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In light of the shit that @DrWilliamProct1 has been pulling, I want to talk a bit about how much damage comes from using autism to excuse abusive behavior from white men, especially ones in positions of power.
First, to be clear: I am not questioning or challenging whether Dr. Proctor is Autistic. That's not what this is about.
Second: since this is going to come up, I am #ActuallyAutistic. I've also spent most of my career advocating against workplace harassment, abuse, and discrimination, so this particular intersection is close to home for me.
There are two contexts in which I continually see autism used to excuse poor behavior: when individuals use their own diagnoses to dodge accountability, as Dr. Proctor did; and when others armchair diagnose bad actors as Autistic to excuse their behavior. Both do harm.
. @SamiraNadkarni did an excellent job of addressing the ways this intersects with institutional racism in her response to Dr. Proctor's letter, which you can read--along with Nadkarni's response--in this thread: https://twitter.com/SamiraNadkarni/status/1300142119072358401
Nadkarni also names BIPOC Autistic scholars and their work in her response; you should look those--and others--up and follow them, because understanding how autism is racialized is really important for both racial and disability justice.
I'm addressing this as a white Autistic trans man; my perspective is focused mostly along the vectors within my experience, namely, the normalization of both ableism and abuse.
I'm not going to attempt to adjudicate Dr. Proctor's claim that he sent those emails in the middle of a meltdown; again, that's not a relevant question.
I will say that using autism as an excuse for that behavior is absolute, rank bullshit.
I will say that using autism as an excuse for that behavior is absolute, rank bullshit.
That degree of disregard for other people isn't symptomatic of autism. It's symptomatic of privilege, and of using a disability as a shield from having other vectors of privilege questioned or challenged.
As Samira Nadkarni noted, that's not a strategy available to Autistic people who are not white men.
It's also massively reinforced by institutional power, especially in a professional academic context, where Autistim-adjacent traits are often enthusiastically rewarded in white men as proof of genius, and aggressively punished in everyone else.
Which is to say: Dr. Proctor is hiding behind autism in exactly the same way that men in his position hide behind eccentric genius; and essentially requesting the same absence of culpability for the harm he does that's historically accorded--wrongly--to those men.
(This isn't a dynamic that actually requires that setting; but I think it's important that we acknowledge the ways that academia reinforces and rewards this shit.)
Going back a step: The contexts in which I see people using autism as an excuse, as Dr. Proctor did, are almost exclusively ones in which it's used to dismiss the discomfort, hurt, or anger of someone who isn't a white man.
Again, this happens directly--as in Dr. Proctor's case--and from outside, when non-autistic people either use known autism or armchair diagnose a white man as Autistic to excuse or dismiss abusive or inappropriate behavior and the harm it does.
I've seen both approaches weaponized against Autistic women--whose autism was simultaneously used to dismiss the validity of their concerns--including me, pre-transition.
This is not rare.
This is not rare.
When I've challenged it--often as gently and apologetically as possible; internalized ableism is real, kids--from non-Autistic people, the response has generally been dismissal, hostility, and defensiveness.
Okay.
Okay.
(I get the impulse to identify bad actors as a discretely categorizable Other. It's harmful, but I get it.)
Within the Autistic community, it makes me so much angrier, because it's so specifically a privileged class weaponizing a disability in ways that actively harm the rest of us. Privilege, like marginalization, is intersectional; so is the harm it can do.
This is a plea to STOP.
If you're not Autistic, don't use autism to dismiss or excuse other people's harmful behavior; and challenge your peers when they do it. Listen to the Autistic people that behavior hurts, not just the ones you don't want to hold accountable.
If you're not Autistic, don't use autism to dismiss or excuse other people's harmful behavior; and challenge your peers when they do it. Listen to the Autistic people that behavior hurts, not just the ones you don't want to hold accountable.
If you are Autistic, you have as much responsibility as anyone else to be aware of the ways that your privilege mediates your cultural status as a disabled person, and how your actions can impact people who don't share that privilege. Autism does not obviate that responsibility.
In conclusion: autism isn't a get-out-of-social-compact-free card; most Autistic people don't have the option of using it as one; and pretending otherwise hurts everyone, including Autistic people.
We can be assholes, too.
We can be assholes, too.
P.S.
If I were Bournemouth University, after seeing the way that Dr. Proctor weaponized autism to excuse abuse of a peer, I would be extremely concerned about how he treats his students.
If I were Bournemouth University, after seeing the way that Dr. Proctor weaponized autism to excuse abuse of a peer, I would be extremely concerned about how he treats his students.
P.P.S. If you've found this thread useful and are in a position to do so, it would be very cool if you made a donation to the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color’s Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment: https://autismandrace.com/autistic-people-of-color-fund/
