Dammit Jim, You're an Actor, not a Autist

[davidgillon]

There's currently a twitter spat between on the one hand, William Shatner, and on the other, a load of autism self-advocates complaining over his support for Autism Speaks. Shatner is ablesplaining how they're all wrong, but doesn't seem to be aware that even though they're technically wrong in some of their points, they are points that have historically been correct until recently, such as Autism Speaks not having anyone autistic on their board, which was absolutely true from the last autistic board remember resigning in disgust in 2013, until they changed their tune over a lot of stuff and managed to get a couple of new ones. But what really turned my stomach was Shatner claiming it was all about money:

What I don’t hear about is those #ActuallyAutistic that are on the lower end of the spectrum. The higher end wants donation monies to flow to them to improve their current lives and to stop research and studies. How is that fair to those who need constant care?

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) March 11, 2019

I'm just imagining Spock and Bones watching him and both thinking, "Seriously, Jim?"

(And if he was up to speed on autism he'd know the high and low functioning labels are now disparaged)

Comments

[kaberett]

I Do Not want to wade into shit on twitter (ever), but I feel the need to link (as ever) to this post by a "low-functioning" autistic.

[davidgillon]

<3

[sovay]

There's currently a twitter spat between on the one hand, William Shatner, and on the other, a load of autism self-advocates complaining over his support for Autism Speaks.

Argh what.

[conuly]

I am all for research and studies and donations to help families of severely autistic children/adults.

Uh, A$ isn't fucking doing that, Shatner. Mostly they're invested in lining their own fucking pockets.

[vass]

He has no idea what he's talking about. Not an unusual situation for William Shatner.