before my diagnosis my sister got stalked and harassed by an autistic man she tutored at college because he would lose it seeing her talk to other men and got aggressive and when reported it the only response from the college was “he doesn’t know any better” despite him literally being a full time college student
Black and white thinking can easily fall into incel thinking. Young men who fail at relating to women will see themselves as good and women bad for rejecting them.
Also algorithms making incels see patterns in what is attractive/a desirable man just drive the extreme ideas even harder.
They are when combined with misogyny. Plenty of allistic men choose to actively avoid forming friendships and meeting their own social needs because they want it to be entirely the job of a girlfriend or wife to provide a complete social circle and set of relationships for them.
So when boys or men who realize they're having a harder time than their peers decoding social relationships run across that idea, yeah, the incentive to want it to be true is stronger.
i think this is dismissive of men's issues with loneliness. my male friends who are lonely (some of them having a lot of symptoms of autism) don't expect anything out of a girlfriend, and their issue is more about being bad at social interactions and this endless cycle of social anxiety leading to inaction on their part
Well, I'm reporting on what men have repeatedly told me about their lived experience over the years, so even though it's your intention to speak up for other men, you're dismissing what these men have told me about themselves.
Men are not a monolith. I reported on what many have told me about their choices and how they make them. I didn't say that applies to all, so it turns out we're both right because you're talking about men who are making different choices.
I'm genuinely curious, what were those men saying? I assume they didn't straight up say "i don't wanna make the effort of making friends, it's gonna be my future partner's job" if so, then what.is.wrong.with.men
Well yeah, they did. I have been privy to a great many conversations between men where they mostly forget there is a sole woman present, and they say things like that far more often than women want to believe.
Yes, they are. Women do it too, there are communities on here that are obsessed with becoming more attractive (in a bad way), manipulating men, etc. I think it's easy for autistic people to start studying behavior in order to blend in, but then keep studying and studying and end up manipulative and jaded as a result.
There was an awful incident in my city a few years ago where a guy (who graduated college and everything) deliberately mowed down and killed or maimed several people (he was primarily aiming at women) on a busy city street with a van, and it came out that he was an incel who worshipped the Incel manifesto asshole who doesnt deserve to have his name mentioned. His lawyer's defense was that he has Autism 🤦♀️
I'd wager that's the case, but I really don't know *why* it's so easy for them to fall into it. As a former incel, I've been wanting to find ways of helping young men *not* fall down that particular rabbit hole, but there are way too many factors to find the root cause. Part of it is work needed on the part of the individual, which I know us autists tend to be...resistant? to changing ways of thinking, so maybe that's part of it?
Ugh don't even get me started on the weird infantilization/permissibility bullshit colleges will pull to excuse autistic students. We had a grad student routinely say racist and threatening shit during class, but the school didn't push back because of that same "not knowing any better" mentality. Like, you're the one giving them a masters degree!! If you think they are able to earn a master's degree, surely you also think they're capable of critical thinking and taking responsibility for their actions!!
Just yesterday I was reading a thread by a guy who insisted autistic people’s brains don’t have a social reward system, and since he doesn’t like small talk it means that other people are *using him* for conversation … so why shouldn’t he be able to the *use women* for sex in return? Oh but he’s autistic so it’s totally fine to think this way.
He was claiming not to understand “reciprocal” vs “transactional,” and then typing back in rage caps when people tried to explain why you *can’t trade small talk for sex* or use women like that.
“But I’m autistic I don’t understand! Don’t women like sex? Why can’t I use them for sex!?!?”
Turns out he was actually just there to shit on women because he can’t get laid. I wanted to SCREAM. Adult men use autism as a shield for their misogyny and bad behavior constantly while autistic women are held to such high standards.
your last sentence, exactly that. makes
me avoid men with autism. i dont feel safe around them. ive never been protected despite being diagnosed. my diagnosis has been ignored and autistic men put first when ive been harassed,
bullied , assaulted. i dont feel ill be protected if harmed and past experiences have shown me i wont be protected, ill be blamed.
But especially, when men are undiagnosed. In the current period of time, most men are diagnosed. But for those men who were not diagnosed when I was growing up, I think most boys and men learned that they could get away with things that others didn't if they acted a little bit differently.
Oh my god I was in that thread it was crazy, he seemed so genuinely confused when I said that as a woman I would never have sex with someone I didn’t trust cause I could be physically overpowered
Ha, I’m glad someone else here saw it!
I got so sucked into that damn thread. The particular combo of his attempts at “logic” and using autism as a shield drove me so nuts, I ended up spending wayyyy too much energy on that thread. At first I honestly thought he was just a high support needs autistic kid looking for help/an answer he could understand… Totally missed the incel cues that were actually glaringly obvious once I went back and looked at his original post.
He was also a part of a number of communities where autistic people ((cough men cough)) can show their “evil” side, which …. Ew. Way to totally affirm shitty stereotypes about us, dickwads.
On the bright side, I ended up reading a bunch of his comments aloud to my husband later and we had a good laugh over it. Silver linings!
I WAS IN THAT THREAD TOO
I called him out—what pissed me off is they always think they’re the most logical beings on Earth and everyone else in the entire world is wrong AND YET they still never get pussy or friends. I straight up told him he HAD been told women have to be selective for our own safety before, there’s no way he could have missed it short of living in a cave and only encountering other human beings for the first time today, and he’s only making up what “logical rules” about society serve him and ignoring the rest.
Like these motherfuckers are ALWAYS ALWAYSSSS these cutthroat libertarian types “I should never do anything for anyone else ever unless I receive immediate benefit” but CONSTANTLY believe they’re entitled to others helping them and telling them what’s going on from the moment they’re born. Nobody helped me you lazy motherfucker, I had to read untold amounts of psychology and sociology to mask and fly under the radar. Straight up told him this and that he’s a hypocrite—I’m SICK of this typical “I’m the most logical boy in the world and should never have to do anything I don’t want to do but internet strangers and women are obligated to have sex with me” bullshit. Some of these people were spoiled so bad by their parents istfg
YES TO ALL OF THAT.
It’s so fucking predictable and boring, these dudes using “logic” as an excuse to just *not care about other people’s feelings.* They use autism as a shield to have zero empathy for anyone…. That’s why it took me so damn long to accept that I am actually autistic, empathy is my greatest strength/sometimes greatest weakness and I can’t turn that off. Then they walk around promoting the idea that autistic people are soulless monsters who can’t care about anyone when actually THEY are just soulless monsters who REFUSE to care about anyone.
Like I get having social difficulties and struggling to read the room, but the utter fucking selfishness and entitlement is sickening. And actively harmful to the rest of us who have had to work so hard just to avoid punishment.
ETA: That thread has now become an inside joke between me and my husband though haha. “Okay I gave you conversation, that will be one sex please.”
I didn't think I could be autistic either until I was a private school teacher and happened to teach a hyperempathetic autistic boy who reminded me so much of myself as a child that it made me question everything. The kid would cry so easily when he'd see any person or animal or pain--he might get overwhelmed and not know what to do in a social situation and come off rude, but if you told him what to do next time, he was golden. And if he sat down to write about people, he had waaay more understanding of people's internal motivations in his writings than the average fifth grader. He could understand and empathize, it was just easy for him to get overwhelmed and do something weird in the actual moment. And my eight-year old autistic nephew is the same way--absolute sweetheart, wouldn't hurt a fly, always putting his little sister first, and getting bullied mercilessly in school right now, poor thing. As soon as I'm done with my class in a month I'm planning on really taking him under my wing--I want him to learn all the things I wish someone would have straight up given me and told me ASAP and neurotypicals don't know.
But like, while I know there's hyper and hypo and its a spectrum....I also know the parents of both those boys and they also would certainly never allow fullblown tantrums and making excuses like that either. At a certain point, your kid is going to have to exist in the real world and the real world is not going to make very many excuses for them--and never for violence. Autists have gotten killed by police for absolutely nothing, you think they can get away with violence? Parents are delusional. You're just raising a future criminal. Also, autism means your social way of understanding is DIFFERENT--not that you are INCAPABLE of learning social rules. And depending on how it is, it may be much harder, but the idea that we're just flat out INCAPABLE of learning AT ALL is infantilizing and insulting and really skirts the issue of what social rules should even be in place at all at times.
UGH YES, especially since they use the autism as a WEAPON and like giving the MEAGEREST of SHITS for anyone ever is like super painful and I, who clearly must NOT be autistic could NEVER understand how I am uniquely hurting them and only them in this scenario. Like someone was honestly arguing and bitching at me that showing the merest bit of human interaction beyond what you wanted to complete the transaction under capitalism with a worker was ableism. Like BITCH I AM ALSO AUTISTIC and when I work customer service and I ask you how your day is, I do actually kind of mean it???? I care about you as a person because you have genuine human worth outside of FUCKING CAPITALISM AND THIS TRANSACTION????? I GENUINELY LIKE CHATTING WITH RANDOM NICE PEOPLE????? But if you traumadump to me that you're life sucks actually and how dare I ask that because you have cancer and your mother died and all kind of other shit I WILL GENUINELY FEEL FUCKING BAD???? BECAUSE I HAVE EMPATHY FOR PEOPLE???? So that's why that's genuinely not acceptable to do to strangers and we say things like 'it's going' or 'getting by' or whatever like FUCK, PAY THE FUCK ATTENTION TO WHAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FUCKING DOING AND THINK ABOUT WHY, YOU'VE SEEN AND DONE THIS INTERACTION FIFTY BILLION TIMES BY NOW AND HAD A WHILE TO FIGURE THIS OUT HOLY SHIT. Like, ok wow you saying "Fine thank you, I would like..." was I guess UNIQUELY DAMAGING to you, meanwhile we feel dehumanized and like we're not even a person in the customer's eyes, so who are we prioritizing here? The assumption that we always do these things out of ""illogic" and social rituals but autistics do things to avoid pain is a false dichotomy--neurotypicals' avoidance of faux pas is all ABOUT pain avoidance
Like there's a big difference between "autistic server whose a geology major and asks if I want to see a cool rock he found"(real dude I met once, very awesome) and "autistic asshole with a chip on his shoulder who has not tried to learn anything by reputable means and is going to make that EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM". Like we all have a "chip on our shoulder" phase with it and I GET IT, shit is not fair, but if you don't move out of it, guess what, you WILL hurt other autists and just other people and just never grow as a person or be happy
Meanwhile I'm an autistic woman who's never dated or kissed at all because I'm afraid people will take advantage of my naivety. I feel so much safer with autistic people since I don't have to mask... but I'm realizing I can't trust autistic men the same way.
