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Oct 24 2021
Autistic people and police brutality in the UK: Baron-Cohen the aggressor

Edit to add disclaimer: Despite Simon Baron-Cohen telling us that there will be a police presence, A member of the protest team has since spoken to Cambridge Police and confirmed that no police presence is booked for the protest, although they may now send one or two officers to make sure everything is alright. In our opinion, Baron-Cohen told this lie in a direct attempt to try and stop the protest from happening. Please do still read the article as we believe this lie makes the content even more important.

This article was co-written by members of the Boycott Spectrum 10k team; David Gray-Hammond, Tanya Adkin and Bobbi Elman

Trigger warning: This article contains discussion of violence by law enforcement professionals, and discussion of systemic trauma caused by the criminal justice system.

Anyone who has followed the Boycott Spectrum 10k campaign will be aware that we are holding a peaceful protest outside the Autism Research Centre on the 29th October 2021, in Cambridge. This is the workplace of Simon Baron-Cohen, and the main research centre where the Spectrum 10k study will be housed. For more information on why we are protesting, please see our collective joint statement here, and another article discussing the study here.

Since it has now been confirmed by Simon Baron-Cohen that they have opted for a police presence on the day of the protest, we felt it necessary to have a discussion about why this is problematic, and the recent stories of police brutality against Autistic people. This is not to say that people will be at risk at the protest, this is a peaceful protest, and the whole event will be livestreamed, but police brutality is a very real issue that we feel someone like Simon Baron-Cohen should be, and probably is, aware of.

In fact, he said it himself.

Text reads “Autistic people are vulnerable to being misunderstood and to ending up in the criminal justice system, accused of crimes when they have had no criminal intent. It is vital that they have well-informed advocates and legal advice and that the police and the courts are well trained to make reasonable adjustments for an Autistic defendant. Autistic people deserve proper support, especially when they make mistakes, given their disability. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Trinity College, Cambridge, President of Internatiibal Society for Autism Research”

We all know the stories from America. Police brutality is well documented in the States.

Unfortunately, due to the extreme nature of the violence and discrimination against minority groups in the US, and the voyeuristic nature of the UK media, what is happening on our own soil often goes unreported. One might understand this, when you consider that police in the US are literally killing innocent minorities. However, police brutality still exists in the UK, and Autistic and otherwise disabled people have often been on the receiving end.

“At least we’re not being shot”

This is a response often heard from people speaking from a place of privilege. It is also a response from those of us who have been so gaslit and bullied that we are willing to accept a certain level of mistreatment as normal, and be grateful for it. For example, Autistic children in mainstream schools are always “coping”. It’s considered acceptable to be treading water, despite the fact that one day we will run out of stamina and begin to drown.

In fact, our children are often victims of police brutality, in the very schools that claim to keep them safe.

“Calls for police to get mandatory neurodiversity training after officer assaulted 10 year old Autistic boy in school“

Said police officer threatened to kick the boy, and dragged him along the ground, before turning to another child and saying “you’re next”. This didn’t happen in the US, this happened in Merseyside, UK. And the courts? After convicting the police officer of assault, merely fined him.

This is not an isolated incident.

“Mum slams school as Autistic son, 12, handcuffed by police on the first day of term“

“Met police officer dismissed for hitting a vulnerable girl more than 30 times with a baton (and used CS spray)“

“The IOPC said PC Kemp attempted to handcuff the teenager, but when this was unsuccessful, he used CS spray less than a metre from her face. “Within seconds he started using his baton and then struck her several times,” it said.”

The Guardian, 2021

The stories above are just three very recent examples of police brutality against DISABLED CHILDREN. These are the ones that are privleged enough to have formal recognition of their neurodivergence. These are the ones who were lucky enough not to be institutionalised. What about the people labelled as “naughty”, “aggressive”, “feral”, “defiant”. What about those mislabelled mentally ill? If we are left unrecognised (read more here) and with these labels for long enough, we can develop mental health conditions. It’s inevitable, you can read more about this here.

