@334bu
Very interesting event. Specially impressed by the woman talking about autistic children. Well done everyone
Thanks! I'm banned from Twitter (the mods worked out I ran Stranglewank Hitman and banned my real account too as well as "him") so couldn't share transcripts on there but I've signed up here after meeting so many great Mumsnetters at the event.
Here's the Facebook group I mentioned, Gender Critical Autistics, we just set it up recently. It's just a discussion group at the moment but hopefully we can grow it and make it a useful resource. Transgender Trend, 4th Wave Now, the Tavistock whistleblowers and Safe Schools Alliance have been great on supporting autistics but there isn't really one group by and for us that links it all up, so that's what this is supposed to be. Non-autistic allies welcome too, we're a small population so we need all the pals we can get!
www.facebook.com/groups/319309189461011/?ref=share
I've got my speech here, this is what I was staring at awkwardly on my phone (but hey, sporadic eye contact is normal for us! ;) )
"I am autistic, and I want to talk about the transitioning of children as the latest eugenics attack on our community.
In the early 1900s in the UK, the then home secretary Winston Churchill recommended sterilisation of "feebleminds", including autistics, for "the improvement of the British breed".
In the 1940s, Hans Asperger, a paediatrician and autism researcher, collaborated with Nazi authorities and referred his child patients for sterilisation and execution under Aktion-T4. My own diagnosis is Asperger Syndrome, still named for him.
In the late 2000s, quack groups like Autism Speaks focused on genetic testing and screening to eradicate us. So far several genes have been identified. We don't yet know all its causes, but there is a strong genetic component. Both my parents and all my grandparents were autistic, and proudly so!
Which brings me to now. The Tavistock centre, the UK's NHS child gender clinic, shows that although autistics are only 1.6% of the general population, almost 35% of its patients were diagnosed autistic and over 50% showed some autistic traits. These children receive GnRH agonists and cross-sex hormones that leave them infertile before they can even freeze sperm or eggs. When we know our condition is genetic.
Yet again, we autistics are being bred out, and it's people who claim to be progressive calling for our eradication.
So much autistic behaviour is pathologised: we all remember tearing off uncomfortable clothing or not fitting in with our peer group, it's not because our bodies are wrong, it's just normal autistic traits that we learn to manage.
To other autistics: I know it's not easy, and we often look for a quick fix rather than the slow work of learning and working with our condition to get the best out of it. But the best advice I can give is to accept and love who you are. We are a proud community that included Isaac Newton, Mozart, Emily Dickinson, and society would be worse off without us.
And to the quacks: You swore to "first do no harm", your colleagues like Sue and Marcus Evans have seen what was happening and spoken up. I thank them. It's not too late to join them. If not, history will remember you alongside Hans Asperger and Andrew Wakefield, and you will be struck off like him. Autistics have long memories and a strong sense of justice, and we will not stand for yet another eugenics attack on our people."
Thanks for coming along, it was great to meet people!