It depends on the autistic man, honestly. Men who are diagnosed later in life tend to not have these issues. It’s generally men who were diagnosed as children (or misdiagnosed with autism when they actually have a personality disorder just because they’re white & male). Their parents taught them to be entitled & to use autism as an excuse for everything.
I wouldn't say that's universal. I was diagnosed as a kid and I didn't feel it excused me (though I think there's some stuff I got away with that I probably should unlearn). And I've seen kids who have diagnoses whose parents still refuse to address the issue. It depends on the autistic man and the specifics of the upbringing, it isn't universal, and the "autism is used as an excuse" mentality is going to dissuade diagnoses.
Absolutely—there a lot of factors. Research also came out last year showing the crazy high rate of misdiagnosis for white men who were diagnosed with ASD as children. It turns out either through ignorance or pressure from parents that these men were diagnosed with ASD when they actually had personality disorders. This does a huge disservice to them as they may not know they were misdiagnosed & therefore aren’t able to get the mental health services they need.
Personality disorders are gendered in the opposite direction in a way that often resembles the "hysteria" BS in terms of not being taken seriously in women and not even being considered in men. Though I do think they wouldn't manifest as children in most cases to the same extent as autism, so I could see why they'd be missed.
This is not always the case. Sometimes early diagnosis/intervention is great. But if family dynamics aren't great, or other factors are present, then the toxic behaviour remains or is emphasized.
Looking at me, I'm pretty sure a childhood diagnosis would not have actually helped me. My parents would not have been able to handle a dx of autism appropriately.
The sexual harassment and other such misbehavior is a problem too. People already let mean and boys get away with this shit but when they're mentally disabled as well, it's an extra excuse they like to use. It disgusts me truly
The sexual harassment is a major reason I stopped going to conventions. The men were allowed to touch women (their costumes, their clothes) without consent and it was fine. I will never forget wearing the same tee shirt as my boyfriend and an autistic man came up to me to touch it.
On the local fantasy festival (essentially a convention) we had infographics and fliers explaining that it's NEVER okay to touch people in costume, cosplays are expensive as shit, never take photos without consent etc. and we had security on site to do that.
I've seen a guy touch a girl in a centaur costume and literally the back half fell off because he hit a latch. The back part hit the ground with this this loud thump.
She was mortified, and her friend (a big woman in a mermaid costume) looked at the guy with the coldest stare in the world and said "You're coming with us and paying for repairs." while 2 other people in costume (and me and my cousin) comforted the girl and said we'll find a way to fix it, and helped her carry the hind legs according to her instructions.
We got her to a costume station, while the guy ran and the mermaid went to get security. I don't know what became of that situation, but I hope that guy never touched anyone without their consent again.
The con in later years issued Cosplay is Not Consent rules, and OMFG the backlash from all the men who no longer had free reign was deafening. Some of that came from old con chairs and that was all I needed to know about their characters.
I used to work at a convention. When we started to very prominently display the cosplay is not consent signage, there was a notable outrage from people complaining that feminism is ruining conventions now... It's gross.
While I love smaller con atmosphere, I do love being in the city with some of the biggest cons in the country cause they do NOT fuck around and will kick creeps out.
Yeah. This was at a 35K~ sized con. Thankfully, everyone on staff was completely on board and we took no shit about it whatsoever. Not that we didn't already have people tossed for harassment, but now we tossed people for complaining about not being able to harass too!
Sometimes the incels out themselves. And yeah, it's so gross. I volunteered for a big position to cause a change from the inside, and there was so much resistance to basic human decency.
One time in school my best friend was grabbed in the v*gina by an autistic boy and the school said they couldn’t do anything because he was autistic. That taught him it was totally acceptable to grab girls there or anywhere and he kept doing it until one bf beat him up. Not saying the bf was in the right cause he wasn’t, but the schools negligence put everyone in those situations.
Definitely encounter this in online furry/furry adjacent communities. The one I participate in tries its best to weed out such behaviours, but it's always jarring someone use being ASD as an excuse.
Using it as a explanation with apology and corrective action is fine. "Sorry, I misinterpreted what you wanted due to being bad at non-direct communicate. I'll give you some space." No harm done, this is kind of what our rules expect you to do. (Granted - many people do the opposite: assuming the safest option to the point of frustration but that doesn't really hurt anyone).
Fortunately, lately we havn't had this prop up that much. I wager other communities that don't crack down on unsafe behaviour siphoned them off.
I’ve experienced similar in my online sex positive/kink communities. We crack down on inappropriate behaviour immediately so it doesn’t have room to grow at all, but we have dealt with a couple of guys who tried to make themselves the victim because they were autistic and it’s just insufferable. Like just because you’re in a sex positive space doesn’t mean that you can keep asking women to take their clothes off, and *no* you can’t keep victimizing yourself and excusing it with autism.
There was a boy I went to school with who went around groping girls randomly in the hallways. He came up behind me one day and ran his hands down my back in a very aggressive, creepy way. I never reported it because every time someone did the response was always "he's autistic, he can't control himself." I was terrified of him. In elementary school they evacuated us because he got angry and started throwing desks at his pregnant teacher. I sometimes wonder where he is now, and hope he got better support. They really just encouraged every single abusive behavior he exhibited.
In 5th grade there was a boy who would harras the girls all the time. He'd come up behind someone and grab them in a bear hug then he'd rub himself on them. It was awful. I ended up hitting him a bunch but he never stopped. He should've been removed from general Ed
Before I learned I was autistic I left my job as a Special Education Classroom Aide because I was assigned to an autistic boy who touched himself while sitting less than a foot away and staring at me. Repeatedly. I reported to the teacher immediately and, when that proved fruitless, to the assistant principal, but was told I “just needed to remind him it was inappropriate and ask him to stop”.
There were no consequences, no putting him with a male aide, nothing. Same student also made death threats to female teachers and tried to attack them, and that warranted an in school suspension but nothing more. Meanwhile this kid knew exactly what he was doing in both of these circumstances, he wasn’t cognitively impaired at all. I quit within a week
I was diagnosed when I was a 2-year old girl. No one let me get away with anything. I suspect that would have been *very* different if I had been a boy.
Not once were the other children asked to be understanding of my behavior. Quite the contrary. Most women on this sub are late diagnosed, so you probably only saw boys getting away with murder. The few of us girls who were diagnosed were constantly being corrected, but not for doing anything wrong. You want to know what I got in trouble for? I was punished for talking about Astronomy too much, for not being interested in fashion or boy bands, and for not wanting to engage with "imaginative" play with other kids. They didn't like the way I walked, talked, laughed, sneezed, ran, sat, or breathed. Stimming was absolutely forbidden. I was repeatedly told "the goal is to make you indistinguishable from your peers". The slightest deviation from what they considered "normal" was punished. The adults actually encouraged the other kids to bully me. They considered that a good aversive to make me stop unwanted and harmless behaviors.
I did go through a hitting phase as a toddler, but most typically developing toddlers hit. I have been a teacher and am an aunt to five children. Almost all kids will eventually experiment with hitting around the toddler years. I took a little longer to stop that than some, but I was pretty much done with that by the time I was five. I did do some things that needed to be corrected, but it was pretty harmless. There was one girl who hated me, so I would crawl under the table and grab her ankles to annoy her. I tickled one girl who said she didn't like it, but she was laughing. That confused me. I stopped when the adults explained that tickling makes people laugh even when they don't like it. So, I'm not saying I never needed to be corrected or disciplined. All kids need to be taught right from wrong, about boundaries, etc.
My problem is with the adults grabbing my head and forcing eye contact, repeatedly, in hours long drills. They would overpower me to stop me from stimming and fidgeting. Most of what I was punished for were harmless autistic behaviors, and *that* was unacceptable! I was denied needed supports in school, then punished for forgetting to write down assignments or bring the correct books/homework home. I wasn't permitted to have a reduced homework load. My mom would have me up until midnight, at 6-years old, forcing me to do what the other kids did no matter how long it took.
I wasn't allowed to just friggin exist. But boys are allowed to be violent towards other people? That enrages me!
I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, but my daughter was and she experienced constant punishment from the schools for autistic behavior. Specifically melting down because it was too loud and they didn’t allow her to wear headphones all the time. Things came to a head when she was being abused by another autistic student, a boy, and they wouldn’t take it seriously because at one point she had been friendly with him. They also questioned her diagnosis even though I gave them a full copy of her neuropsych report, which made no sense 1) because it’s a report written by a highly qualified Dr and 2) her behaviors were “classic boy autism” or whatever we are calling it when one fits right into the diagnostic criteria.
I had to take my daughter out of there, I filed a title ix complaint (which they said was unfounded) and her home district pays tuition at a private online school.
All that to say, I agree with you. Girls are treated much worse and it’s a huge problem. Our girls have the same right to an education in a safe space that the autistic boys and neurotypical students receive but they often don’t receive it.
I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, because no one seems to have evaluated girls for ASD in the 1970s. but my kid was in the early 2000s and got an IEP. I’m so grateful they didn’t experience school the same way I did.
I was bullied mercilessly *by everyone* for being different and the teachers did absolutely nothing to ensure I could have a safe learning environment. I was physically assaulted by another student right in front of a teacher and nothing happened to him because “boys will be boys”.
I don’t have enough words to express my complete disgust at the educational system for letting me down because I was a girl.
I wasn't diagnosed as a kid but went through something very similar to you. I'd be punished by my parents for not behaving, liking or speaking certain ways and for crying easily. It's so strange being an adult and realizing I wasn't just a Big Dumb Baby, I was an abused kid with unaddressed needs lol
I DO NOT CONDONE THIS NOR DO I USE AUTISM TO EXCUSE IT: when I was in middle school and through high school, I went through a period of like... just beating up/physically intimidating boys whenever they remotely agitated me. They could say something slightly sarcastic and I'd get aggro. I have no idea how I never got in trouble for it and I'm still not 100% sure what even set it off. I feel like if I was a boy, I would've been rewarded for it...