What about those at the intersection of multiple marginalisation?

It’s well known that Autistic people are more likely to be gender non-conforming, there is a significant overlap between the Autistic community and the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s also known that very few of us fit the white, male, cis, heterosexual, middle class stereotype that the DSM-V criteria are based on, and what has been perceived as accepted for decades. In fact there are three of us writing this article right now and we can’t think of one Autistic person between us that fits this stereotype. Contrary to popular belief we have very wide reach and pretty busy Autistic social lives.

There are multiply disabled Autistics, non-speaking Autistics, Autistic people practicing a wide range of religions, or no religion at all. Like every human, we are everywhere, just like everyone else, we just have a different neurology to those with the dominant neurotype.

When we consider the different intersections in the Autistic community, there is one very significant intersection that we need to talk about with regard to police brutality. We need to consider how this impacts Autistic people of colour. It is widely publicised, the insidious prejudice ingrained into the world institutions and society itself.

Existing on this intersection places Autistic people of colour firmly near the top of the list when it comes to risk of police brutality.

“The police need to know that a Black person stopped by them for whatever reason, already has it in their head that they may not make it out from this stop alive. So nervousness, lack of eye contact, not reading body language and facial expression and all the other signs of what could be a condition like autism, could simply be a neurotypical person’s terror that they may never see their family again. Now imagine that same scenario in the head of someone who already has communication difficulties? Devastating.”

Dalmayne, E (2020)

Of course, police brutality doesn’t always look like physical violence. Sometimes it is the systemic violence that unfairly incarcerates Black Autistic individuals. This was made obvious by the case of Osime Brown, A Black Autistic teenager, unfairly convicted and jailed, for a crime he didn’t commit, under the discriminatory joint enterprise law. Not only was he imprisoned, he was scheduled for deportation. It took a great deal of campaigning and protesting to have Osime freed and his deportation cancelled.

“Black people statistically struggle to gain access to assessments let alone diagnosis. Instead of getting the academic and social support he needed then, Osime, like many of us, was wrongly seen by his teachers as troublesome, stubborn and stand offish. Covering his ears due to sensory overwhelm was seen as rudeness. Meltdowns due to sheer frustration at not being able to communicate his needs was seen as bad behaviour…

…As a society we need to unlearn our biases, and develop better ways to support Black and neurodivergent people.”

Dalmayne, E (2020)

Finally, let us consider the research surrounding Autistic people and their experiences with the police.

Research tells us that natural Autistic expressions of self increase the likelihood of a person encountering the criminal justice system at some point in their life (Tint et al; 2017).

Research also tells us that Simon Baron-Cohen has been espousing harmful views regarding Autistic people and criminality since at least the 1980’s, claiming that Autism is a risk factor for violent crime and terrorism (Baron-Cohen, S; 1988). perhaps now it is easy to see why he feels it necessary to intimidate us with systemic aggression. This is a man who has believed that our existence is dangerous for decades.

Simon Baron-Cohen knows exactly what he is doing by inviting the police to a peaceful protest, led by Autistic people (whom he professes to serve the interests of?) trying to defend their right to exist. He is hellbent on perpetuating the myth that we are violent, dysfunctional criminals. This is dehumanising. Autistic people are most likely to be victims (for a wider discussion of this, see Aucademy’s video here), not perpetrators.

Not only is this evidence of Baron-Cohens disdain for Autistic people, but also a prime example of his privilege. He’s so far removed from the daily lived experience of his “research subjects” that he genuinely thinks this is an appropriate response, does he read any research beyond his own self-serving and incredibly biased theories, that Autistic people disprove by merely existing?

This is all-the-more reason to attend this protest, we need to show in voice and number that we will not stand for the discrimination and prejudice that so called “autism researchers” continue to pour upon us, infecting every aspect of our daily lives.

Simon, just because you keep repeating something doesn’t make it true.

