The problem is that (in school and the workplace, at least) it's almost always the individual with autism that is told to conform to others and never the case that the others are taught how to work with the autistic (or other neurodivergent) person instead.
It would be better if the education about how others worked was two-way and included teaching others about autism as well.
And yes, some schools now do this, but he majority don't.
Even with low-functioning autistic people where "they're just different" isn't a good or respectful descriptor of their experiences, sometimes society makes dealing with those problems much more difficult than necessary.
Again, not saying that low-functioning autistic people don't have a problem that they wish would go away, but it's sort of like having wheelchair ramps. Most people who are in wheelchairs wish they weren't in wheelchairs, but they still like having ramps into and out of buildings. It's still problematic to go to those people and say, "okay I get that you're disabled, but you need to learn how to walk up the library stairs, it's not our job to have ramps everywhere."
There are a lot of autistic people who don't think of themselves as neurodivergent, they think of themselves as disabled. It is still often harmful to those people to force them to (on top of their other struggles) also figure out how to constantly conduct themselves so they don't inconvenience anyone else. Being more accommodating can mean allowing them to stim (if the stimming isn't self-destructive), it can mean giving them access to tools that help with sensory issues (headphones, for example), it can mean recognizing if they're panicking and responding to the situation, rather than just ignoring it until they completely break down. Mostly, it means teaching people to understand that person better and to try and set up systems in such a way that the individual can have a better life, rather than forcing the individual to conform -- especially in the case of people on extreme ends of the spectrum who very clearly can't conform.
There is an element of accommodation for people who label themselves as neurodivergent that does deal with acceptance and celebration, and that's valid for them to bring up. I really don't think that neurodivergence/disability needs to be a contest, and it's fine for them to talk about autism in terms of social prejudice. But outside of of the neurodivergent movement, overall accommodation doesn't really have anything to do with whether someone is high functioning or low functioning as much as it has to do with not making their life more difficult than it needs to be. Especially in the case of someone who is on the extreme ends of the spectrum and needs help to take care of themselves, it's extremely important for the people around them to make some effort to learn about what they're going through and to learn to work with them and to treat them like a human being.
I think that's the case for any mental disability (again, whether or not someone describes their own experiences with autism as a disability or as a difference is irrelevant to what I'm talking about). But if you want an extreme example from the "disability" side of things, you can't go to someone with alzheimers and get mad at them for not remembering what they ate yesterday. If you want to interact positively with someone in that position, you have to work with them. You have to be able to understand what's happening.
A lot of social institutions (especially schools) for a long time never put in that work for autistic kids. And a lot of care for autistic people (including people who are best described as disabled) is still focused on making that person more convenient for society, not on caring specifically for that individual. One piece of advice I give when talking about autism care is "find someone who cares more about the autistic kid than they care about the parents." And I think that holds true both for neurodivergent and differently-abled people and for nonverbal kids who are extremely disabled and will require help to function in society for their entire lives. It doesn't matter, caring for that person should still be primarily focused on caring for that person, not the people around them.
So it's okay because the vast majority of people aren't affected?
By that rationale, Black, Asian, and LGBT Americans should keep to themselves and stop fighting for rights or having a voice.
In both cases we are talking about people with immutable traits or characteristics society as a whole isn't fond of. (If society was fond, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion, nor people fighting for equal treatment in society.) All of these people have been the victims of the genocidal lunatics in the 20th century.
The only difference is society has not progressed to a point where it is socially acceptable to condemn people for hating the neurodivergent.
No one is talking about rights. Autistic people have the same rights as gay people and black people.
What we're talking about are norms. Norms tend to be based on the average person. If you aren't average, you're going to have to deal with that. I don't see any other solution.
If you had a time machine and went back to the 1950s, people would be making the same argument for why Black, Asian, and LGBT Americans are just going to have to deal with being minorities.
No, because the problems facing those groups were that people were treating them _differently_ because they belonged to a minority. The problem facing people with autism is that people expect to be able to interact with them like they interact with everyone else.
The distinctions are far too broad to be meaningful.
Every single reason put forth for why autism is different than the other minority groups mentioned is invariably parroting the majority view in the 1950s about minorities.
It hindsight, it's easy to see the problem. But how would you go about determining if it was a problem without the benefit of hindsight? Put differently, what makes you so certain you wouldn't be parroting the same thing about Black, Asian, or LGBT people if you lived in a different time? It's easy to say that now, it's not so easy to conceptualize that in the 1950s. The idea of gay marriage in the 1950s was scoffed at in a similar fashion and seen as bending over backwards too.
Just because something is acceptable now doesn't mean it will be in the future. And your inability to come up with a solution doesn't mean it should be ignored or left alone, either.
Neudivergent people also have to deal with being the other.
It's clear you don't want to have a discussion in good faith. You keep fixating on the word "rights"
in the phrase "fighting for rights or having a voice" in an attempt to reframe the discussion and to avoid having to meaningfully engage in the points mentioned.
You've refused to address my point, which is that normative culture necessarily favors "normal people" and there's nothing that can be done about that. Instead, you've decided to confuse the issue by talking about civil rights, which has nothing to do with the post I originally responded to.
Normative culture don't necessarily favor "normal people" and there are things that can be done about that.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was created for that very purpose.
> (1) physical or mental disabilities in no way diminish a person’s right to fully participate in all aspects of society, yet many people with physical or mental disabilities have been precluded from doing so because of discrimination; others who have a record of a disability or are regarded as having a disability also have been subjected to discrimination;
> (2) historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem;
> (3) discrimination against individuals with disabilities persists in such critical areas as employment, housing, public accommodations, education, transportation, communication, recreation, institutionalization, health services, voting, and access to public services;
> (4) unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such discrimination;
> (5) individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers, overprotective rules and policies, failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices, exclusionary qualification standards and criteria, segregation, and relegation to lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities;
It would be better if the education about how others worked was two-way and included teaching others about autism as well.
And yes, some schools now do this, but he majority don't.