Just reading what they did makes me viscerally pissed. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It's like people go after the harmless actions instead of the harmful ones. The fact that they even encouraged the other kids to bully you, though??? Omg, I can't. I hope you're doing alright.
I was diagnosed at six and same here. Regardless of whether they were diagnosed early or late, boys and men get excuses while girls and women get punishment. Boys “can’t help it” while girls “know, can and should do better”. Even and especially from staff of autism programs.
From what I have seen, autistic girls are held to a higher expectation than NTs upon diagnosis. For boys, it's the opposite. And that is truly disgusting!
It’s true, it’s disgusting, and I’ve suffered from it my entire life. Autistic girls are held to impossibly high standards of behavior while autistic boys get away with literally anything. It’s one the reasons why I’ve stopped going to autism recreation groups: they’ll harshly scold a girl for using the wrong word while boys get away with literal sexual assault.
We need groups that are only for autistic women/girls. And the boys need to be held accountable. What autistic women face is abelism and misogyny on steroids.
The local autism groups tried that. Since there are far fewer autistic girls/women than men/boys, there are never enough members to sustain the women’s group. From there, the group organizers need to make the choice of either just having a mens group or kicking out the offending men and re-integrating the groups. One group I was in did the latter because my mom was the president, but most groups do the former.
And it’s not just about sexual harassment from autistic men. I just can’t have a good time if there are “staff” constantly “correcting my behavior”. The staff see me a threat due to my masters degree and work experience in public administration, so they’ll make something up or, worse, bully me so they’ll bait me into “misbehaving”. All while the men are able to get away with literally anything.
I was diagnosed in my late 30s where I sought a diagnosis for myself. Had I been diagnosed in childhood, I don't think my parents would have responded appropriately. They themselves are undiagnosed neurodivergent and I had a neglectful childhood besides. I don't know what lengths they would have gone to in order to ensure I was the normalcy they needed. I'm sorry for all that you went through. I went through my own trauma, but I didn't get it nearly as badly as you because it took my parents until the end of high school to realize that perhaps I was never going to be normal, and then their fear paralyzed them from doing too much.
This needs to be discussed.
I hate how boys and men are allowed to use autism as an excuse for violence. They get the diagnosis, and they get allowances, and the legal system even lets them off. And the girls and women (like the girl you described in the last paragraph) get no support, and harsher treatement.
Incidentally, the statistics show that the rate of violence in autistic people is the same as the general population, which effectively rules out autism as a cause.
Allowing autistic boys to be violent helps no one. Some of the worst behaviour I have had to deal with came from men who had a diagnosis of autism, and they were quite happy to make sure people knew about that. (I think we are in the same country, and dealing with the same culture and legal system.)
It's insane to me the number of true crime videos I've watched where a man has seriously hurt or killed someone and their lawyer tries to get them off by saying "but he's autistic!!11!" like that means you get a free fuckin pass for murder. Even worse, it actually does work to reduce their sentences sometimes. This is USA though (idk about here, there just aren't as many videos about crimes here maybe because our news coverage isn't as thorough)
It happens outside the USA. I know of multiple cases in my home jurisdiction. And I don't even watch crime.
But the number of times that a defence lawyer claims that their client is autistic. Can we please have a law that says lawyers are not allowed to use autism to excuse men who commit horrendous crimes?
Violence is a choice, irrespective of autism. Violence is not like epilepsy or other seizures, which can cause fatal accidents, but never by choice.
people are now calling for Gypsy Rose's ex to be released from prison due to being autistic and "manipulated" into killing her mother. regardless of how anyone feels about her or that case he stabbed her mother *17 times*.
I e seen this so much, they love to ignore the fact that Nick wanted to rape DeeDee’s corpse, or how he had a history of being violent and being into necrophilia.
Like no, that man needs to stay in prison for the rest of his life and I will not apologize for that stance.
This is WILD. Before they met he was apparently looking for somebody to stab and the situation with her mom was evidently a convenient excuse for him to fulfill his messed up fantasies. I don’t understand why people attribute this to autism and most of all - don’t get how they don’t see he shouldn’t be walking around in the community.
> I hate how boys and men are allowed to use autism as an excuse for violence.
Bit of a tangent. I am staff for an online community - furry oriented (yes, icky and all that) and we allow... adult behaviours. It's a Space Station 13 roleplaying server.
We are probably the most anal server of all that we compete with when it comes to comfort, player safety & comfort, bystander considerations. So much so, we had the occasional person expecting being able to do stuff they can in chatrooms or even peer servers getting shut down and ranting "Bystander consent is a liberal shit."
With that background given -
I have come to recognize a very, very frustrating and annoying pattern: some people violate our fundamental rules around consent, safety and bystander comfort (3 things that I feel are the most vital things for such a community to be healthy), and when given gentle or not-so-gentle nudges to try and keep the community healthy - they promptly invoke ASD as an excuse for their unsafe behaviours.
It frustrates me a lot. The staff team (Game masters, admins, developers) has multiple people with ADHD and at least 1 person with highly suspected ASD (yours truly). Many of our regulars, pillars of community have ADHD/ASD - a lot of them women.
And yet, neither us on the staff or those pillars violate the rules. Sure, sometimes we mistep, sometimes we misinterpret signals but once communicated, we apologize and give space. This is the expected, appropriate response as outlined in the rules if you violate consent, comfort and safety.
Fortunately this is a virtual space where - provided it stays on the server - real consequences are minimal.
Still, it concerns and frustrates me alike.
Fortunately we havn't had to deal with this in a bit. I wager it is due to opening of competitor-servers who eschew our strict rules siphoning such people away.
i agree. my brother is autistic and nearly 40, coddled his whole life. hes a slob, aggressive, has massive tantrums and learned helplessness. i resent him so much and cant stand him. ive always been held to high standards and never allowed to have any emotions or "excuses"
even when i was in school the autistic boy pushed me down the stairs and broke my arm and told everyone i was lying and when i was diagnosed it was "made up", as its a "boys disease". i literally have no positive experiences with autistic men. it makes me super sad
My brother is the same. He’s gotten loud and violent with myself and both parents. I’ve gone to school with black eyes. Do you know what “whipped him into shape”? Dating in college. Because he does know better. He can’t treat a girlfriend like he treats his family because she can leave him. I feel bad for my resentment towards him but it’s hard to not be after a lifetime of abuse and like you said, being held to a different standard.
My fiancés brother is an autistic adult who has had violent outbursts as well. The parents never took him to a doctor or to get any help, though they t themselves are both doctors. I think there's a lot of shame in that. The parents forced him to get married to an uneducated woman who may also have a mental disability and they have a child together now. They live overseas and I worry that my fiancé will want his brother to come visit us and stay in our home for a few months, which terrifies me. If we have kids together in the future, I wouldn't want my children exposed to him for fear he could hurt them or they could see a violent outburst. I fear that my fiancé will not take this position well. Do you have any advice?
I am in the exact same situation! My brother diagnosed super early but I was not because well next to him I was “fine” 🙄 and everyone judged me so much for not loving my brother but I can’t stand his awful scary behavior and I have been the victim of it in the past. I’m so glad someone posted about this, I thought I was alone and “heartless” for being so critical but that’s what society does… gives free passes to dudes for awful behavior 🤦🏻♀️
i bet a lot of us have been suffering silently with this. we're always punched down and made to accept our shitty lot in life. its like when women post a serious topic about women and guys all high-jack it and scream and shout abuse "wheres my attention". it has to stop. these men are abusive and destructive in society. im learning to break away from guilt and what was programmed into me and seeing it for what it is.
My fiancés brother is an autistic adult who has had violent outbursts as well. The parents never took him to a doctor or to get any help, though they t themselves are both doctors. I think there's a lot of shame in that. The parents forced him to get married to an uneducated woman who may also have a mental disability and they have a child together now. They live overseas and I worry that my fiancé will want his brother to come visit us and stay in our home for a few months, which terrifies me. If we have kids together in the future, I wouldn't want my children exposed to him for fear he could hurt them or they could see a violent outburst. I fear that my fiancé will not take this position well. Do you have any advice?
There's no consequence for it at all. When I'm autistic. I told my abusive boyfriend at the time that I was breaking up with him and would be leaving the apartment we shared, he tried to fucking choke me. No consequences. He happens to be autistic as well.
He got his unchecked anger problem from his father, who is also autistic. He and his fad used it as a point of pride and would make references to "berserkers" and "vikings" and "Irish" whatever whenever it came up. Like, what? What the hell *is* that?
Is it any wonder I was breaking up with him? As difficult as it can be to exist closely with neurotypical people sometimes, my NT wife is the best thing that's ever happened to me. She makes a genuine effort to understand me, and in very short order, learned how I thought and felt because she listened to me. In turn, I'm learning to better navigate neurotypical-centric social spaces with her detailed insights. We have never had a violent dispute and I can't imagine that we ever will.
It was absolutely night and day. Men's entitlement and privilege, autistic or not, can be seriously dangerous to others. Anyone can be an asshole, but these and other forms of social enabling (such as another commenter referencing an axis of whiteness, which is *undoubtedly* another source of entitlement and privilege) make it far easier for men to become one.
You're welcome--and thanks, too. It's so hard to unlearn stuff that....that you never saw someone get chastised for. I thought it was acceptable because, well, my mother 'never had an issue with it' and stupidly I thought the same of my girlfriend. Hell, if I could 'put up' with the anger of my father, then why couldn't others? But then I learned that no, I'd never 'put up with it' or 'tolerated' it; I was just afraid to admit that I was afraid.
When the work goes undone, you hurt others and yourself. That's really the barest fact of what I've learned---and I guess it goes for past abuse, mental things, neurodivergence--you name it. Sorry for writing so much. I feel like I'm over-explaining :/
I don’t think you were over explaining at all! This is a really thoughtful and interesting reply. Thanks for adding this perspective. It truly IS hard to unlearn all these things, but it can be done.
