So I've just seen the latest attention seeking, self-promoting baiter of #ActuallyAutistic people laughing at the sensitivity of almost #AllAutistics over the mythical "cure" for autism & I have something to say. Curing MY autism would be tantamount to murder...1/

Dramatic you say? Hear me out.
I'm 50 & known I was autistic since I was 13. I've never known and never COULD know any other way to be. I've lived, worked, loved & been friends with non-autistic people all my life & NOTHING has made me envy them...2/

I don't hate or resent NT people one bit. My wonderful wife is NT as are many of my favourite people in RL & online, but I wouldn't want to be one. I have lived all my life with autistic senses, autistic emotions, autistic thoughts & made autistic decisions... 3/

Everything in my life is "touched by autism" (if I may appropriate a usually ANTI autism phrase)
So if you "cured" my autism you'd completely change me. My identity, my sense of self would be obliterated. I would no longer exist. Everything I care about would be gone... 4/

My friends wouldn't recognise me, I'd lose many of the qualities my wife loves about me, my creativity would be curbed, I'd lose my ability to hyperfocus, I'd not be able to work so productively or learn so quickly. I'd be a hollow shell of the man I once was, and for what?... 5/

Eye contact? Trivial friendships? A desire to "fit in"? Flexible morality? Better ability to lie? Blunted, inchoate senses? Worries about popularity, status and looking like everyone else?
No thanks. Not my cup of tea old bean. I'll stick to being me if you don't mind... 6/

If my autism were cured, my body would live but my personhood, my identity, my SOUL if you like, would die.
"Curing" me would be nothing but bloodless murder of the person I've spent 50 years learning to appreciate being... 7/

Good job there's no likelihood of there EVER being a cure for being me or I'd have to go into hiding.
If the worst should happen I'll be the first to volunteer to start the "Autistic Railroad" to help save my kind.

Just to finish off...
Some thoughts on WHY so much of the world thinks a cure for autism would be a good thing.
Neurotypical Black & White Thinking (about autism)