Last night I stopped in a Spencer’s Gift Store, something I hadn’t done in a while. I noticed something I’d never seen before – T-shirts celebrating Autism.
I’m not talking about “autism Awareness” shirts, or T-shirts advocating acceptance of the Autistic. Those have been around for quite a while. This was something very different. These T-shirts celebrated Autism, and appeared to be taking the stance that a lot of people, i not everyone, was at least a little bit autistic. Some seemed to be enthusiastic that the wearer and friends were somewhere on the scale.
This was something I’d never encountered before. I know that Rick Riordan wrote the Percy Jackson books in part to communicate the idea to his son that it was OK to be autistic, and that it could be considered something special. But this is the first time I’ve seen it suggested that this was particularly widespread and that the wearer s of the shirts considered much of their group to be autistic.
I asked my daughter, who is a Certified Young Person, more likely to be in touch with modern social vibes than an Old Fogey, about this. She explained that it was something bor of the enforced isolation during COVID, when people had more time to contemplate theyr own state, combined with the development of new tests for autism, especially those applicable to women. Apparently it used to be easy to test boys for autism ut not girls. Now that they could test both sexes equally they were finding many more cases than before.
Anybody else know about this? Or can expand upon itt?
I looked at their website, but only found one, however, on reddit, I found this, which I assume is what you were seeing:
The consensus, at least in this reddit thread, seems to be ‘whatever, but I wish they wouldn’t exploit autisim for money (but I still like some of them)’.
To quote one of the comments:
Yeah. It’s just Rainbow Capitolism, now with 30% more autism .
That said, My Bitch Got Autism made me laugh
That’s some of it – I saw a lot more of them in the store.
If you look closely at that rack, you’ll see shirts that say “You can’t spell autism without U and I”, showing a presumably autistic couple walking hand in hand. And a shirt saying “Autism is my Superpower” (which would be perfect for Percy Jackson). These are the kind of “I’ve got autism and proud of it” messages I haven’t seen before.
I checked as this sounded a little off to me, Percy and Rick’s son had ADHD & dyslexia. ADHD is not autism though it is common enough for those on the autism spectrum to have said. Both are of course more common than people used to think.
I feel like we went through this about 10-20 years ago with ADD/ADHD. My reaction (as someone with ADHD) to those was probably about the same. IIRC most of the ADHD jokes (on shirts or otherwise) are the same and really only hit one symptom, being easily distra…hey look something shiny.
Personally, I don’t wear ADHD shirts, but mostly for the same reason I don’t wear shirts advertising that I have bad vision and wear glasses…I just don’t give it that much thought and sincerely doubt anyone else cares.
It’s probably a good thing that these shirts are more ‘celebrate-y’ than jokey and they don’t seem mean spirited. I also suspect that the people wearing shirts like these are probably on the ‘high functioning’ side of the spectrum. I’ve known a few people over the years who, when they die, their autistic child will almost certainly end up in a special needs home for adults. While I don’t know any of these people well enough to discuss anything even close to this with them, I can’t imagine they’re making jokes about it.
There’s a wonderful stand-up comic, Lara Beitz, whose act is mostly about her autism, her lack of awareness of social cues, mostly, and it’s pretty relatable stuff.
About ten years ago, there was a video on YouTube called “Asperger’s High” about a high school where everybody had Asperger’s syndrome. It seems to have disappeared, but it was (A) really funny and (B) a riff on the high school dramas then on the WB network. The term “Asperger’s” has become problematic, so this is no longer available, but it was a dead-on depiction of symptoms of high-functionoing (another problematic term) autism.
A woman I love is on the spectrum and I may have some markers for it myself.
There are a lot of people who have been diagnosed with autism, a lot of people who haven’t been diagnosed but think they have it, and a lot of those people are very vocal on the Internet in a way that has shaped public dialogue about autism. This is for better or for worse. It’s absolutely true that women are less commonly diagnosed, and that the ADOS often misses autistic women. This is currently a major subject of autism research. Autistic women with lower support needs are commonly very adept at hiding the obvious signs. This is called “masking.” They are socialized more aggressively by their culture to mask their traits. They spend more time studying human behavior, expressions, eye contact, rehearsing things to say, and generally are better students of the social sphere. This is not because they find it easier, but because (generalizing here) they care more than boys about fitting in, and are willing to put in the time and effort to do so.
However I’m not aware of any comparable (highly empirically validated) tool that diagnoses autism in women as a special population. I think it’s more often that standard diagnostic tools are used alongside psychosocial histories, parent reports, etc. to make such a diagnosis or rule it out. Some tools have been developed to identify autism in higher-masking individuals, but I’m not sure how they hold up as scientific measures.
The shirts are nice. Autism is not something to be ashamed of. However, I’m skeptical of the “superpower” thing with any neurodevelopmental disorder. These conditions including ADHD create a lot of issues, some of which just can’t be compensated for in most individuals.
Teens, being teens, are more likely to define their entire selves by a single dimension. It’s part of how they explore their identities. Thus none of this is surprising. Although I’m willing to bet half the kids wearing those shirts have never been diagnosed.
My son is autistic support Level 2 (moderate support needs.) We celebrate Autistic Pride Day every year, usually by giving him a gift related to his special interest. Pride is fine and good and important. I wanted his earliest understanding of his condition to have a positive framing because there’s so much negativity out there. But we also talk frankly about the challenges that come with this difference.
When I was young I had some testing. I have very little knowledge of this. But, was told there was “brain damage”. MANY years later, I was dating someone who worked with special needs children in elementary school and said that I was probably autistic. And when I checked my “brain damage” symptoms were consistent with autism.
I think it would have been a lot better to get a T-shirt saying Autism is my Superpower vs. telling me I was brain damaged.
If you read the comments by autistic people to these videos it’s clear there is a lot of love for the autistic reporter.
The one where he gets excited about all the people killed is very much like my son. It creates some problems where people think he is excited about mass casualty events. It upset my father in law when my son was getting excited about a YouTube video reporting fatality statistics of major tsunamis. My kid gets excited about big numbers and size comparisons so the bigger the wave, the more excitement. Numbers going up. He can’t control his stimming in response to that and it has nothing to do with whether he cares about those dead people or not (he was five at the time, and I’m not sure you can expect much sensitivity from a five year old, anyway.)
So that video by ONN was actually very astute not only in observing the innocence of the autistic reporter’s response, but the way in which he was misunderstood by the general public as being callous to human suffering. It’s very smart writing.
It’s always read to me like a toaster prize for people with neurodevelopmental disorders. I’m pretty disillusioned with the notion that my ADHD is a super power. Studies consistently show that ADHD is a cognitive deficit (or several.) I’m pretty smart but I would be smarter without ADHD. I’d also probably be less creative, though.
Not saying I would take it away if I could, but ADHD isn’t as broad a spectrum as autism. Try telling a nonverbal level 3 person their autism is a super power. Actually I’ve lurked in Reddit communities for level 2 and 3 autistics and they take a lot of issue with it. It’s fine if someone individually feels that way - they have a right to their own identity - but I wouldn’t want to downplay the real challenges.
I’ve considered the fact that I might be autistic, even saw someone about it, but she was so bad at therapy that I had to stop in the middle of the evaluation. That question goes unanswered for now, maybe ever.