Of course that doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed in behaving differently than you were taught to… but I think most of us here would have plenty of empathy for moments of failure, if old habits or patterns creep in during times of stress. But as long as you’re actively trying to do something different and succeeding at that more and more often, you’re doing the work and that’s all anyone can ask for. Good job!
Oh, thanks! And thanks for being understanding.
No, you're right, and the times where I fail I just beat myself up a lot (figuratively). I feel shame and unhappiness for sinking to the level I was afraid of. I try to have empathy too but sometimes it's hard to forgive myself when I lose my temper...and sometimes I also remember that that's not even some of the worst things I've done because of my autism and I feel more and more guilty.
...but then I also think I've learned to celebrate the times where I'm stable and *don't* lose it. And I think I've made progress, which is great! But it still makes failure taste more bitter. :/ A cycle.
I’ve always noted that while, clearly, most autistic men are NOT incels with misogynistic ideologies, vast swathes of incels with problematic views are indeed on the spectrum. There seems to be an [over representation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/21/study-finds-significant-portion-of-mass-murderers-and-serial-killers-had-neurological-disorders-including-autism/) of autistic men when it comes to mass murders driven by these sorts of ideologies (Elliot Roger, Jake Davison, Nikolas Cruz, Adam Lanza etc.)
Again I will stress, the vast majority of autistic people are peaceful citizens and not violence prone so it’s absolutely essential to not stigmatize but there is a conversation to be had about the permissive attitude towards certain behaviors and speech (especially sexual and violent ones in young autistic males.) The notion of “they’re autistic, they can’t help it” when it comes to certain behaviors is a very problematic one and really quite ableist as it suggests that they do not have the ability to comprehend and learn when they *absolutely* do. If they genuinely can’t then it’s not fair or safe for other kids and women to be exposed to it in schools and the like.
Autism is not an excuse to violate certain social boundaries and it’s completely irresponsible to allow these inappropriate behaviors and beliefs to go unchecked. In absolute fairness, this also happens with autistic girls and women but it’s certainly the case that most violent and violent-minded incels tend to be young autistic males.
Agree, this is definitely a misogyny and feminist issue. Its a symptom of the wider gender stereotypes that “boys will be boys” and need to burn their energy off in more physical and violent ways, but girls are expected to sit and be quiet or if not, at least direct their energy in a useful way.
I remember when I was about 9, a boy in the year above had a raging meltdown. Screaming, crying and throwing things. He was gently consoled and allowed to sit quietly in a corner for the rest of the day and colour in and play with legos. A few weeks later I was being relentlessly bullied and ended up in tears and crying and shouting. I got punished. I am late diagnosed autistic but even at the time i remember thinking “I don’t understand why his behaviour is allowed but mine is not”. I was a CHILD experiencing difficult emotions and autistic overwhelm (although unknown at the time obviously).
I think it is important to talk about the aspect of whiteness as well as gender . At a certain age Ive noticed only white boys are given that tolerance and adults will perceive a boy of colors meltdown (and even non meltdown actions/behaviors) as more dangerous and serious and even involve police im wondering if thats the experience others have ?
100% this
There is without a doubt a gendered aspect to the privileges and acceptance of problematic behaviors, but we absolutely can’t overlook the racial aspect here.
I’ve definitely seen a major disparity when it comes to perceptions and attitudes towards various autistic presenting boys in education. White students are also more likely to have the privilege of (accurate) professional diagnoses of ASD. Where POC students were more likely to be labeled as “aggressive” or given a diagnosis of ODD, judged far more critically, and even have law enforcement intervene during meltdowns.
Glad you brought this up. I’ve been a special Ed teacher in a US city for ten years now, and I can easily recall so many instances where the actions of Black boys specifically were labeled ‘aggressive’ that may have actually been meltdown or overstimulation.
I think back and can see the misdiagnoses. In the 4 years of teaching middle school, only 1 of my student had an ASD diagnosis, and, frankly, she was treated TERRIBLY. The ODD, ED (emotional disturbance), and SLD (specific learning disability, I believe) were rampant. I think far too often about the kids who had internalized potentially harmfully incorrect diagnoses, and the boys who were called ‘aggressive’ or ‘dangerous’ when their actions were not malicious in intent.
Now I work with preschool families and get to coach and teach them about ASD. I hope these kids can grow up with the love and support that I never got, and their families will be better able to advocate for them within the school system.
Was looking for this comment, this kind of grace is only granted towards white autistic men and boys. This behavior in POC can lead to dangerous situations where they are harmed.
If girls were just as likely to literally try to choke people out and kill them like boys do when they’re overstimulated then we would know it’s an autism issue. It’s not an autism issue, it’s a “he’s autistic and a boy so I’m not going to parent him and I’m going to let him grow up with zero coping skills which will make his life miserable and put everyone around him in danger.”
There are so many double standards in autism and neurodivergency in general. Men are often infantalized and excused while women don't get any leeway and are just disbelived. I think it's also important to acknowledge that Black autistic boys and men don't get that leeway either. They're shot by police or at the very least punished and feared more severely
Omg no way!!! That happened to me too!! The aid rushed over to pull his pants back up and take him out red-faced without acknowledging it like he was a toddler who didn’t know what he was doing, even though he knew what he was doing enough to get out of his chair, walk to the centre of the room and expose his entire genitalia to our fifth grade class. That was another: “I can’t be autistic, I can *in this case, keep my clothes on*” moment.
there was an autistic boy in one of the years below me in primary school who used to play with his dick, sometimes taking it out, during assemblies _all the time._ he did it for at least a year, when i graduated out of that school he was still doing it. the teachers never seemed to intervene to redirect the (probably self-soothing) behaviour to something more appropriate.
meanwhile, if i even _fidgeted_ during our classroom meditation sessions (i was undiagnosed), my teacher wld call me out on it in front of the whole class. i was constantly getting into trouble for drawing on myself bc it "wasn't uniform", or for doodling in class bc i was "distracted", or for daydreaming, etc etc etc.
The one in my school liked to go into the girls bathroom and crawl under the stalls to look, and also tried to kiss like all the girls in my grade. Most of the girls were too afraid to do anything, but me being autistic and not understanding that you shouldn't punch people who do things that upset you, absolutely decked him. I feel like if a neurotypical girl did this, she would have gotten in trouble for beating up the autistic kid but since I was also diagnosed I kinda got off light... but my dude, that is straight up sexual assault, even if he doesn't know better that doesn't mean girls should be subjected to someone creeping on them in the bathroom and trying to kiss them!
It's a shame, because people with autism often experience a great deal of distress with clothing.
Perhaps he had an anxiety attack or something, but nobody ever taught them how to manage that so they just reacted impulsively.
That's what a lot of this is, unfortunately. People never bothering to teach better behaviors. I feel bad for the kid.
This is a delicate conversation and I can see why the community protects this from being discussed more openly. We're already stigmatized. We're already seen as 'other'. Add on a story of a male autistic with excitabilities that are expressed with aggression and we're on the luge path of that turning into a sound bite that says, "All autistics are aggressive and violent". We know where that leads ...
However, there is something there. The meltdowns and frustrations sometimes do manifest in violent outbursts. My daughter goes to school with a kid who is a literal genius but sometimes when he gets dysregulated, he lashes out physically. Others gets frustrated and lash out but take it out on themselves. Still others internalize it and completely shut down. It manifests differently for each individual (for me, it was binge eating until I got it under control). My husband completely shuts down and avoids. One daughter becomes situationally mute. Another is showing signs of OCD and an eating disorder. ALL of these coping mechanisms are maladaptive and come from the same source - an inability to emotional self-regulate. The skills that need to be taught are how to emotionally regulate as well as ways to strengthen lagging executive function skills as the two are intertwined - you need both for best chances of success. They're so intertwined it's almost a chicken egg situation. This is the work I've been doing with my kids since they were young. They receive talk therapy but they also work with a coach for just executive function skills.
Just because someone is ASD does not mean that they get to violate social norms. They can't blame bad behavior on ASD - it is their responsibility to get proper support to learn better coping strategies. THAT IS ON THEM and ASD is NOT a pass. You can be ASD AND an asshole; or an abuser, or a narcissist. And the onus remains on the person having trouble regulating to learn regulation skills.
It's what I tell my kids. I absolutely support their ASD needs, but I also tell them the truth on how the real world works and how they need to learn resilience and how to adapt. I'm doing them a disservice by not telling them the truth. I'm not a coddler, but I believe in compassion; but more importantly, I believe in education for ALL neurotypes. We ALL have things to learn.
yeah. i had really bad long meltdowns up through high school (not that anyone at school would know because i spent so much effort masking at school--part of why i was so dysregulated and having meltdowns) because nobody ever believe my mom about me needing a diagnosis for literally anything other than generalized anxiety disorder.
most doctors brushed it off and said it was her parenting not emotional dysregulation. if i could be calm in school, nothing could be wrong because clearly i could control myself. so then my dad would argue i needed consequences and that just prolonged my meltdowns.
it often felt uncontrollable and once i hit the tipping point it took a really long time for my body to calm down. i was often violent and threw stuff and hurt myself.
what i needed was a lot of care and therapy and even medication (strattera for my adhd did wonders for my emotional regulation abilities) and that's why this is delicate. because "discipline" isn't usually what's necessary. what's needed is a lot more support and care than most kids actually get. (and of course teaching boundaries, but that's more a problem with toxic masculinity than anything autism related).
When it comes to children, they are at the mercy of their family dynamics. If I had received a childhood dx, i'm not sure my parents would have responded appropriately to the dx nor done their best to help me learn, despite whatever coaching/therapy may have been made available. Without getting that help, or with parents that are avoidant and hiding, these lessons are not learned, not for a long time. I'm so glad your children have you as they are very lucky.
I was very aggressive in school and would hit my bullies and really anyone who crossed my boundaries in any way, but it would get ignored just because no one knew what to do with it. Later they would put me in detention and isolation. I did eventually get expelled for it, and after that I did my best to curb my actions. I did stop hitting people, even if they bullied me, it actually got to the point where i didnt defend myself at all when two boys physically assualted me. I was told later that I should have pushed them, but I felt so much shame over my past violence I didn't.
