What is Autism?

I’ve been too exhausted to talk about politics lately. This isn’t about politics. Well, it shouldn’t be. This is about health. This is about science. This is about evidence. This is about RFKJ. Ok. Here we go. I really didn’t want to talk about this, but with some, shall we say, confusion… about the topic, I think it’s necessary. I don’t care if you lean left or right. I don’t care if you are anti vaccine or rational. As far as I’m concerned, you either follow the truth or you are living in a lie. I’m going to try my best to answer two questions. What is autism? What causes autism?

Ground Rules

The funny thing, is that my answer to both questions is the same. I’m not going to disparage anyone specifically… until later. It’s not about the person, it’s about the argument. I only care about what’s true, not who says it. I am not a doctor. I am not a researcher. I am not a biologist. But neither is RFKJ. I’m just someone with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

And I have some thoughts.

What inspired me to write this isn’t the recent idiotic announcement that Tylenol (which was released in 1955 after autism was first diagnosed in 1912) caused autism (it doesn’t). It isn’t the common mindless belief that it’s caused by vaccines (it’s not). Instead, I am outraged about this persistent idea that it needs to be cured. Cured. Eliminated. Eradicated.

What is autism?

I think autism is simply another branch on the tree of evolution. Some people are tall. Some people are athletic. Autistic people are really good at pattern recognition. Would you try to cure tall people? Then why do you want to cure autism?

Side note: I’ve gone to enough concerts where some tall asshole is in front of me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “Back of Dude’s Neck” playing my favorite songs. You talls have an easier life. Most people regardless of gender are more attracted to tall people. It’s easier for you to reach things on top shelves. The trade off is if you’re at a concert, you have to stand in the back. You can still see. But then so could we. Anyway, fuck the tall, but we shouldn’t eradicate them.

Here’s something that most people get wrong. We tend to think of genetics in the singular. “The gene for alcoholism.” “The gene for red hair.” “The gene for brown eyes.” But that’s not accurate. Genes interact. Maybe red hair only presents if you have 3 specific genomes. Unless, you have a particular 4th genome, in which case you’d get blond hair. We’ve identified roughly 40k genes, and they interact with each other to give us the diversity of humanity. Sometimes, there’s a glitch. A mutation. Maybe that 4th gene I mentioned earlier interacts with a 5th gene that causes sensitivity to light. Maybe a 6th gene does nothing, but if the 2nd gene is present, then it allows you to roll your tongue. There are hundreds of thousands of variables.

In the case of autism, the genes that combined to manifest what we call autism allow us to view the world differently. Perhaps back in the caveperson days, someone noticed that when people ate green berries, they got sick, but when people ate the red berries, they didn’t. Their ability to notice patterns allowed them to survive. Over the millennia, that combination of genes would be passed on. In most cases, it didn’t really matter. “That’s just the way they are.” Einstein was probably autistic. Darwin might have been. Bobby Fischer was almost certainly on the spectrum. Should we have eliminated them? Of course not. Occasionally, the genes would get borked. The genes would interact in such a way that made it difficult for some people to talk. Or care for themselves. Or get obsessed with trains.

Just because autism was first “discovered” in 1912, it doesn’t mean that it hadn’t existed long before. We just hadn’t identified it yet. Over the decades more and more research was done, and as we understood it better, more and more people were diagnosed. THAT is what caused the rapid rise in cases of autism. There were always autistic people. We just didn’t have a name for it.

Autism is a branch of evolution. We are different, not worse. Certainly some people require more care than others, and I can understand how some people would wish there were a cure for those cases. But for the rest of us, it just means we are analytical. We notice patterns. We like organization. Sometimes we don’t like people. Sometimes we find it difficult to relate to others. Different. Not worse.

What causes autism?

The parents. That’s it. That’s the cause. No need for more research. I’ve solved this labyrinthian puzzle.

One or both of them had the genes necessary. They passed those along. The person with autism simply had those genes activated. Look at it another way. Both of my biological parents have brown hair. I have two biological siblings. My brother and I have brown hair. My sister has red hair. Why? Why was she cursed? Well, my father’s mother had red hair. My father carried the genes, but they were recessive. He passed them on to my sister, where they combined in just the right way to give her fair skin and freckles. And that combination of genes happened to have the mutation where she has no soul… errr… I mean “red hair”. The same logic applies to every trait, including autism. My father was obsessed about a certain type of car manufacturer. He struggled with eye contact. He didn’t have a lot of friends. He had autistic traits, but no diagnosis. Those genes were passed on to me. They combined in the right way, and now I’m autistic. I was always autistic.

Maybe there are environmental contributors. Maybe certain situations or medications are more likely to activate the right genes. Heredity, however, is the biggest contributor to autism.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Which brings us to the present. I don’t know if anyone will ever show this to Secretary Kennedy. I hope they do. I hope he reads this with an open mind. While researching this article, I saw all the great work he had done in the past regarding the environment. He was a strong supporter of indigenous people’s rights. His bio is progressive platform after progressive platform. On autism, he’s simply wrong.

You see, he has a very narrow view of autism. He only sees the worst case scenario. The ones who can’t feed themselves. The ones who can’t talk. The ones who can’t brush their teeth. I can understand why someone could look at that, and want to find a cure. The thing he misses, is that only 1/3 of autistic people present that way. The vast majority of us do not.

He said, “these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted”. I wasn’t GOOD at baseball and my poetry sucked, but I’ve done the rest. He continued, “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.” MOST cases… 25%. Maybe this is my autism talking, but methinks RFKJ doesn’t know what “most” means.

He’s called for a database to track autistic people. He’s floated the idea of sending us to work camps… err… I mean “wellness camps” to grow organic food.

How is it possible that someone with such an amazing progressive pedigree could have such an antiquated and uninformed view on autism? It didn’t make sense. Imagine how powerful an ally he could be if he put his time and energy and passion into actually helping us. He sued companies for poisoning the environment. He helped poor people. He helped so many. Why not us?

Then I had an epiphany.

RFKJ doesn’t want to eradicate autism. He wants to eradicate autistic PEOPLE. He isn’t trying to help us. He HATES us. Suddenly everything he says makes sense. Like, if James Bond were autistic, Robert F Blofeld Jr. would try to put something in the water and sterilize us.

Side note: James Bond could never be autistic. He’d always correct people. “Um actually, it’s double ZERO seven.”

I don’t know why Secretary Kennedy hates us. Maybe his former heroin dealer was autistic. Whatever the reason, he hates us, and that perfectly explains his attitude towards autism. It must be eradicated because WE must be eradicated. It’s the only thing that makes sense. For some reason, RFKJ hates us with the passion of a thousand suns. He wants to eliminate us from the gene pool. He wants us to be a faint, half remembered idea. A wives tale that the future talks about, like an ancient Greek monster.

That would also explain why he came up with his idiotic Tylenol thing. Most people assumed that he’d simply use his authority to confirm his belief that vaccines were the culprit. It still wouldn’t be based on any evidence, but he had this preconceived notion, and we all thought he was going to use his power to justify it. He’d pull some study out of his ass that would confirm it, and that was that.  Instead, he went with Tylenol. Even the antivaxers were like “lol wut?” It’s because he doesn’t actually care. He doesn’t actually want to find the cause. We aren’t people to him.

So Secretary Kennedy, on behalf of all autistic people around the world, and from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself.