• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I get what you’re saying, and caretakers certainly deserve support, even (especially!) when they’re talking about wanting to kill their own child, even if for no other reason than the child’s safety.

    IMO Autism Speaks’ biggest issue is that their money comes from marketing autism as a horrible disease that affects only or primarily children, which only increases stigma against autistic people of all ages. They also have the problem of having no autistic members involved in a meaningful capacity in the organization, and AFAIK the only autistic member of their board of directors left because they were essentially ignored. That absolutely flies in the face of decades of disability advocacy, where a common refrain is “nothing about us without us.”

    TL;DR: caretakers deserve support but Autism Speaks is super awful.