The danger of ‘neurodiversity’

I’m an American man affected by the disability autism. As a child, I went to special education schools for eight years and I do a self-stimulatory behaviour during the day which prevents me from getting much done. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I have bad motor coordination problems which greatly impair my ability to handwrite and do other tasks. I also have social skills problems, and I sometimes say and do inappropriate things that cause offence. I was fired from more than 20 jobs for making excessive mistakes and for behavioural problems before I retired at the age of 51.

Others with autism spectrum disorder have it worse than I do. People on the more severe end sometimes can’t speak. They soil themselves, wreak havoc and break things. I have known them to chew up furniture and self-mutilate. They need lifelong care.

Given this, could any reasonable person think autism is not an affliction? Could any caring person try to prevent sufferers seeking a cure? Common sense dictates the answer should be no. The reality is that identity politics has become so deranged that there is a group of people (both here and in the UK) who seek to prevent autistic people getting help, on the nonsensical grounds that it’s insulting to suggest they need it.

The movement is called the ‘neuro-diversity movement’ and its tenets state that autism is not a disease or disorder of the brain, but is rather an alternative form of brain wiring. Advocates of ‘neurodiversity’ believe that to be autistic is just to be different — like being black as opposed to being white, being a woman rather than a man, or being gay instead of heterosexual. Ergo the term ‘neurodiversity’. The movement opposes a cure for autism because why would you need to cure something that’s just another valid way of being human?

Some proponents of the neurodiversity movement do not believe that autism is a disability at all.