Alt-psych, same oppression

 Dear Alt-Psych people:

Any explanation for violence that involves "the brain" is neurobigoted. Yes, even if you think you're anti-psych. Even if you attribute it to "trauma" instead of "chemical imbalance."

People do not commit violence because of their brains.

What former foster kids need

 Things former foster children and other young adults living without family support need:

• Civil rights
• Material support such as food, housing, and physical healthcare
• Job opportunities
• Educational opportunities

Things former foster children and other young adults living without family support do NOT need:

• Preaching
• Pathologization
• Mental health assessments
• Assessments of their personal relationship with God
• Nosiness about their eating habits, sex lives, or other personal lifestyle choices
• Learning to trust "adults" (given that they ARE adults...)
• Help "breaking the cycle" of "bad choices"

Neurobigotry and ageism

 Neurobigotry and ageism are closely linked, overlapping forms of oppression. A major component of neurobigotry is that neurodivergent people are never allowed to be real adults -- sometimes literally, in the form of guardianship, we're forever relegated to the status of children. A major component of ageism, especially American upper-middle-class ageism in the form of infantilizing teens and young adults, is rooted in neurobigotry (the biologically meaningless claim that "the brain doesn't fully mature until" some ever-increasing age).

So invoking ageism to combat neurobigotry, or vice versa, will always be a terrible idea.

Young people (whether neurotypical or neurodivergent) who commit acts of violence deserve to be held accountable as people who've made choices. Their violent actions should not be blamed on "mental illness," "immaturity," or any failed obligation to "get them help."

Young people deserve to be free to participate in public policy discourse and have their opinions and experiences taken seriously.

When young people's public policy advocacy is neurobigoted and oppressive, this should be called out like any other neurobigoted and oppressive public policy proposal. Young people who advocate oppressive policies should neither be excused as "just kids" nor cited as examples of "clueless children" who are inherently too young to be listened to.

This sounds like I'm talking about March for Our Lives discourse -- and I am -- but it applies to a lot of other issues, too. Some of the most stigmatized psychiatric disabilities tend to start to be evident to outsiders during adolescence and young adulthood, which is used as an argument for stripping rights from psychiatrically disabled people (because they're Just Kids who should still be under their parents' authority anyway, with their immature brains) and as an argument for stripping rights from young people (because they might spontaneously become psychiatrically disabled at any moment). It applies to culturally fraught issues like health, sexuality, relationships, and parenthood. Control of young people and neurodivergent people is heavily centered on preventing them from exercising sexuality, and especially on preventing them from having children. Neurodivergent young parents face a stigma that is greater than the sum of neurodivergent-parent stigma and young-parent stigma. Colleges are under pressure to police the "mental health" of their students, nearly all of whom are legal adults, on behalf of their students' parents. Neurodivergent young people aren't allowed to make their own choices in life because they're "too young, and they never get to be considered "old enough," because they're neurodivergent.

Short version: Don't use ageism to combat neurobigotry. Don't use neurobigotry to combat ageism.

Relationship stigma double standards

Tip for feminists: When you judge a type of man/woman relationship, it doesn't matter that you say you judge the man more harshly than the woman. Women will still be more harmed by relationship stigma than men.

Friendly reminders about autism

 It's time again for a few friendly reminders about autism! Yay!

Friendly Reminder 1: Autism and Asperger Syndrome are literally the same thing. "Asperger Syndrome" is a (no longer used in the US) category of autistic people whose childhood speech development was not significantly delayed. "Autistic Disorder" was the category for autistic people who had childhood speech delays. That's it. That's the only difference.

Anyone who tries to claim that there is any other difference between "autism" and "Asperger Syndrome" (such as "'Aspies' excel in school but 'autistics' don't," or "'Aspies seek out socializing but 'autistics' don't") is either making it up, or unquestioningly repeating something someone else made up.

Autistic people are diverse -- some learn to speak at roughly average ages, some learn to speak late (or not at all). Some do well in a traditional classroom, others don't. Some have other learning disabilities, others don't. And all of these factors are COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ONE ANOTHER.

Please note that I hate everything about the DSM, diagnostic criteria, and the entire concept of classifying neurodivergences as "disorders," but when you perpetuate these falsehoods or the idea that "functioning levels" are a thing, you're actually being MORE pathologizing than the DSM, which is saying something.

Friendly Reminder 2: Autism does not "manifest differently in girls/women." Autistic girls/women are not "more empathetic" or "better social mimics" than autistic boys/men. Again, autistic people are diverse. Some are pretty good at mimicking allistic people, some aren't so much. This has no relationship to gender. However, sexist professionals will interpret the exact same characteristic differently based on the perceived gender of the person they're assessing. (Also, autistic people are significantly more likely to be transgender, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming than allistic people, so a whole lot of the "autistic girls" and "autistic boys" being assessed are being misgendered in the first place.)

Friendly Reminder 3: While autism is not classified as a "mental illness," this is kind of a useless thing to point out, and is not the reason that autistic people deserve rights/ acceptance/ not to be murdered. We deserve those things because we're people. Psychiatrically disabled/ "mentally ill" people deserve those things too (they also deserve not to have their neurodivergences called "illnesses" unless they choose to conceptualize them that way). Differentiating autism from "mental illness" is also pretty ineffective distancing, because have you ever met an autistic person who wasn't also psychiatrically disabled? Me neither.

Helping Helpers who Help

 One thing I've learned to identify as a red flag of Helping Helpers who Help is vaguely conflating and equivocating between discussion of physical, material problems (like poverty, violence, infectious disease, lack of actual material resources) and intangible issues like "dignity" or "self-esteem" or "respect" or "body image" or "spiritual growth" or "education" or "mindset."

Things this kind of equivocation is used for:

• covertly suggesting that physical, material problems are caused by some psychological or spiritual defect (e.g. "If you think positive and believe in yourself, you won't be poor anymore!" or "If you have enough faith, God will make your cancer go away!")
• justifying coercing people to accept "help" for their (presumed) mental/ emotional/ spiritual problems as a condition of receiving help for their physical, material problems (e.g. charities that require people to pray or accept religious practice in order to receive shelter, public assistance programs that require people to undergo nutrition counseling in order to get food aid, assistance for pregnant women that requires them to submit to lessons about "valuing themselves" enough to avoid sex).
• justifying discrimination (e.g. every argument that it's okay to pay women or young people or disabled people less than middle-aged abled men, because young/ female/ disabled people are only working for the "sense of accomplishment" or the "experience" or "feeling independent").
• tacitly blaming victims of injustice or abuse (e.g. "teaching" abuse victims to "value themselves" enough not to get abused anymore).
• allowing people to take credit for supporting "respect" and "dignity" while actively opposing tangible legal rights or material benefits (e.g. "Of course I believe everyone should be treated with dignity and respect, but..." that doesn't mean they should be paid a living wage, have the right to make their own choices in life, etc.)
• making claims presuming that people's material, physical needs and what other people believe to be their mental/ emotional/ psychiatric/ spiritual "needs" are actually one and the same (e.g. every single discussion of deinstitutionalization and homelessness ever)

Obviously, there's a time and a place for discussing intangible issues, and there's a time and a place for voluntary, uncoerced education, counseling, psychiatric treatment, prayer, spiritual support, emotional validation, etc. But if you're trying to talk about violence and material discrimination and desperation and somebody else keeps trying to change the subject to counseling and self-esteem, be really suspicious.