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Dec 29 2022
Spectrum 10k is still not acceptable, here are three reasons why

It is perhaps fitting that Spectrum 10k has reappeared during the dark months of the year. Much like the cryptids of antiquity, it inspires fear in our community, and obscures itself from the sight of all who attempt to quantify it’s nature.

There are no “versions” of the truth. Truth is a singular point, constructed from a collective of subjective experiences. So when the collective experience of the Autistic community tells you that S10k is the wolf among the lambs, we beg you to take heed.

There are three points I want you to consider before handing your DNA over to these malefactors:

1. There is no acceptable version of this study in it’s current form.

Regardless of how they dress it up, no matter how much they polish this particular turd, this is still the starting point of a eugenics program. They want to find the genetic root of autism, and by doing so, open the door to pre-natal testing. If you don’t realise what this means, please Google the amniocentesis test for down-syndrome, and how it has decimated the right of this minority to exist.

2. They are exploiting Autistic people to conduct the newly required “consultations”.

The people conducting these consultations want Autistic people to rehash our concerns for them, concerns that were so important to them that they didn’t take the time to listen the first time. Not only do they want us to repeat ourselves, I very much doubt this traumatic experience will come with any recompense. They also want us to do this without shouting them down. Perhaps, if they don’t want to be shouted down by Autistics, they should stop running projects that could lead to our eradication.

3. They are using token Autistics to manipulate us into engaging.

The fact that they are employing Autistic people to lead consultations is not an accident. It is a direct attempt to tug on our heart strings, and present an air of acceptability to the project. It is my belief that they hope we will believe that they’ve changed, and that it’s different this time, and that we will be more willing to engage with them.

The truth is that they are still using the same misdirection and subterfuge that they always have. Just because the nice man offers you candy, doesn’t mean you should get into the windowless van.

We as a community need to boycott not just this project, but all projects by those involved in the future. If we can show people that their careers are in jeopardy, they will be less likely to make this attempt in the future.

You may feel my words are hyperbolic in nature, but the Autistic community is my chosen family, and when someone threatens my family, I will use my words as weapons. Autistic people have a right to exist, and this flagrant example of ableism and disdain for our existence will become a significant part of our history.

It’s up to you to decide which side of that history you want to be on.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Dec 28 2022
Spectrum 10k is back, and now they want to exploit you

As you may remember from last year, Spectrum 10k was the project that “definitely wouldn’t be used for eugenics” but had involvement from people with links to (you guessed it) eugenics.

I won’t bore you with the details of this project’s history, it has been detailed on this website Here, Here and Here.

No, what I want to bring attention to is the betrayal we are experiencing at the hands of Autistic people, now involved in the project, who wouldn’t know their own tokenism even if they were walked up to it and introduced.

These Autistic people, paid to run consultations, with an aim to progress this experiment in the silent eradication of an entire cultural minority, want us to speak and tell them why we disagree.

As linked above, we have detailed our concerns, myself and others on the BS10k team poured literal tears into defending the Autistic community. We detailed our concerns, we lost weeks of sleep. It took such a toll on us that we are still engaging in peer support over this more than a year on.

So, when we are asked to detail this (yet again) understand that they are asking us to relive that trauma. Trauma that they are at fault for by being involved with this project. Not only do they ask us to go through this for no recompense, they are also asking as to subject ourselves to tone policing.

They believe that not only should we repeat the concerns they didn’t care enough to take note of, we should also do so without getting angry.

If you want to know why there is such suffering amongst the Autistic population, I point you to the likes of S10k and its partners. A group of aggressors who think nothing of exploiting us to meet their own wish to eradicate us.

We will not stand for it.

Our identities are built from our environment. S10k can no longer be allowed to be a part of our environment. We need to make this project untenable. We must not stop until the careers of all involved are brought to an end.

When I tell you to boycott S10k, I also ask you to boycott all future work by the people involved. Because we have to show them just how much we disagree with their actions.

You came for my community, and as a community, we will bite back. We are not the passive agents you hoped for.

We will not let you divide and conquer.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
Sep 3 2022
“Why are you so quiet?” Autistic voices and the fight to be heard
Post by elixirchai Text reads "you've been told all your childhood that it's rude to interrupt. and now you have grown up and speak only when there is a pause in the conversation. but suddenly you understand that neurotypicals are all interrupting each other and this is quite normal. but you are already used to not interrupting and waiting for a pause in the conversation and do not understand how to normally maintain a conversation in order to talk, but at the same time not to seem rude "
This image has alt text

Society is built upon a surprising number of rules that, when fully considered, seem rather arbitrary. In actual fact, societies rules are not arbitrary at all. They are deliberately designed to keep minority groups quiet while amplifying the voice of the oppressors.

I think most Autistic people have come across this particular micro-aggression. Sat in a social situation, listening, waiting for our chance to join in…

“Why are you so quiet?”

It’s a loaded question, because the truth is that society has conditioned us to be quiet. Don’t interrupt, don’t shout, don’t swear, don’t do anything that might upset the status quo. A status quo that upholds the victimisation of Autistic people while allowing those who want us eradicated to hog the microphone, so to speak.

It’s hard enough to know when my turn is in a conversation, let alone when the entire room is breaking the very rule that has caused my bewilderment in these situations. Neuronormativity dictates that everyone’s voice and opinion is equal, while silencing those who are harmed by this worldview.

Why is all of this relevant? Because I want you to understand why the titular question is micro-aggression.

Back to the social situation, I am lost and scared in a neurotypical environment, people speaking over each other and interrupting. Meanwhile my pavlovian ass is adhering to the rules that have been instilled in me since I could first speak.

What does this mean for Autistics trying to be a part of the conversation within the Autistic Rights movement?

It’s not just a room full of people speaking over each other and drowning us out of the conversation, it’s a world of people who think they know better. The irony being that when they don’t give us the chance to speak out against their rampant pathologisation of our identities, they use our silence to uphold their outdated and harmful beliefs about us.

The silence they instil in us by never giving us the chance to talk, is the very thing they use to justify calling us an epidemic. We social outcasts can’t possibly contribute to the economy through silence, can we?

So, sod the rules.

I will speak up and over the navel-gazing masses who believe me to be broken. I will stand in defiance of their arbitrary social rules, and I will live a life that feels right for me and my neurokin.

We are not broken, we are not ill.

We are quiet because you don’t give us the opportunity to step up to the proverbial mic.

So yeah, I hope that answers the question.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
Jul 6 2022
Autism “cure” culture and normative violence

TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains detailed discussion of harmful “cures”. It also mentions ABA, MMS, Chelation, and has in depth discussion around normative society and the murder of Autistic people.

For as long as I have been an advocate, many of my fellow Autistics have spoken out against cure culture. From Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) to Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), there are myriad “treatments” that claim to purge the autism from autistic people. I could speak at length about the direct harm that these quack interventions inflict, but there is a deeper level of conversation to be had.

We are engaged, at present, in a culture war. On the one hand, we have Autistic culture which teaches us to be neurologically queer in every sense of the words. Be ourselves, connect with the self and express it in a way that honors our neurocognitice style. On the other hand, is cure culture.

Cure culture teaches us that who we are is broken, deficient, unrelentingly burdensome. Curists would have you believe that our lives are empty, broken, that we are trapped in a living death. Alive but somehow non-existent. The discourse around autism “cures” is dominated by non-autistic people who believe they are performing acts of mercy by pouring bleach solutions down our throats, and chelation drugs into our veins.

All of these things are a form of violence against a minority group that simply wants to live in peace. A minority group that intersects with many other oppressed demographics.

This is why Autistics get angry, this is why our lives revolve around our Autistic identity. Not only do we have to be Autistic in a world that desires normativity, we have to justify why we shouldn’t be tortured and murdered by people that are often (incorrectly) described as “well-meaning”. We constantly have to justify our existence. We are begging to be allowed to live while the world at large seeks to destroy us.

And yes, my Autistic self is defined by that which they seek to remove. Remove the autism, and you remove the person. Autism doesn’t even exist, only the Autistic-self exists. I am Autistic, not a person with a fucking carry-on bag where I store my quirks.

Do you want to know why pretty much every Autistic person you meet is at some level of burnout? It’s because we are dealing with this bullshit every second, of every minute. Every hour, of every day. By their nature, our lives require us to educate people on why we should be allowed to carry on existing. Have you tried to every account while teaching literally everyone you meet why being Autistic is not something to be grieved and/or corrected? It’s exhausting.

This is the culture war that we are fighting. We have no choice but to join the frontlines. We have to raise our voices above those who would speak over us.

After all, isn’t the whole point to leave a better world for our progeny?

David Gray-Hammond 5 Comments
Apr 2 2022
Shifting the paradigm on world autism day

April 2nd.

It’s a day that so many of us dread. For as long as “world autism day” has existed, it is a day where (much like every other day) adherents of the pathology paradigm do their best to drown out the voices of those that proudly display their Autistic selves.

Why are we so loud about our experiences as Autistic people? It’s not because we’re trying to take away access to support services for Autistic children, as a certain type of parent will have you believe. It’s because we want to make sure that Autistic people receive support that is not only accessible, but of good quality.

But is this far enough?

Truthfully, no.

Yes, in the current world, we need access to that support. We live in a world that disables us with it’s oppressive nature. The higher your support needs, the more our world seeks to dehumanise you. Should we not be aiming higher than supporting people in a world that treats us like a phenomenon to be studied and experimented on?

Imagine, for a moment, a world where everyone is treated equally. Imagine a world where no one has privilege over another, and no group is marginalised. Imagine a world where being Autistic is no longer a medical issue that requires diagnosis.

This is the world we should be aiming for.

Sadly, societal neuronormativity makes such a world feel impossible. Even the most neurologically queer of us have been raised and indoctrinated into a type of groupthink that makes the act of queering oneself away from said normativity feel like an extreme sport

For some of us, being true to ourselves means putting our life at risk.

In order to move beyond our current society , we must do more than queer the self. We must dismantle the system in which we live and rebuild it. For the new system to work, terms like “neurotypical” and “neurodivergent” must become irrelevant. We need a societal divergence towards a new normal, one in which normal no longer exists.

For this to work, we need to move away from discussion around “disorders” and “conditions” and towards a world in which identity and culture take centre stage. A world where no one needs supporting because society works for everyone, rather than a select few.

This world autism day, we must step forward with a renewed fervour for not just the destruction of ableism, but the belief that a better world is possible. Let April 2nd 2022 be the day that we choose the neurodiversity paradigm.

Perhaps, this time next year, we can wake up to a society that’s just a little bit more accepting than the one we’re in today.

One day, trauma won’t be the collective experience of our autistic culture.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Feb 11 2022
Not your tragedy, not your epidemic, not your inspiration: reflecting on Autistic existence

Being Autistic is not inherently good or bad, it just is.

That’s not to say that I am not proud of who I am, and I am most certainly not denying the obstacles I have had to over come. While being Autistic is an inseparable part of my identity and existence, it is also an aggressively neutral thing.

I am good at some things, usually obscure and complex things, and awful at others, usually the things that society takes for granted.

Like any human being, my existence is predicated on breathing the same air that every other human breathes. I love, laugh, hate, and cry. I cheer for my friends, and at times can be really quite unkind about people I do not like.

I am human, not some childlike picture of innocence and naivety.

This, then, is what makes me so angry when society at large uses me to sell their own narratives.

When the “autism parents” want sympathy, I am a tragedy. When the antivaxxers want to cherry pick data, I am an epidemic. When the world sees me do an aggressively average thing, I am an inspiration.

I am all these things because (to quote the wonderful Dr. Chloe Farahar) “There is no autism, there are only Autistic people”.

I am an abstract concept, and at times I am the personification of existential ennui, is it any surprise when I exist in a society that uses me to sell a story? Society at large certainly doesn’t care about my story, or the story of my neurokin.

Autistic people do not exist for your benefit. We do not exist to serve a purpose outside of our “understanding”. We exist like any other human. We intersect with many other demographics of humans. Our lives are complex and nuanced. It doesn’t matter whether we are Nobel laureates, are unable to engage with traditional employment. Whether we care for ourselves, or need lifelong care.

The inner worlds of all Autistics are rich, complex, and beautiful.

I am Autistic, and I refuse to tell your story for you, when you won’t even listen to the story that myself and my community have been shouting from the mountaintop.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Sep 11 2021
This one’s for you Spectrum 10k

I am angry. I am beyond angry.

I am angry, tired, sad, stressed, and quite frankly, sickened to my core.

Since S10k was announced, I have watched as their blithe request for our DNA has traumatised a community that I love beyond measure.

My friends and colleagues have poured their heart into fighting your (not so covert) eugenics program. I have shared in their triumph, I have shared in their sadness.

I have shared in their horror.

You, S10k, have traumatised an entire minority group. You have taken our emotions, and laid them bare for the vultures.

Enough is enough. Your blatant attempt to pacify us with generic platitudes and promises of doing better are not enough.

We will not stop, we will not back down.

This fight has taken touch from us, but we continue to fight so that a future generation of Autistics may exist.

We fight so that future generations don’t have to.

I refuse to stand by while people I care about suffer at your hands. Your team, S10k, are a constant threat to our wellbeing.

We will interrupt your attempts to erase us.

We are proudly Autistic, not diseased, not damaged. We are the answer to the question “what’s the difference?” We are a beautiful minority.

We are not your play things.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Sep 3 2021
Untitled poetry regarding S10k

Written anonymously by a friend

On the 24th august an announcement was made
Alarm bells rang as a friend was disdained

On mainstream media on a pedastool
Research was announced treating us like we are fools

Processing began…. Numb, shutdown, uncertainty
Then came the realisation, this was aimed at me

A direct insult, a direct threat,
to me, my children and those I respect

Anger and tears, meltdowns took over
Tears in the car, crying over and over

I think of my children so innocent and pure. We have to protect then… keep the scientist from the door

Autistic communities are loyal, fierce and strong

We will keep fighting, you won’t silence our song

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
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