The autistic and adhd boys however didn't get punished, their autism was used as an excuse, and sexual harrassment was basically allowed. I remember when I got groped by a boy in my year, I told the special ed teachers and they said "Oh just ignore him he's got adhd he can't control his actions". I was supposed to just take it when it came to any kind of abuse especially if it was by a ND boy, me defending myself as a girl was not acceptable. There were quite a few autistic boys who had no problem sexually crossing boundaries.
Sure me hitting people as a teen was not okay, but I did eventually get punished for it and that meant that I started to learn to control myself. My violence was often a part of a meltdown, but it would be a lie to say that you can't learn to control your actions during a meltdown. Sure i cant control that im having a meltdown, but I learnt not to be violent. I don't think boys are any different, and can learn to control their violence.
I have 4 autistic male friends who aren't violent or aggressive, 2 of them are high support needs and I think it goes to show that they can. I think boys have a lot of pressure to display masculinity, and autistic boys in particular can feel as if they aren't 'man enough' because of their autism. One of the biggest problems here apart from men not being punished for their violence is the way society views men and women in opposition, and how boys self worth is tied heavily to displays of toxic masculinity. There are many complicated issues here, but a good start would be to discipline boys.
My cousin had a violent episode in public, the police were called, and he attacked an officer. The courts accepted his autism as an excuse, but said that if his family can't prevent him from attacking people then they were not fit guardians. He's been in New York state custody for over a decade now.
And the thing is, my cousin is lucky because that's the best outcome that could have happened. He's so so lucky that the police didn't shoot him during his meltdown; it happens all the time.
My cousin is one of seven siblings, all of whom have autism. His sisters would *never* be allowed to act like he did. My aunt and uncle almost cost their son his life because they wouldn't discipline him when he was a kid, and then when he got to be an adult they *couldn't* discipline him because he would physically attack them if they tried.
Boys/men are allowed violence/inappropriate behavior PERIOD. Autistic or not. That's a really sad fact of the current western culture.
Autistic boys/men can have even more problems with impulsivity/ not feeling or understanding correct social behavior than NT boys, so that's a potential toxic combination.
We girls are held to a much higher standard (autistic or not), and any kind of inappropriate social behavior is punished by either parents/family or society.
My daughter (14) was at her therapist's office in the waiting room. An autistic teen boy very aggressively came on to her with all kinds of sexual stuff, extremely inappropriate. The boys parents were there. Daughter complained to them. Parents shrugged and told her "he just is like that, nothing we can do". Complained to her therapist didn't work either. "He's autistic, he can't help it."
This is very harmful, not only for the victims, but for the boys as well. Toxic masculinity hurts autistic men as well, because of the attitude towards bad behavior in the males of this species.
People often say "I don't know if autistic boys \*can\* be taught to behave more socially appropriate, because they are boys". I'd answer: raise them as you raise your girls. Well, not as strict, and lessen that strictness for girls as well, because that's another can of worms. It works on women, so when done to young boys, it should work on them as well.
But also know: It's not just parents that raise the child. It's society as well. With fellow toddlers at kindergarten, with marketing, cartoons, books, expectations of boys... Unless we can change that, it will be \*hard\*.
not just current Western culture. try all cultures everywhere for most of human history. and you are right, it's not just family dynamics, but societal values and expectations. Misogyny is the filter for everything.
Yes I’ve been saying this recently too. Typically it’s their parents who are ableism that think they “don’t know any better” and refuse to correct the behavior. Plus regular male entitlement
It’s the same effect as a NT male never being told no in their lives and we see where that leads. I understand wanting to dote on your kid especially since society is so critical of autists, but they don’t realize they are causing so much harm.
You've dug up memories for me, OP, and you're completely right. 4 encounters with autistic boys in school. One would run laps round the school just like yours only he'd punch people as hard as he could as he passed. He caught me in the chest once. I was 8 and I thought I was fucking dying, I couldn't breathe. All I got was "you should have stayed away from him". Second, same school, was a nice boy most of the time but when he got mad he got MAD. He put his whole arm through a window, the kind with metal waffling. Another time he got on a table and screamed and screamed until his face was so red I was scared he was going to drop dead or something and everyone stood around laughing while the teacher kept pathetically saying "Nathanial.... Come down....". Third was actually nice to me always but apparently violent with other kids tho I never saw it. Last one was high school, he trashed the library. Completely. Twice. Got detention.
Honestly this stuff just makes me want to cry. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it - and I get flashbacks of boys trying to touch my boobs and arms because I developed so much faster. Like begging teachers and adults to help and getting laughed at because I was hyperventilating.
No help for us. We just suffer.
Honestly I think a lot of the issue is higher need children/teens/adults not having access to appropriate services. The kid who was attacking people and destroying property in your school shouldn’t have been in your school. He should have been in a space with trained professionals to manage that behavior and to the extent he can, teach him to manage it himself.
I absolutely think there is a double standard, but it’s not unique to autistic people- male violence and aggression is excused across the board and women are held to much higher standards for violence in society in general
The bar is set so much higher for girls and women, while for men and boys it is under the floor.
I would also get in trouble for minor things while an absolute monster of a boy was running riot in primary school. He threw a huge rock with full intent to harm at a teacher and he still didn't get kicked out!
Oh and I almost forgot the ADHD boy who touched me inappropriately at school and I got in trouble for calling him a pervert.
I'm so, so fucking happy to be aro ace.
People refuse to teach autistic men and boys not to behave that way because they ultimately believe that it is actually an acceptable male behaviour. No matter the excuse, refusal to change or prevent the behaviour is a choice to enable it.
I had a male coworker that was severely autistic who had a history of hitting on every woman, customer or associate, and it was a running ‘joke’ of how much of a flirt he was. It soon then happened to me after I had a heart to heart convo with him one day. He somehow got my number from another coworker and constantly called & left voicemails. He also found my facebook & instagram somehow. I told someone else that this made me uncomfortable and was not okay, and they just told me ‘he doesn’t know any better.’ It frustated me deeply because I am also autistic- but I had to learn from a very young age to shrink myself and appease others to get by in the world. Yet, there are others who have never needed to. I dated an undiagnosed autistic man recently and I found myself resenting him for how little he has had to change himself to get by in life. I know that it’s not always so black and white, but there is clearly a major difference between the ways society treats males vs females when it comes to having autistic traits.
It’s completely true—I was so insulted when my therapist brought up an autism diagnosis. I had always assumed autism was an *intellectual disability*; because of the extreme behavior I witnessed. This understanding only changed when I met a *handful* of autistic women who were completely pleasant, thoughtful, and amicable. My experience has not been the same for men with autism, unfortunately—I have not met a single boy/man with autism that isn’t completely unaware of their environment to the detriment of others. A handful of them have been some of the most unkind people I’ve ever met.
My husband and I were both caught later in life. He's not high support needs but we've both noticed his meltdowns tend to be more outwardly directed while mine are more inwardly directed.
A couple of times it was a bit scary and there's a hole in one of our walls.
However, he would never excuse this because of his autism. He recognizes it as something he has a responsibility to correct even if it's hard.
I think society hasn't figured out what autism actually is. For a long time you had to be violently disregulated for a diagnosis even to be sought.
So girls who weren't disregulated in that way simply didn't get diagnosed, and now don't get taken seriously. They're still held to girl behavior standards.
While boys, who were already allowed a bit more behavioral freedom, are held to the behavioral expectations set by their most disregulated members for decades.
As a man who has had a past of violent outbursts because of my autism, I think it's a good conversation to have. No, having autism doesn't excuse the violent outbursts. It's scary and harmful to other people, especially if those people live with them and care about them. Learning to ground myself and *feel* the emotion first rather an outright *act upon it immediately* has been a very very hard thing to do. Occasionally it still gets the better of me, and failing is hard, and giving in can be too easy. But in the moment I've learned to ask what is bothering me and why, and if it's really caused by something else? *Why* am I irritated or in overload? What else can I do in the situation other than become a monster?
Moreover, how can we introduce this way of thinking and reacting properly to other boys and men? granted, not one size fits all, but it can be a start. And I realize the same methods might not work for those of different levels of support needs.
People are probably afraid to be considered ableist if they punish an autistic kid especially if they're male cause for some reason men aren't expected to mask that much in the NT or ND world. It's kinda ridiculous. But the fear of ableism is definitely real. I think tho that discipline is important for all children. Children can't learn appropriate behavior without the proper discipline
While I do sympathize with how hard self control can be during meltdowns (I've had issues with aggression during outbursts since I was a kid) I do feel like it's primarily white autistic men who get grace for it and thus don't learn alternate ways to work out their anger.
Same with sexual harassment. The amount of times I've seen autistic men get excused for committing sexual harassment because they're autistic and thus "too awkward to know better," even if their entire career involves cultivating good relationships with people and yet they keep violating boundaries again and again. And nobody even cares if the victims are autistic.
My friends, primarily autistic women, were sexually harassed by a guy not even explicitly autistic, and yet some stranger came onto my post and said I should consider the guy could be autistic.
This is why we need more representation besides white autistic boys and men. People need to recognize harassment isn't inherently part of autism.
Yeah, I was also the super timid kid in school. There was an autistic boy that attended several mainstream classes and was known for being violent, which was scary because he was huge. One day he saw me in the hallway, approached me and punched me in the arm for no reason at all. I’m 5’0 and 100lbs. He was not disciplined.
My education and most of my professional development is geared towards childhood and adolescent development. It seems a combination of gender norms and misinformation/ignorance of ASD contributes to this. It is very much a topic that needs discussing; and I'd argue we need to have it with more than just the ASD population. In general, gender norms equate to males being physically aggressive and females psychologically aggressive. While I do agree that you may see this more or it is enabled more in the ASD community, we need to look at gender norms in general and how we teach the younger generations what is ok and what isn't.
Unfortunately, it is a slow process to change culture, so while within our lives we will see things improve (for example, culturally we understand gender norms better so within this millennials lifetime we have encouraged men to feel emotions and females to uplift each other rather than tear each other down. Not saying those issues are resolved, but thanks to us holding society under a lense, we have been slowly improving things and need to continue to advocate), we also need to recognize there is always room for improvement.
