Autistics enter the chat April 2025

TW: Discussion of eugenics, death, history of Nazi Germany and gas chambers

As I’ve been so overwhelmed with personal business and health matters this month, I wasn’t planning to do much at all for “Autism Awareness” month, April this year. But then… the new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr incorrectly fear-mongered about a non-existent autism “epidemic” and suggested creating a registry of ALL autistics in the United States WITHOUT SEEKING PERMISSION OR CONSENT.
And while spewing the most hateful rhetoric about the most disabled and highest support needs among us as tragedies who “destroy families”, needing to be prevented or cured. (Oof. Ouch. Yeah.) Something the autistic community has been fighting and pushing back on hard for years.

We’ve seen this movie before in Germany in 1939, and it did not go well. Nay, disabled people and children were rounded up and sent to die in gas chambers if they were deemed “useless eaters” to the Reich. Later, disabled adults were sent too. (This was before they targeted Jewish people.) Eventually, after enough public outcry in 1941, they stopped the more obvious rounding up and gassing of disabled people, and just had clinicians choose whom to leave to die of attrition (by malnutrition) or even lethal injection in their current clinics and wards so as to continue the culling more surreptitiously.

The well-known Hans Asperger ultimately became a sorting hat for the Nazi party despite not officially being a member of it and denying Nazi sympathies later, and separated more disabled higher-support needs autistic kids from those who could speak and write, who they deemed “useful”. Whence the growing distaste for the diagnostic label among many in recent years. Apologies to those for whom it is an identity or even business name, but history sucks sometimes. (That said, I let people use whatever label they prefer.) The HHS may not be ready to round us up yet, but… prevention? Cures? Tragedies? Burdens? How about just some support for our families…

Needless to say, autistic people have loudly entered the chat in April 2025 and pushed back, as exemplified by Taylor Heaton, aka “Mom on the Spectrum” on YouTube for one:

Autism News: HHS Walks Back Statement Made by NIH Director April 24, 2025 – Mom on The Spectrum on YouTube – addresses the current news in present time (thank you) – from her new RFK Jr Series 2025

And by this great fast work by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) throughout April 2025:

• ASAN Statement on Updated Autism Diagnosis Numbers Amidst Attacks on Autistic People April 15, 2025 (before RFK Jrs Registry announcement)
• Leading Autism Organizations Release Joint Statement on Upholding Scientific Integrity and Supporting the Autism Community April 17, 2025
• HHS Walks Back “Autism Registry” Plans April 25, 2025

There are many other voices pushing back also on Facebook and other platforms speaking up loudly as well, but I confess I’m in too much of a hurry to collect them here. But I deeply appreciate all of them/you This walking back of the registry rhetoric is in NO SMALL PART due to SO MANY AUTISTICS and our families and friends raising our voices and loudly pushing back on this idea. Well done everyone!

Never underestimate the power of the people to push back against the people in power. We are growing in volume, and it shows. I owe a debt of gratitude to many incredible advocates who came before me, some no longer with us, who have helped me to cut my advocacy teeth. You can find them on my Autism Resources Page.

Meanwhile, for some excellent background on how we got to where we are, I highly recommend the great work of autistic Eve Reiland from California, who has lent her eloquent voice to the cause a lot the last two weeks. Here’s an earlier piece of hers from 2022 delineating how we got here:

Inventing and Then Cashing In On The Autism Epidemic – in depth blog series by Eve Reiland 2022

I have a sneaky feeling the HHS are going to push ahead despite all our protests however, and even if they don’t create a registry, they will try to gather all our data, (again, sans consent) and pool it to study it/us. Sigh. Keep speaking up as you can, everyone. We’re starting to be heard.

What happened to nothing about us without us? Gone with the wind I guess…

Jan April 28, 2025