从自闭症走出来？无意义的概念。

Here, have a thing I wrote in Chinese. It came about partially from my thoughts still running around after my new tutor suggested that I'd "walked out of autism" (I think that's their equivalent of "emerged from autism") and partially from a new phrase we learned in class: 非此即彼=either/or, two choice.

(No, I have no clue how the tutor came up with the idea that I was somehow recovered or whatever, considering that I was not capable of speech at the time and therefore typing to him instead. But he didn't argue when I explained at the time why the idea made no sense and was a bad idea.)

I don't know if/when I'm going to translate this one into English, because I've said all the content before just maybe not in these exact words. If I do, I'll edit to link here. Title means "Walking out of autism? A meaningless concept."

我们为什么还在谈“从自闭症走出来”这样的话题？“自闭的”及“开心的”不是非此即彼的问题，自闭症者的开心不靠“从自闭症走出来”而需要了解自己的能力，对自己的能力和需要帮助的地方池接纳的态度。如果一个人是自闭地出生，让他像没有自闭症的一个人不是让他更开心，也不是让他更有成功，就是让他化居多能力做有悖于自然的事。而且，这些有悖于我们自然的事不一定有好处！为什么需要用口说出来？为什么不要打字？为什么要看着别人的眼睛？为什么不应该一边听，一边动来动去？

这样也不是说我们不需要教育，不是说我们不应该提高我们的能力。我谈的事教育的内容，也是态度。我是自闭症者。自闭症不是外壳，自闭症不是让我走不了的圈套。我不需要从（根本不存在的）“圈套”走出来，而要使用适合我自闭的大脑学新的事。我不需要改变自己的自然，而要使用我自然给出的优点做我要做的事。

在缺点呢？我肯定愿意承认自闭症有缺点。什么大脑（什么身体，什么人）的设计都有缺点，现代社会包括很多方式帮助大部分的人需要帮助的部分。我的区别不一定是更多地方需要帮助，而是不同的地方需要帮助。因为这些需要帮助的地方被称为“特殊”所以很多人认为不应该帮我，而应该“修”我。这就是我不同意的地方。人们都需要一些帮助。我需要帮助的事情跟很多别人的不一样，但是这不是好事或者坏事。这就是我的自然。我是自闭症者。就是这样。

Neurodiversity Michigan Begins

Warning: These are my responses to things with problematic elements. There may be references to ableism, bigotry by ignoring differences, and disease models of autism.

So there is a class about autism, culture, and representation going on at the University of Michigan. They made a website with student posts, which can be commented on publicly. You can find the whole thing here.

I am commenting. Not on everything, there's a whole class worth of stuff and I'm in China studying abroad and I have my own stuff to deal with like finishing editing my Neurodiversity in Tamora Pierce essay for FYT Writes a Book and figuring out where my paper on the erasure of Queer Autistic people can get published and actually doing my study abroad stuff. But some. I'm putting my comments here, too, so that my readers can see them. 

On The Struggle with the Categorization of Autism, I said:

Hi!

I think that the way language works is really important to think about here: if you don't have access to the words to describe something, you're not going to be able to do so using language, and lacking the words to describe power dynamics between various neurominorities and the majority who are close enough to the mythical norm to get privilege from it doesn't make the dynamic go away. I think that's why the word "neurotypical" is important. Because "Autistic people and normal people" has implications to it that "Autistic people and allistic people" or "neurodivergent people and neurotypical people" doesn't have, even if neurotypical does literally mean neurologically typical.

[Think sociology and how people don't seem to think of heterosexual as a sexual orientation, but it is one- neurotypical is a neurology, even if folks tend not to think of it.]

On Perspective, I said:

Hi Aaron, 

I'm also an engineer- I'm in mechanical engineering, math, and Chinese, though I did research in a chemical engineering lab for a while. I think it's super-important to have more people in STEM fields who know at least some about disability, especially since we kind of design the world the next generation is going to live in.

I think the point you make about how recovery has a lot of important stuff tied up in it is good. I've never had anyone suggest that I've recovered from my gender when I do something where I'm the only girl, but my doing things where I'm the only Autistic person sometimes leads to people thinking or saying I must have "recovered" from autism. Which is silly! How would I recover from my neurology?

And yeah, Autism Speaks being seen as grassroots. It's got some support that could be called that, but they did not start off as anything like grassroots and I think it'd be a lie to call them grassroots. They're pretty top-down in everything except perhaps fundraising, where having at least some grassroots-looking stuff will get them more money and they know it.

On Learning to Live, I said:

Your point about people being too focused on changing their loved ones and not thinking about learning to live as they are is important. I do want to point out that autism is a neurotype, not a disease- diseases are generally things like malaria, cancer, etc- dangerous by nature, something that you try to cure, something that is not a natural part of the person.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "the disease aspect." Do you mean the difficult parts of being autistic? We can't ignore those when trying to find ways of making Autistic life easier, since making life easier means looking at the hard parts and trying to help with those. Do you mean the stigma part? Ignoring stigma unfortunately doesn't make it go away. So I'm not sure what that aspect is.

So there's that. I'm sure I'll say more, and I'll probably put that more up here.