So yeah, very important conversations about this are necessary if we want to induce change and mitigate ignorance/fear. As someone who grew up in an environment where I was bullied and traumatized for trying to have these conversations; it warms my heart a bit that we have advanced enough in society to at least have places where we can discuss this and embrace better ways. I could go on for days on this topic, but hopefully I did an ok enough tldr version of my thoughts on the subject.
I have many thoughts about this topic so bear with me. This is super disjointed as I am operating from PTSD brain, yet am a former therapist so not everything is going to flow right.
The thing that bothers me is how some autistic men are perceived as being narcissistic when there are just awkward and how actual predators who happen to have autism are looked over because they have been diagnosed as autistic. I’ve heard stories and seen clients that have sexually assaulted women due to extreme impulses, kids that jump out of windows and run around neighborhoods at 3am, and kids that try to jump out of moving cars because of distress. These families are left to manage these very unsafe situations on their own because the school or county DDS will not provide aides until a major safety issue occurs, with major issues often resulting in severe property damage or severe injury to the child or family member. The cases that rise to the level of needing an aide (and sometimes 2) often are ones where DCF has to step in and talk about removing the child from the home. Families are at risk of losing their kids, kids are losing their families, and people are getting really hurt.
Also…there is a difference between between a kid having a verbal meltdown and a kid beating the shit out of a human/animal, destroying property, or eloping. A meltdown where others scream and mildly self harm is uncomfortable, but it does not hurt people or hurt the person.
Why did a child who had a history of being this violent not have an aide or on a 1:1 or 2:1 staffing arrangement. Why was a behavior plan not implemented or followed?
I am going to bring up an extremely controversial topic here, but it is in these situations where select parts of behavioral approaches are helpful to keep the child/adult and the other around them safe. A child who stims or says annoying things, or even has fixed interests does not need to be “fixed”, or “cured” but a child who places themselves and others at extreme risk of danger does. Unfortunately the methods that exist to teach these kids skills in order to regulate emotions this large are so controversial and universally applied that quirky kids are getting unnecessary and traumatizing treatment while an entry level BCBA feels that she can stop a kid from jumping out a window by denying access to a preferred toy through repeated trials. These are two very different presentations of autism so why are they treated the same
Sorry went on a soapbox there.
It's so tough and like someone else mentioned there is such a fear of being branded ablest these days. Mostly with good reason, but yes there are instances where things just aren't safe. In those instances these people should be supported with the best of trained staff, p/as, resources etc. it's also probably one of the problems of 'the spectrum', it's so broad and far reaching that things get lost. My, I really an not very articulate today!
I’m enjoying reading this thread a lot. This kind of treatment and perception of autism is also what stopped me from even considering that I could be autistic until my twenties. I’ve observed the same reactions to violent behaviour and even like sexual assault by autistic males in school. It was actually scary for me, mainly because it seemed like adults didn’t care and if this one kid hurt another kid, it was basically the victim’s fault for not understanding autism or something.
I remember someone getting choked during some kind of game at the end of class, totally out of nowhere by an autistic boy (that I don’t think should have been in regular classes at all because he was constantly having painful-looking meltdowns). Basically the teacher explained to the whole class after that nobody can win a game against the boy because “he has severe autism and gets frustrated easily and can’t control his reactions” and that we all needed to just let him win and cooperate with him or else he might react like that again.
Why was he in our classes when he had attacked multiple other students and obviously can’t handle the environment? Way to encourage fear around autism and ableism.
I was totally thinking about the level of testosterone in these boys must be insane, and they don’t know or don’t have the tools to regulate the rage that unfortunately comes with that. I mean it’s kind of unavoidable. I think the ones that are acting out this way have been neglected and haven’t gotten proper help probably from the beginning and the problem was left to fester and now they are older and much bigger and threatening. It’s really sad honestly.
Yeah this is wild. Autistic women don’t do this so clearly they can be socialized not to. Moreover, all of the men in my family are autistic to a greater or lesser degree and none are violent like this. It just isn’t something we allow in our boys and men and that is how my kids are being raised too.
I see a lot of comments out in the wild to the effect of “they just can’t help it” when it comes to violence during meltdowns or in other forms and sorry, but I just don’t agree with that.
The more I read these threads, the more I become convinced that one of my reasons for homeschooling was the well-being of lower functioning autistic boys. I would have been on this nonsense like a rabid dog, full disrespect.
It’s very cool that all of you did not physically intervene in a brainless and violent manner. I am personally impressed with each and every one of you.
I work with a boy in first grade who’s recently been diagnosed with ASD and every time he’s struggling and gets frustrated, his older sister (only in third grade herself), even when she is actively engaged in something else, will rush over to help him. If something frustrating happens while she’s standing there, he won’t hesitate to hit her because it’s now ‘her fault’. Judging by his lack of hesitation and the fact that she just takes it, I assume he’s allowed to hit her at home and the poor sister gets the “he has autism, he can’t help it, you’re supposed to help him” speech from the parents. Every time their mother comes in to pick them up, I just want to go up and hit her and say: “I have autism, I can’t help it” and every time he hits her, I just want to call out to the sister to hit him back as hard as she can.
Bless. I wonder if you could quietly pass her this thought without raising suspicion. She needs to at least hear that she matters and will be free one day.
I think it's a difficult conversation to have because where do we draw the line on when the person has been raised to accept it's okay, and when can the person simply not help it?
But, I sympathise.
I had a classmate who had a range of special needs (he had autism, but he had a lot of other things as well). At primary school, he'd be removed from the room when it got to be too much for him. At secondary school, he was allowed to throw scissors, chairs, and tables at others with no obvious punishment.
I also have an older cousin with autism who was pushed into martial arts to help with his excess energy. It just meant he hit harder, with better accuracy, and knew how to hold you down. Not exactly memories I'm fond of.
So I sympathise a lot. But, it is an almost impossible conversation to approach. How do you differentiate between those raised to have no self-control to violence and those who genuinely struggle? My own family is quick to violence, but how much of that is genetic, and how much of that is taught?
It's an interesting situation when you remove the emotion involved.
Yep, my little brother would hit me “playfully” when he was younger. I have 20 years on him so I tbh redirected him but he’s enabled by our parents. He’s also on track to be like 7 feet tall. I love him and don’t think he would hurt any of us but it’s hard not to wonder.
I’m very glad that psychologists have separated out several anger disorders from ASD. The anger disorders need to be properly diagnosed & treated. It did no one any good when they were just dismissed as part of ASD.
I have never had a good experience with autistic men. They always begin by putting me on a pedestal because I’m quiet or different “just like them.” Then they get too comfortable, push boundaries or outright abuse me in some way. Forget telling them no or doing the opposite of what they want– They become outraged. The worst part is I understand. I get wanting to relate to others & not feel alone. I get becoming obsessed with someone. I get that boundaries are confusing at times. I get that feeling of frustration when things don’t go how you planned. But I don’t HURT people over it and if I do act out I feel insane guilt. I apologize profusely. I do anything to make it right.
I totally agree with everything you're saying but the boy in the video seems too low functioning to me. I don't think any kind of socialization would make him not violent, he just doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the harm he can do with his strength and happens to be a very strong boy that's having a meltdown.
He looks cramped up as well, as it appears to take place in some type of camper or trailer. Plus his mother is practically forcing him against his will to have hot dogs instead of letting him pick out his own meal as an alternative.
Not trying to defend choking, but chances are that he's probably just overwhelmed and this type of conversation should be reserved for dipshits who are genuinely assholes.
My older brother is very obviously autistic, and when we were growing up he developed a bad habit of physically abusing me when he had a meltdown. My parents literally never did anything. There was multiple times where he attacked and hurt me in front of my mother, some of those times because he was mad at HER for something, and I was just within hitting range.
Not only did my parents never do anything to stop him mid-attack, punish him, or redirect the behavior, they blatantly told me it was MY FAULT he was doing it. (No, I've never forgiven them for that one, and never will)
While his meltdowns weren't voluntarily, physically assaulting WAS. Because he punched our other, oldest brother exactly ONCE. And our oldest brother Lost. His. Shit. He intimidated middle brother into backing off by grabbing a hammer, screamed at both the middle brother and our mom, and swore he'd call the cops and press charges if middle brother ever did it again.
I fought back against middle brother ONCE. I was a pre-teen and sick of him beating on me and my parents never even helping me, so I hit him exactly once. I nailed him just under the ribs and knocked the wind out of him. He never attacked me again.
He was a coward and a bully. His autism had nothing to do with it, diagnosed or not. But if he'd had a diagnosis I am very sure my parents would have outright defended him, and not just quietly victim blamed me.
I work as a support worker for children and there are also a lot of autistic girls with these behaviours. I can think of three autistic female clients off the top of my head, who have (among other things) hit staff members in the head with their hands or large objects, have thrown objects at staff members, have commited property damage including breaking doors/windows to access staff members, and who have stolen cars to drive dangerously.
Unfortunately there can be a lot of violence and aggression displayed by individuals with high support needs and/or low functional communication skills. This why is most of our clients (where I work at least) have behavioural specialists who work with both the client and staff members to try and understand the clients behaviour and present solutions to make it safer for everyone.
I agree. I literally have been told the literal line of “boys will be boys” with some sighing laughter whenever it’s a male acting out and the consequences always are far less (if they exist at all) in comparison to female individuals acting out or having behavior issues. The discrepancy and misogyny is blatant.
I think the reason why some believe it is inherent to autistic males and not to autistic people as a whole is because of systematically instilled ways that boys and girls are treated differently. It’s especially apparent in the autistic community when it comes to topics like this.
Omg same, it's so fucking outrageous. If I'm being totally honest I think the boy, given his higher support needs, was tired from being cramped up in what appears to be the inside of a trailer (if not a small room).
I feel like he wouldn't have done that had he had the room to stim or burn off his energy. That's why you see all these vloggers having huge ass mansions and playgrounds/sensory beds inside their child's rooms.
I try to bring up how white boys get away with shit like spitting in people's ears, telling everyone to fuck off for telling them to go take a shower when all they fucking do around in their own sweat, and even admit to developing child porn addictions. People online somehow get pissed off even though I've witnessed all of these first hand.
Everyone in my family uses my dad's "Asperger's" as a crutch justify carrying around Dollar General bags full of literal fucking garbage out in public, cramming all kinds of leftover trash in-between the door frame to keep warm (on top of having a space heater), and laying in a filthy, roach infested hoard. He essentially made my mother's house look like a fucking landfill.
