I‘ve not related to something this much in a long time. I‘ve been treated as a traitor for this so often all over my life. I can’t believe that someone actually has a theory about this that is not esoteric in some way.

  • hauiOP
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    21 year ago

    I‘m absolutely clueless what it is you‘re trying to say but I‘ll try harder to understand:

    „Harder for them if they’re neurotypical“

    Example: So are you saying a person is to assume someones gender because that is what cis people usually do? Instead of being assertive and listening/asking for clarification.

    Because thats how it reads to me.

    Being in a privileged position means you have to cater to the minorities since they are the ones nobody caters to. At least if it is fairness you‘re after.

    So yes, catering to autistic identity is something that can be asked of you if you‘re in a privileged position.

    • Khrux
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      31 year ago

      I’m sorry if I’m not being very clear, I’m never the best at presenting my points clearly.

      I do try to cater do all neurodivergent people, using your example of assuming gender, it’s a very small fix in language to get that right, and day by day, I’d say I do unfortunately assume the gender of strangers more than I wish I did, and it’s only when someone presents themselves in a way that gives the slightest inkling that they may be transgender or genderqueer that I actually catch myself and ask them their preferred pronouns. If someone ever corrects me when I’ve got it wrong based on assumption, I’m going to try to hard to get it right from then on of course. I sort of approach neurodiversity similarly, and I’m trying to change that mindset but it does come slowly.

      I don’t want autistic people to mask and act neurotypical infront of me or anyone else, but unless they let me know how they need to be communicated with, I can’t implicitly get it right, and plenty of neurodiverse people either don’t know how they need to be communicated with, don’t want to be treated differently or would rather not let strangers know they’re neurodiverse.

      If someone needs to be communicated with in a different way, they need to let me know, because any other approach may do more harm than good. Of course I’m always trying to communicate in a way that allows people to communicate back to me, but for anything specific, you need to let me know.

      I’m not sure if this analogy will land but in a restaurant, it’s great for the restaurant to cater to many dietary requirements but if you have allergies, you really should let them know.

      Apologies if anything I’ve said here is unclear (it probably is), I’m not great at expressing complicated thoughts.

      • hauiOP
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        31 year ago

        No, not unclear. At least not anymore. I think your elaboration helped a lot. Thank you very much.

        I agree. This opens up another question though: how do we make it so NDs (and especially autistic people) learn to communicate their needs and dont get retraumatized all the time into communicating nothing at all? More a general question, you don’t need to answer if that is not something you have an idea for.

        I think the issue here is that autistic people are on the way of lgbtq people some 50 yrs back. Nobody knows a lot, some are nice and try to help, others are denying, even some autistics.

        Our much bigger knowledge should help but I‘m afraid it does not, at least not enough.