For those who's instinctive approach to autism (or other flavors of significant neruodivergence) is to treat it as something that has inherent tradeoffs, or as something that "obviously" people would want to manage or choose to not have when given the option: I highly recommend this article [1] and the book written by the same author, to recontextualize autism (in specific) and neurodiversity (in general) not as things to be managed but as forms of diversity in the human expression to be wholly welcomed in wider society.
Put differently: Autism is not something to be managed away.
> I don't think anyone who was somehow given the choice of autism or no autism at birth would choose autism would they?
I test in the statistically-likely range for autism on multiple diagnostic tests, though I don't carry a diagnosis from a psychiatric professional, so grain of salt, etc; but I find this kind of hypothetical offensive and degrading. It rings so much of how we approached queer identities throughout the years: blindly assuming that because wider society has difficulty interacting with autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people that THOSE PEOPLE would prefer to be like those more neurotypical members.
I like my brain. I don't want it to change. I don't want to be different. I don't want to be treated as someone suffering some condition, or like there's "tradeoffs" in my experience of the world that're any more significant or worthy of commentary than anyone else's experience of the world.
[1]: https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/
Put differently: Autism is not something to be managed away.
> I don't think anyone who was somehow given the choice of autism or no autism at birth would choose autism would they?
I test in the statistically-likely range for autism on multiple diagnostic tests, though I don't carry a diagnosis from a psychiatric professional, so grain of salt, etc; but I find this kind of hypothetical offensive and degrading. It rings so much of how we approached queer identities throughout the years: blindly assuming that because wider society has difficulty interacting with autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people that THOSE PEOPLE would prefer to be like those more neurotypical members.
I like my brain. I don't want it to change. I don't want to be different. I don't want to be treated as someone suffering some condition, or like there's "tradeoffs" in my experience of the world that're any more significant or worthy of commentary than anyone else's experience of the world.
[1]: https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/