Sincerely,

Boycott Spectrum 10k Team

For more information on the protest, please see the event listing on Facebook here.

Tanya Adkin (she/her)

As a late identified Autistic/ADHD adult, a parent to two children with multiple neurodivergence, and a professional working within the voluntary sector from a young age, I have unique insight from all perspectives

I have worked within the voluntary sector, starting within the disabled children’s service, progressing on to mental health, healthcare funding, youth services, domestic abuse, and much more.

For the last six years, I have developed a specific interest both personally and professionally in special educational needs and disabilities, particularly around neurodivergence and the challenges faced by families when trying to access support.

I am dedicating to educating in neurodivergent experience in order to help families thrive by providing insight, reframing, and perspective in an accessible and personable way

My work includes specialist consultation and direct work with Autistic CYP and their families that others describe as “complex” and “difficult to engage”, ranging from those experiencing psychosis, addiction to high risk Children Vulnerable to Exploitation, County lines and Sexual exploitation.

I work as a specialist alongside social workers ranging from assessing capacity, neurodivergent parenting, disabled children and child protection.

tanyaadkin.co.uk

Bobbi Elman (she/her)

Bobbi is an Autistic mother of two Neurodivergent young adults. Bobbi and her children all have hypermobile EDS with many of the conditions that accompany it, like PoTS. High anxiety (exposure anxiety). Bobbi is a University of Birmingham graduate with a degree in SEN children Autism and has worked specifically with Autistic children/young people for over 19 years and believe in low arousal, child/person-centred approach. Bobbi has over eight years of experience working as a high-level specialised Autism one-to-one TA and experience working on a LA Autism Advisory team, which included key work.

Bobbi does not support ABA/PBS. (Applied Behaviour Analysis and Positive Behaviour Support). Bobbi continues to deliver training to staff and school, and will happily deliver training to anyone who works with or has contact with an Autistic child or adult on the Autistic experience. Bobbi is available for consultancy, advocacy, and training.

autismadvocate.co.uk

Bibliography

Aucademy (2021) Autistic, gender, & sexuality diversity – growing list of resources. aucademy.co.uk

Aucademy (2021) Autistics respond to media reporting of violence & victimisation by neurodivergent people Aug 2021. Aucademy, youtube.com

Baron-Cohen, S. (1988). An assessment of violence in a young man with Asperger’s
Syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 29(3),
351–360.

Boycott Spectrum 10k Team (2021) Collective joint statement from Autistic people on Spectrum 10k. Emergent Divergence, emergentdivergence.com

Boycott Spectrum 10k Team (2021) Apparently Autism needs preventing? Emergent Divergence, emergentdivergence.com

Dalmayne, E. (2020) Fighting police abuse and racism. workersliberty.org

Dalmayne, E. (2020) Deporting An Autistic Black Man Exposes This Government’s Hypocrisy On Racism. Huffington Post, huffingtonpost.co.uk

Fallon, C. (2021) Call for police to get mandatory neurodiversity training after officer assaulted young autistic boy in school. Channel 4

Gray-Hammond, D. and Adkin, T. (2021) Creating Autistic suffering: Failures in identification. Emergent Divergence, emergentdivergence.com

Gray-Hammond, D. and Adkin, T. (2021) Creating Autistic suffering: In the beginning there was trauma. Emergent Divergence, emergentdivergence.com

Powell, J. (2021) Mum slams school as autistic son, 12, handcuffed by police on first day of term. The Mirror

The Guardian (2021) Met police officer dismissed for hitting vulnerable girl ‘more than 30 times’ with baton

Tint, A., Palucka, A. M., Bradley, E., Weiss, J. A., & Lunsky, Y. (2017). Correlates of police involvement among adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(9), 2639-2647.

David Gray-Hammond 4 Comments
Oct 2 2021
Creating Autistic suffering: Failures in identification

This article was co-authored between David Gray-Hammond and Tanya Adkin

Trigger Warning: This article contains discussion of systemic abuse and trauma inflicted by professionals. Some of the research cited contains person-first language and other problematic or ableist language. There is also discussion of sexism and racism.

