we think in lockstep too. We're all ultimately individuals with individual agendas. At best, such agendas might coexist with a particular common cause. Or not....
 
Last edited:
At best, such agendas might coexist with a particular common cause.

Exactly. Focusing on specific agendas is not bad, wrong, etc. I maintain that in doing so, there's a danger that one "agenda" can supplant, usurp, supercede other "agendas" sharing the common cause and that's wrong for any organization that's set up to "collectively represent" autistic people (ie ALL autistic people).

In contrast, my opinion is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with an organization being specific and selective in the "agenda/s" it may choose to represent provided said organization is fully up front with the fact that they purposefully choose NOT to represent all people an an otherwise common cause and is fully up front about who specifically they DO represent (to the exclusion of others). A simple example would be an autism centered organization that had very specific political ideology (e.g. An autism organization for Democrats or an autism organization for Muslims, etc.).
 
Focusing on specific agendas is not bad, wrong, etc. I maintain that in doing so, there's a danger that one "agenda" can supplant, usurp, supercede other "agendas" sharing the common cause and that's wrong for any organization that's set up to "collectively represent" autistic people (ie ALL autistic people).

One man's "danger" may be another man's salvation. That's how the real world works in general when it comes to obtaining a consensus in a democracy. No matter what the organization may represent or focus on. Where people inherently push their own agendas and values despite their similarities. Whether they are outlined by subjects like autism, religion, politics or flying kites. Like I said, people don't carry on in lockstep even over a common cause.

Don't expect autism alone to be a common denominator that negates all other considerations. Like our NT counterparts, we are more than being neurodiverse. We bring other things to the table, and it's part of the process of consensus and policy making to have to deal with whatever adversity that may involve. Dynamics you see every day in corporate boardrooms and congress. Why should advocacy organizations be any different?
 
Last edited:
One man's "danger" may be another man's salvation. That's how the real world works in general when it comes to obtaining a consensus in a democracy. No matter what the organization may represent or focus on. Where people inherently push their own agendas and values despite their similarities. Whether they are outlined by subjects like autism, religion, politics or flying kites. Like I said, people don't carry on in lockstep even over a common cause.

Don't expect autism alone to be a common denominator that negates all other considerations. Like our NT counterparts, we are more than being neurodiverse. We bring other things to the table, and it's part of the process of consensus and policy making to have to deal with whatever adversity that may involve. Dynamics you see every day in corporate boardrooms and congress. Why should advocacy organizations be any different?

That's a good point. It's very likely that neurodiversity advocacy and community will mirror societal changes in general. That is, it's very likely that there will be autistic people that will be of a mindset of something like:

"I'm an autistic person who chooses to promote, accept and support other autistic people that think like I do and believe what I believe."

And there will likely be autistic people that will be of the mindset of something like:

"I'm an autistic person who chooses to promote, accept and support all autistic people regardless of whether or not their beliefs are different than mine.

We're free to choose which mindset we ascribe to. I choose the latter. But you're right that in society at large, those mindsets already exist and a choice is there (society at large) to be made as well.
 
Last edited:

New Threads

Top Bottom