How Inclusive Advocacy Rhetoric for Exclusive Budget Policy Benefit Divided the Autistic Community

 The paper

released with an 'email blast' within 2 days of the 2014 #SOTU Republican response didn't say 'vote for' or 'vote against' a candidate or bill.  "Vote for" or "vote against" candidates or legislation are the 'trigger words' 501c3 nonprofits absolutely can't say as one of the only 'nonpartisan' tests of tax deductible nonprofit status that uses the IRS code to encourage good human behavior ('socially engineer' in the words of social and fiscal conservative Republicans and 'Independents') in how private money is spent.  But the Republican response did use the same word "hopeful" that the paper "Welcome to the Autistic Community" turned into an acronym to guide autistics how to assert control over their life choices from caregivers and service providers.

The 2008 Autreat presentation here revealed a problem in the autistic community whereby people found to live with autism, under the DD diagnostic category, had an easier time, particularly if diagnosed as children not as adults, in obtaining IL (Independent Living) services (LTSS) than people found to live with autism under the mental/behavioral health diagnostic category. 




4) Government Sponsored Discrimination Against Autistics-in California
and Beyond

Janis Oberman  Thursday 10:45am-12:30pm

The State of California discriminates against the Autistic population
by using DSM-IV diagnostic categories in a divisive manner, by
distinguishing between "AS/PDD-NOS" and "Autistic Disorder" in its
policies and when delivering social services. Discriminatory policies
are applied more rigidly to the older adult Autistic population, than
to the younger adult Autistic population, especially concerning adults
who were not diagnosed with Autism before the age of 18. Effectively,
these practices force many Autistic adults into a "Mental Illness"
classification in order to receive social services, where they usually
receive no Autism related services. Such practices exemplify more
general political, economic and cultural processes which occur in many
geographical locations other than California.

The erasure of Asperger's Syndrome and inclusion of past 'clothes dryer setting for humans'/diagnostic 'label' into Autism Spectrum Disorder in DSM 5 by 2013 does not eliminate the discrimination.  In fact, discrimination in eligibility criteria application to individual applications for services continues despite DSM 5 stating intensity of deficits in IL (independent living) skill levels (less negatively judgmental term for 'high' or 'low' functioning 'trigger words') should not affect eligibility for services.  Discrimination still occurs if there is not enough money, from public budgets, to fund the services.  Discrimination often takes the form of service request denials if person is not determined to be ID/intellectually disabled (new 'human dryer setting'/'label' for 'mental retardation' to avoid 'retardation' being turned into the 'r-word' slur) while the person is acknowledged as DD/developmentally disabled.  ID with DD has become the new barrier to financial aid (tax-supported services) with LTSS that mental health or developmental disability diagnostic labels had been as of the 2008 presentation.   The term DD is applied in an exclusive manner while activists use the term DD in an inclusive manner to build a bigger constituency for advocacy and activism.  I call this problem 'inclusive rhetoric for exclusive benefit.'