The first part of this series looked at the trauma that Autistic people experience on a daily basis from birth, perhaps even before birth. We did this so we could start to paint a picture of why so many Autistic people experience what would be considered “poor outcomes”. In this next part of the series, we intend to dive into the issues around the identification of Autistic people.

Criticisms of “autism theory” and how it relates to identification

Let’s set the clock back just short of 100 years. In 1939 a man called Sigmund Freud died. This man, considered the father of psychoanalysis, had come to the end of a life focused on “emotional disturbances” and “unhealthy developments of the human mind” which he attributed to negative experiences in early childhood (Adkin, T.; 2021). While it’s true that childhood experiences can shape our adult lives, what we need to look at is how we define “unhealthy developments of the human mind” and, more specifically, how we define “unhealthy”. We need to bear in mind that “disordered” is defined by society.

“A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”

APA. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (2013)

The problem with Freud’s theories was that they implied that any deviation from the neurotypical mind was an “emotional disturbance” or an “unhealthy development”. He did this before autism had even been conceptualised, setting the stage for a great deal of the ableism that Autistic people now experience. From there it just gets worse.

Now let us look at the work of Leo Kanner. Kanner conceptualised autism and gave birth to autism theory in 1943. As expected, his theories on the development of autism were wildly problematic. Kanner believed that autism was related to the mother and child relationship; to be specific, he believed that the “refrigerator mother” was what led to Autistic children.

In 1944 we also had the extraordinarily controversial work of Hans Asperger and his “little professors”, but because Kanner got there first, the accolade of identifying autism went to him. Asperger’s work wasn’t really popularised until Lorna Wing revisited it in the 1970’s. Lorna Wing introduced the the work of Asperger back into the narrative towards the end of the 1970’s (Silberman, S. 2015).

From that foundation research into autism got worse and worse, with Bettelheim claiming that autism was the result of psychological harm, inflicted on children by their mothers. We also have Ivar Lovaas who is well known for comparing Autistics to animals, or blank slates who are not completely human. One thing that’s not well known about Lovaas is that he believed that behaviour was imprinted onto children by parent-child interactions. Therefore implying parental fault and building on existing theory, giving him a green light to develop abusive “therapies”.

Jumping forward, we have the massively (un)helpful theories of Simon Baron-Cohen et al. This particular individual has more or less shaped the modern understanding of autism, and he did this while getting pretty much everything about the Autistic experience wrong. According to Baron-Cohen, we lack theory of mind, an ability that (in his opinion) makes us human.

“A theory of mind remains one of the quintessential abilities that makes us human.”

Baron-Cohen, S. (2001)

It doesn’t exactly take any mental gymnastics to see the implication that Autistic people are not human. Baron-Cohen also brought us other hits like extreme male brain theory (Baron-Cohen, S.; 2002).

Baron-Cohen’s work led to highly problematic rhetoric in autism theory, especially sexism.

“Some of us also struggle with understanding our gender, or lack of gender, and there aren’t always words to express our feelings. Add this with alexithymia, an inability to articulate or understand our own feelings, and we are in for one rocky ride! No wonder so many of us sit in these two closets for so long.”

Munday, K. (2021)

Thanks to the historical work of so called “autism researchers”, we have entered into a world where autism is seen as a condition of young, white, males. Thompson et al (2003) concluded that:

“most of what we believe we know about autism is actually about males with autism”

Thompson, T. et al (2003)

What we are seeing here is not a “different” kind of autism, it’s sexism. It is a failure to take account of the different societal influences that impact people on opposite sides of not just the well known binary of genders, but the entire spectrum of gender diversity. It also completely disregards autistic masking. It also does a huge disservice to people who were assigned male at birth, but do not fit the expectations of societal norms; completely ignoring the fact that regardless of whatever gender we identify with, we are all neuroqueer by our very existence (Walker, N. and Raymaker, D. M.; 2021).

