Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

It’s not because I’ve internalized misogyny; it’s not because I don’t know I’m a “slave”, as Robin Morgan seems to believe. It isn’t even her vote to authorize the war in Iraq or her multiple votes to fund it (though these are huge negatives); I do realize that gender bias may have made these votes necessary (since it’s all too easy to portray a woman as weak). Of course, I’d still prefer a candidate who didn’t vote to support the war. (This wouldn’t be Obama, however, as he voted to fund the war despite the speech he gave before he was in the Senate.)

The major sticking point for me is her support for Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is, of course, terribly misnamed, as the group actually silences autistics. Among its leadership is a woman who is perfectly happy to talk about her wish to kill herself and her autistic daughter, right in front of said daughter in a video produced by Autism Speaks that contains many other flaws. Autism Speaks also talks about autism prevention and “stamping out” autism.

My autism (diagnosed Aspergers) is part of who I am. I don’t want that part of me stamped out, no matter how other people react to it. I don’t want people like me to be prevented from coming into existence. That Clinton has chosen to support a group that supports these things indicated an attitude towards people like me that I see as threatening my survival– perhaps not in a literal sense but in the sense of preserving what it is that makes me who I am (if you can forgive the use of such an un-PoMo concept as the self).

When I’ve mentioned this issue, I’ve had neurotypicals tell me that I need to stop being concerned about my “pet issue” and look at the big picture. Maybe if she were perfect in every other way I could. However, self-preservation in an often hostile world comes first for good reason. (It’s also quite funny when I get this criticism from the same people who suggest that all women should vote for Senator Clinton.) I’ve also been given a list of legislation that Clinton has supported that provides funds for disabilities. I’m aware of these bills, but as positive as they are, they do not change the fact that she is happy to assist a group that thinks people like me should not exist. Nor is supporting funding to help those of us who “unfortunately” do inconsistent with believing we should not exist.

Would I vote for her if she dropped Autism Speaks? If she answered letters like this positively? I’d at least consider it; if she started talking about neurodiversity, then I definitely would. If people like me don’t insist on making this an issue, who else will?

Though I still have issues with Pepsi for their environmental record (among other things), I have to give them credit for this commercial (and for bringing the phrase “people with different abilities” to Super Bowl coverage):

That said, I do think that they’re choosing a relatively “easy” subgroup of the differently abled. While there is a lot of ignorance about deafness and deaf culture, Pepsi is at least unlikely to face the barrage of criticism they would face were they to do the equivalent for neurological differences like autism. Acceptance of those who think differently would threaten the status quo more than acceptance of those with sensory differences does at this point.

But then, I can always hope that what helps one group will also help others and lead the way to broader acceptance and respect.

This article about the pathologizing of adolescent rebellion reminds me of how fortunate I was in my education. From a very early age, I had little respect for adults unless they could show me that they were intelligent and worth listening to. I refused naptime in preschool because I didn’t see the purpose in lying down if I wasn’t tired (a minor rebellion, I know); fortunately, this particular center lived up to the “creative learning” in its name and allowed me to go play outside with the older children. In first grade, since I had no respect for my classroom teacher and was miserably bored when I wasn’t in the gifted pull-out hour, so I acted out and made up ludicrous stories (for instance, that I’d been up all night playing poker) as excuses. In my moral calculus, these were not really lies, since any reasonably intelligent adult would have realized they were untrue.

I was lucky enough back then to score sufficiently high on an IQ test (despite my questioning the whole concept of the test as revealing potential since it relied on one’s ability to recognize things they may have never seen) that, instead of being medicated or placed in a behavior disorder class, I was allowed to enter an all-day gifted program in second grade. Assignments were more creative and, otherwise, higher up along Bloom’s Taxonomy. I wasn’t bored and, for the most part, my teachers gave enough of an impression of intelligence for me to respect them.

When high school hit and the program ended, I found myself back in much the same situation I’d been in before the gifted program.  What made it worse, however, was that due to my constant reading, I found that I knew not only the information being conveyed in the course but also, sometimes, more than the teacher knew on the subject. When, in World Civilzaitons,  we had an anachronistic assignment to create a Medieval newspaper, I included a classified  ads section with multiple ads for the same relic, and my teacher thought this was an error! Needless to say, listening in class was not a strength of mine in those years, though by this point I mostly resorted to writing poems in my notebook instead of being disruptive. Mostly.

There were teachers I did respect, however.  The teacher foremost among them died my sophomore year. I honestly can’t imagine what would have happened had I been forced to take literature from some of the other teachers on that campus. Instead, because of the Running Start program, I was able to take courses at the local community college.  Even if this was an imperfect solution, it did give me an opportunity to learn from instructors whose intellect and knowledge I could respect.

At any point along the way, I could have been medicated– dulled and dumbed down– so that I could pay attention without being bored and so that I wouldn’t challenge my designated superiors. Had I been medicated, I never would have used my hours in class to develop my writing. It’s from this context that I question the pathologizing of autism spectrum disorders as well.

Differences should not be regarded as things to be annihilated simply because they make some things more difficult. Advocates of medicalization would have you believe otherwise.

Typically when I buy something from a street vendor here in China, they will use hand signals to accompany the verbal telling of the price, which can be helpful if I’m in an especially part of a market, but isn’t generally necessary at this point. Unfortunately, back when I was still having trouble with Mandarin numbers, the gestures often didn’t help me very much, as they’re often quite different from those familiar to me and not based on systems with which I’m familiar. The symbol for 6, for instance involves sticking one’s pinkie and thumb out from a closed fist.

Another example of a difference in hand signs between China and the English-speaking world is that it’s perfectly all right to point with your middle finger here. (This is one of the similarities between Japan and China.)

These instances are a reminder that every aspect of communication, not just language, is culturally determined. I wonder if a greater level of awareness of this would lead to increased acceptance of individuals whose atypical neurologies– Aspies like me for example– generate equally atypical methods and forms of communication. It’s much easier to pathologize behaviors that violate something you believe to be universal, afterall.