Christ, apparently saying "Hans Asperger himself did not kill any Autistic kids that we know of" is somehow Nazi apologism now.

Sending Autistic kids to a clinic where they're at risk of being murdered under T4 is reprehensible, but saying he "killed kids" is not accurate.

There's a reason I think it's important to be precise here.

It's because if we're going to make an argument against using "Asperger Syndrome" as the name of the dx, it's worth giving the full picture. There was a whole system behind murdering those kids, not just one guy.

And the ideology behind devaluing those kids' lives STILL EXISTS.

That's why Asperger Syndrome as a diagnosis still exists in some places.

It's for the "useful" Autistics.

The murder of "useless" Disabled kids?

Has. Not. Stopped.

I'm not going to reduce Asperger's legacy to "he killed Autistic kids". Because it's worse than that.

His observations came from a place of "some kids matter and some kids don't and it depends on what they can contribute to the state".

And they built on his observations.

Like later researchers looked at his work (or the translation of it) and went, "Yeah this sounds like something we can use!"

And they named the thing after him.

It's... repulsive.

So I'm not okay with saying "the reason Asperger is a problem is because he killed Autistic kids*" when we have this whole eugenicist legacy that's ongoing and doesn't need asterisks.

* Through cooperating with T4 and sending kids to clinics where they were at risk of murder.

Like, I have whole huge threads on T4. I know the names of people who were murdered. I know that the techniques perfected in T4 got exported to other Nazi murder programs.

I know that T4 did not end when they said it did.

And, yes, Asperger cooperating with T4 would absolutely be bad enough. Reason enough to try to start rooting out his influence on our understanding and approach to Autisticness now.

Though it was always there in his own writings. He thought only some of us had some value.

And that's when you start understanding the insidious nature of this. Because this diagnosis has its origins in a fascist regime that leaned hard into eugenics in its outside voice.

And it's still all over it.

So yeah. I'm really uncomfortable saying things about Asperger that I can't prove when there are things about Asperger I can prove and I don't want to undermine them with hyperbole.

Do I think he's responsible for the murders of any kids he sent to clinics doing T4? Yeah. Plus.

Plus I think he's responsible for the deaths of a lot of Autistic adults and kids since then.

I managed to start a fight with Autistic Twitter without even trying.

You can say I'm splitting hairs and sending kids into a situation where they were likely to be murdered is the same as murdering them oneself.

And you have a point but for the purposes of the conversation around Asperger I think it's better to say exactly what he did.

Because otherwise you start this exact argument over "but he didn't actually kill kids" which is a waste of time.