“Just as the prevailing culture entrains and pushes people into the embodied performance of heteronormative gender roles, it also entrains and pushes us into the embodied performance of neurotypicality—the performance of what the dominant culture considers a “normal” bodymind.”

Walker, N and Raymaker, D. M. (2021)

The sexism in autism theory is obvious, but what is often left out of the conversation is that, yes, researchers are often talking about boys, but more so, it’s always about white boys.

People of colour are typically diagnosed later, if at all, and face a harder time accessing services, as a result experiencing poorer outcomes (Broder-Fingert, S. et al; 2020).

“Empirical data on the mechanisms of inequities are generally lacking, although traditional contributors (structural racism, prejudice, education, income) are certainly at play.”

Broder-Fingert et al (2020)

“When I—as a black person, as a woman, as an autistic adult, as the mother of black autistic children, as an advocate—think about the world of autism research and practice, the words of Doughboy come to mind. In a poignant ending scene from the late African American director John Singleton’s iconic debut film, Boyz n the Hood, Doughboy sadly remarks, “Either they don’t know, don’t show…or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.” Similarly, when it comes to autism, either they—or should I say you all—do not know, do not show, or do not care about black, indigenous, people of color (BIPoC) very much.”

Giwa Onaiwu, M. (2020)

What does this lead to?

Unfortunately all of these issues in autism theory lead to a lack of identification, which in itself is a passport to support. Without our needs being met by that support, we enter a world where Autistics are so traumatised that it is difficult to identify what an untraumatised Autistic person may look like. The diagnostic criteria itself is based on Autistic people in distress (Gray-Hammond, D. and Adkin, T.; 2021).

Formal diagnosis is indeed a privilege, in America it’s common for individuals to spend thousands on diagnosis. In the UK waiting lists for NHS diagnosis are often up to 4 years+ long, forcing many to take the private route to diagnosis. Which we will cover in more detail in the next part of the series by looking at systemic failures in accessibility to services.

All of the above separates us from our sense of self, our peer support, and our community. Three things that hugely contribute to good mental health and wellbeing in Autistic people, along with a sense of belonging (Botha, M. et al; 2021). It is vital that the Autistic community continue it’s work to change these problematic narratives.

“The multifaceted community which includes elements of belongingness, social connectedness, and political connectedness is a vibrant, and welcoming space for autistic people”

Botha, M. et al (2021)

Bibliography

Adkin, T. (2021) Parent Blame. Where does it come from? tanyaadkin.co.uk

American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition).

Baron-Cohen, S. (2001). Theory of mind in normal development and autism. Prisme, 34(1), 74-183.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2002). The extreme male brain theory of autism. Trends in cognitive sciences, 6(6), 248-254.

Botha, M., Dibb, B., & Frost, D. (2021). “It’s being a part of a grand tradition, a grand counter-culture which involves communities”: A qualitative investigation of autistic community connectedness.

Broder-Fingert, S., Mateo, C. M., & Zuckerman, K. E. (2020). Structural racism and autism. Pediatrics, 146(3).

Giwa Onaiwu, M. (2020). “They Don’t Know, Don’t Show, or Don’t Care”: Autism’s White Privilege Problem.

Gray-Hammond, D. and Adkin, T. (2021) Creating Autistic suffering: In the beginning there was trauma. Emergentdivergence.com

Munday, K (2021) Teenage, Queer and Autistic: Living in Two Closets. AIM for the Rainbow. Rainbowaim.com

Silberman, S. (2015) The forgotten history of autism. Ted Talk. Ted.com

Thompson, T., Caruso, M., & Ellerbeck, K. (2003). Sex matters in autism and other developmental disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 7(4), 345-362.

Walker, N., & Raymaker, D. M. (2021). Toward a Neuroqueer Future: An Interview with Nick Walker. Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), 5-10.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
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