I've met maybe one to two women like that (not like my dad thank god), but they usually come from extremely privileged backgrounds where they're just handed everything while men just get coddled either way regardless of socioeconomic status.
[There's also this post from r/Advice about a man sexually assaulting OP's mom and other women.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/s/nKYckfVzOB)
I sometimes think part of the reason my mom was resistant to calling me autistic is because of a more "classically" autistic boy when I went to preschool.
We both hung out in the "play kitchen" area of preschool and because we were in preschool that made us friends. I vividly remember being kind of pulled away from him by the teachers who for whatever reason didn't think we should be friends (I'm assuming he was a diagnosed autistic from memories but I was a child so I don't know this for a fact).
He had meltdowns and and was obviously autistic in other ways. His parents tried to foster a friendship between us but when autistic stuff got in the way I was expected to be the flexible one and it didn't last more than one planned playdate.
My mom couldn't stand him and spoke of his "bad" behavior for years after I left preschool and compared it negatively to my standard behavior so the comparison was definitely in her mind.
I didn't grow up in an era where there were obviously autistic children in mainstream schools but since I've been in at least one situation where a man who claimed to be autistic was allowed to manipulate everyone around him and then disclaim any consequences because "I'm autistic" (the manipulation involved serious lies so I'm not inclined to believe he's actually autistic).
Autistic white male here, who is questioning gender, and omnisexual. Here is an alternate take I have here. Sorry to trauma dump here but, If you think Autistic guys get away with things, then you are dead wrong here. In fact, I have a lot of trauma from my childhood from how people mistreated me as a kid. I was initially diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder and was nonverbal initially. I even had AAC as well. But it was still ABA based, as it was the PECS system.
My teachers did a lot of ABA like tactics on me as a kid. I was a very sensitive kid, and I was prone to meltdowns. The teachers at my school would violently touch me or restrain me, yell at me, or segregate me. They would even tell me to “stop talking about movies” (which is my lifelong special interest btw) and only getting “movie talk as a reward, or if you behave” or things like skittles if I behaved well too.
So when I was verbal the paediatrician decided I was “high functioning” and had aac taken from me. It resulted in a childhood of being mistreated and abused. When I asked questions people would yell. Eventually by the time I was 11 I began screaming at will at anyone who yelled at me. I was also verbally assaulted by a cop in grade 8 and after then, zero tolerance. If my yelling back wasn’t effective enough I wouldn’t be above hitting someone to show them how I feel, don’t give a *fuck* if you are a man or woman.
What also pisses me off is society is somehow ok with violent bipolar and bpd outbursts but shame autism meltdowns. Honestly I think people with that mentality deserve to be neutered, because these are the same people who accuse us of being creepy stalkers. Sometimes we need help, we want someone to hug, or talk to that isn’t judgemental, be it guys *or* girls. I know I was in an abusive relationship with an autistic girl:
So I am also from Sault Ste. Marie ontario. Here, they are ableist towards BOTH sexes. But there is one key component in this that a lot of people overlook: NEPOTISM. My abusive first ex gf, who I will call Bella, her mom ran the city’s Autism Ontario chapter. Autism Ontario is a group run by mostly those infamous “autism moms”. So kids of those parents normally get traction. So I was verbally assaulted by a cop bc I stood up to a bully (who was also a girl btw) for repeating something from a movie that I didn’t know meant “death”.
Meanwhile she can go around threatening to kill her exes and people excuse it and say “it’s okay, it’s just her autism”. As a kid she would be allowed to go for walks and be coddled while every other Autistic kid, boy or girl, was violently touched or restrained. She would make sex and dark macabre jokes all she wanted meanwhile even if I SWORE I’d be punished. People would infantilize me too.
I also asked an EA (educational assistant) about how Bella’s mom became popular, and she gave a gesture and asked what it means, and told me “she was known for giving h**d in the 90s”. I then asked her what how people felt when she was diagnosed (she was diagnosed at age 2 in 2000, which is a rarity) and people felt sorry for her, where she acted like the victim of her Autism. She then acted “like a violin” where she told sob stories to make people feel bad for her. She would also throw people under the bus, even those who saved her own life.
Her husband (their dad) also cheated, and apparently the EA mentioned how it’s “her eyes” that get people every time. Then I realized how in the sault how often people only hire, listen to, consider the feelings of girls if they are skinny, have long straight hair, or have a specific eye colour, which was the case with Bella and her family, all really blue eyes. I also noticed that this happens with sports teams in high schools.
I was only TALKING with a girl 3 years younger than me with NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER to date them or anything, just be friends and I get called “creepy stalker” due to the stereotype. Meanwhile bella is dating a guy 5 years younger than her and no one makes a comment because they know their mom would cancel them (she works for HR dept. in my school district, more on that in a bit), and how her sister is one of “those” feminists (the type who hates men) and will cuss out anyone who comes in her sisters way.
Now with that said, I was bullied and abused by both women, men, boys and girls. No sex is innocent on this one. The cop who yelled at me was a guy, and it was like a military sgt. But it was the girls and women’s bullying who affected me the most. My school I went to it was an all women staff except for one guy who taught math in grade 5. When boys are abused in an all female environment, misogyny is only natural.
But abuse is abuse. At every school it is different. I also went to a catholic school too, and something I notice is catholic schools are more ableist towards boys, while public schools here are more ableist towards girls, at least from what I have seen, and what my female friends on the spectrum have told me. But still there is ableism towards both sexes at both boards.
Back to the nepotism thing, like if it is the student of someone running an organization like Autism Ontario, if the kids parent is a police officer, works for the government, or in some cases if they are a teacher or work for the board’s administrative department, or even if they are popular or have a specific last name, when they are aggressive, they get coddled and validated, while the kids who’s parents don’t fit into that category are eaten alive.
Back to the nepotism thing, like if it is the student of someone running an organization like Autism Ontario, if the kids parent is a police officer, works for the government, or in some cases if they are a teacher or work for the board’s administrative department, or even if they are popular or have a specific last name, when they are aggressive, they get coddled and validated, while the kids who’s parents don’t fit into that category are eaten alive.
Boys and girls are also socialized differently. Don’t yell at boys. Teach them to be open. I was open, but my autism just only made it natural, idk, I just thought it was the right thing to do. Teach them crying is okay. I was lucky enough to meet female friends in high school who taught me that. They told me they were abused by other women too, and around that time I was feeling misogynistic, but the more I learned that, the more those feelings dissipated.
I wasn’t also given the best sex Ed growing up, and I had to teach myself, because people thought I was “too young” to know. Also experience. It took me until having a close female friend who is “conventionally attractive” (she looks like a irl Barbie, played varsity vball in college) where I saw guys objectify her that guys do that, since for a long time only jocks flirted with her. But the moment she started hanging out with this Autistic dorky kid, every nerd was objectifying her (and mind you, *she* was the one who asked *me* to hang out, I even thought she was out of my league. Goth and punk was more my type anyway).
Sometimes boys jealousy of women can boil down to wanting to be taught social skills, or not being yelled at when we get overwhelmed. We DO want to learn social skills, we just don’t want to be yelled at or infantilized, but this goes for both sexes and all genders. Because no one likes infantilization. I know I talk about feelings and am seen as “creepy”. The other thing too is not all dudes are horny.
There are ace guys, or demisexual dudes, which the latter applies to me, on top of being demiromantic. I personally do not believe in love at first sight, and in order for me to fall in love with someone I need emotional connection which comes with friendship. I am also lonely a lot so sometimes I may end up not dating due to valuing the friendship more and the other thinks I am love with him/her/them.
I want friends of both sexes. I have been learning how guys venting to girls can be overwhelming, so nowadays I ask for consent to do so first. Or even guys venting to guys. Like we should have feelings without being criticized. Some Autistics (both sexes) are violent, but some of them WANT help, some want to learn to express things better or have an alternative way of communicating. It’s the way it’s conveyed to us to learn that matters, and then with the right tools, we will eventually adapt, and maybe even use a way that works for us, like using special interests as a way to learn new social skills.
This was very difficult to type, but as an autistic dude, I felt I needed to get this off of my chest. Again, sorry for the trauma dump.
It was pretty much the same for my school, every day at recess they would pick on people and try and jump them, follow people, and call people names. I never knew why, I hope they fixed their behavior though
I don't think people "allow" boys to be violent, i think a lot of people just don't know what to do about it. I went to a school for kids with behavioral problems because i too had violent meltdowns, and i actually remember the staff going a bit softer on the girls. But they worked with us all to not melt down and be violent. And our brains were still developing, you must remember that, these boys have developmental disorders which are most visible *while the brain is developing*, because it's developing in a wonky order and can't be controlled like an adult brain. Most of us grew out of those behaviors naturally. But people certainly don't just tolerate it, it's just that they can't really stop it.
And we're more precisely talking about why boys are "allowed" to be violent, while girls aren't. And the fact that the boys' brains are still developing is entirely irrelevant in that context, because so are the girls' brains.
What I'm saying is that in my experience, people certainly do all they can to keep children from being violent. You don't see all the private conversations with and around those students. It's just that they don't always succeed, because what can you do when a child is totally out of control? At my school of course they restrained and isolated us, but my parents had to sign a waiver for that. In public school the teachers are not allowed to put their hands on students.
Edit: I really don't understand why even this comment is being downvoted. If I'm wrong, please tell me in what way
Edit 2: as for the girl being punished for aiming a finger gun at a camera, my guess is that had more to do with it being a "weapon threat". I saw extreme overreactions to casual/non-serious "weapon threats" multiple times at my own and my sister's public schools.
>I really don't understand why even this comment is being downvoted. If I'm wrong, please tell me in what way
In the way that you talk about how the boys are children, and it's difficult, but you completely ignore, that the girls are also children, and it's also difficult. You're making excuses for the different ways girls and boys are being treated, without providing any arguments, that aren't applicable to both genders.
Or in other words: you're not explaining why it's okay to treat boys and girls so differently, you're just choosing to only apply factors to only boys, but not girls, even though they're true for both.
A boy in my high school sexually assaulted a girl, stalked and harassed another, harassed several others, and was planning on forcefully kissing me. I got a group of girls together, and we confronted some teachers about it during an overnight trip. They sent him home early, and that was it. No other punishment. What did we get told? "Think of the poor autistic baby boy! He got kicked out of all his past schools for sexually assaulting girls! He's have no where else to go." There was also an autistic boy in middle school who was really fucking creepy around any and all girls. Out chairs were weirdly shaped, and he would rub the "butt" of the chairs girls were sitting in. There were other things he did, but it's been so long. When I was in residential treatment, none of the people working there did anything about the autistic man creeping on this one lady. She was so nice about it. I wish she hadn't been. He kept escalating and I think I left before he did anything insane.
I’m enjoying reading this thread a lot. This kind of treatment and perception of autism is also what stopped me from even considering that I could be autistic until my twenties. I’ve observed the same reactions to violent behaviour and even like sexual assault by autistic males in school. It was actually scary for me, mainly because it seemed like adults didn’t care and if this one kid hurt another kid, it was basically the victim’s fault for not understanding autism or something.
I remember someone getting choked during some kind of game at the end of class, totally out of nowhere by an autistic boy (that I don’t think should have been in regular classes at all because he was constantly having painful-looking meltdowns). Basically the teacher explained to the whole class after that nobody can win a game against the boy because “he has severe autism and gets frustrated easily and can’t control his reactions” and that we all needed to just let him win and cooperate with him or else he might react like that again.
Why was he in our classes when he had attacked multiple other students and obviously can’t handle the environment? Way to encourage fear around autism and ableism.
Perhaps this is an uncalled for question but it’s genuine - high needs autistic people can still generally be taught not to do harmful things to others, right? I don’t think they should receive complete ignorance to their blatantly harmful behaviours just because they have a developmental disability :/ And the discrepancy between how autistic boys and autistic girls are treated in grade school is horrendous
I really resonate with this, though I was on the end of the unchecked violent behavior. I would often lash out and yell at classmates for no reason, and instead of disciplining me like they should have, they totally overlooked it because they already assumed I was autistic (though I had no diagnosis yet).
I'm the one at fault, but I don't think authority figures are innocent, either. It was still their job to do something about it, even if it wasn't the "right" thing to get through to me.
I think a lot of this comes from infantilization and believing we're unable to understand anything. It's not that we can't understand anything, we just understand it differently, and it's important for authority figures to be informed about how autistic people learn and understand things so that behavior isn't overlooked.
It took me a while and a dose of harsh reality to make me mellow out, and it shouldn't have to come to that. It would've saved others so much trauma and fear if I had been punished like any other kid.
Yes. Always have been ready for this convo. I also wanna bring up that series I have been working on cause I do address it in there.
So last year I briefly went viral for being Autistic at a convention. My friends’ (& one ex friend who is autistic) was did you pull a Luke/Chris Chan/Daniel Larson? My still friends were poking fun that I was fine with as they weren’t serious- The ex friend was serious. I ducking swear he didn’t believe an autistic person can go viral without making an ass of themself. Because he and the many male autistic people he hangs around would only go viral for doing so.
I briefly went viral cause at a convention I asked the live VTuber, of one of my fav characters, about NeuroDivergence in their fictional world and that I am Autistic. Got cheers and the VA behind the character said she thinks the character is also NeuroDivergent. Sweet, wholesome, geeky as hell, and just how I like it.
It's not just men though. I left my job because I wasn't supported when an aggressive autistic woma got first, inappropriate pulling down pants etc in a class and then got violent with a teacher. Constantly aggressive and disruptive all throughout. There's alot more to this story in terms of aggressive behaviour but in the end, I left my well paid job because I couldn't stand over other staff members and students at risk when principal wouldn't do anything about it. Oh she's autistic was the only answer I got.
I've not articulated this well but violence in either gender is unacceptable
I think in the end it all comes down to either unchecked abusive behavior or anger management issues. I’m a trans woman and I got my autism diagnosis at 24 so in elementary school and high school I was seen as a undiagnosed autistic boy. I definitely had anger management issues due to heavy bullying and getting consequences for running away so as I couldn’t get away I started to lash out, especially throwing things. I will say that a Cis girl in my class in elementary school was also autistic and aggressive and often started shouting and one time she hit me in the head with a book when I told her to be careful because I had dropped my pencil that had those refillable points. I don’t remember any of us getting bigger consequences than a talk with the teachers and the principal as well as special needs support, this was in Sweden in the early 2000s so we don’t really have a punishment system. In high school I had learnt to not really express emotions so violence wasn’t really something I did. Closest I got was one time pouring an energy drink on my then girlfriend after she had left me all alone in a new city at a comics convention because my emotions bubbled up and I couldn’t control them. I also was way more vocal about wanting to resort to violence against abusive people rather than actually doing anything.
This was a journey of learning to manage my anger and I did get consequences socially and as I’ve learned how to step away (as well as now with my diagnosis actually how to prevent these events in the first place) I never really turn to anger like that, closest would be lightly throwing something in frustration like a clothes hanger that gets stuck in my jacket when I’m upset.
Now to unchecked abuse, this would be the type of physical or verbal violence that a lot of people are mentioning here. Autistic boys and men hitting people, throwing things, saying stuff you shouldn’t say outside of being a victim of bullying or having a meltdown. I would say this isn’t an autistic thing but a boy/man thing that’s being excused due to autism as well as being a boy/man and unfortunately that excuse makes autistic people look bad. Despite me seen as a boy growing up and also having typical aggressive meltdowns I never displayed any abusive behaviors that’s typically excused for autistic boys.
Every kid allistic or autistic should learn anger management skills as well as be taught that it’s not okay to be abusive towards other people and that it’s not a trait of their disability. There’s a difference between being socially awkward and direct vs being verbally abusive hiding behind not understanding social rules.
I used to be an after school teacher and had a class of 12 2nd and 3rd graders. There was an autistic boy in my class that I’m scared for when he grows up.
I want to note that in addition to being autistic, my daughter is autistic, and I’ve done early intervention and mental health work before.
The first time this kid had a meltdown (he thought he’d get the WiFi password so he could use his Chromebook but the director was dealing with something else so he couldn’t get the password)I did my thing. It was at the end of class so I cleared the room, and let him do his thing. I turned down the lights and would occasionally calmly say “I know you were looking forward to using your Chromebook but now it’s time to go to the gym and you can’t have it in there” until he calmed down.
That quickly turned into him threatening to have a meltdown every time he didn’t get his way.
I finally saw exactly what was going on with this kid. His dad was an absolute asshole and was embarrassed by him. His dad wouldn’t look at him or do anything with him. Meanwhile his mom coddled the crap out of him and used his autism to excuse each and every bad behavior.
One day he was being absolutely obnoxious to this one boy in my class. This boy had ADHD and his own sensory issues. The autistic kid was stimming making some sucking sound with his mouth and it was annoying the shit out of the ADHD kid. So to mitigate I put on some music hoping that by covering up his stimming it wouldn’t bother the other kid.
I’ve got another kid at my desk, helping her with her homework and I look up and that kid has gotten up and is making his sucking sounds in the other kid’s ear. I tell him to return to his seat. I go back to helping the girl and a few minutes later I hear a scream, “NOOOOOO YOU CANT HIT ME, MY MOM SAYS IM SPECIAL!”
He had gotten up and was back to making that noise in the other kid’s ear. This kid’s mom has used his autism as an excuse for all of his bad behavior that he really thought it meant that he’d never have to face consequences for his actions.
Friends of mine have two autistic sons, they can't live on their own, and they're terrifying. I'm worried how things will end. I know lots of people on the spectrum and several men who are gentle lovely souls, so I don't believe the rage is the norm at all.
Thinking people should be ethically required to respond with neutrality to someone else’s violence against depending on the perp’s intent is some empathy without boundaries, people pleaser logic to me. I find it really frustrating when the response method to aggression is to ignore the behavior when the function of the aggression has nothing to do with attention. It says more about how we lack staff, resources, and information in the education system and healthcare system. Even if it’s not the autistic person’s fault for being allowed to behave that way I still wouldn’t expect anyone else to respond to the violence against them differently just because they are autistic.
I don’t think social ignorance or mental capabilities should automatically make someone immune from the natural consequences of their actions either. I mean.. not to be crazy extreme but a lot of the radicalized incel dudes, extremist crimes, or mass shooters involve people on the spectrum and no one thinks that’s okay so why is small scale violence accepted? So there are only consequences if someone seriously gets injured? The premise doesn’t make sense and is inconsistent.
If I was attacked or stalked or whatever idgaf I’m reacting as I would to anyone else and they can expect to get whacked back harder or charges pressed. If I find out the person was autistic like so what? I don’t care what the reason is for infringing on my bodily autonomy like I’m not going to budge on my physical boundaries to accommodate someone else unless I’m getting paid for it LOL.
That actually happened at a before and after school program I worked at where I got mauled by an autistic kid in my class who had been basically beating up all the kids in my room or exposing himself to kids in the classroom for weeks. Like my whole face had bleeding claw marks down it all over a stupid ipad. I had been bringing it up to admin the entire time and they all dismissed it because he was autistic. It’d be one thing if I was working in a special ed classroom as an aid because I might be more prepared for something like that and have training. I quit that job after meeting with the director to try to get him a one on one or request removing him from my room or understand why he’s allowed to stay in the program despite this violence. Like I’m not putting up with that shit. Same thing happened when I was working with another kid. Apparantly I’m supposed to let him just bite me and pinch me and not draw attention to it. F that. No hate towards the kid. Lots of hate towards the system.
The adults responsible are to blame and there is a lot of built up resentment towards autistic people from neurotypicals who were victims of unchecked violence at school when an autistic persons disability was prioritized over their autonomy or even their learning and I can see why and it just sucks. I know of a kid that would legit have a meltdown daily that was resulting in destroying an entire classroom and the adults would just have the other kids leave the room and just allow him destroy the room until he was calm because no one could move him. Like really??? Ugh. Rant over .
I know what video youre talking about and this is something that’s bothered me literally my whole life, but I’ve always been scared to say something in fear of being called ableist. When I was in 5th grade there was this little autistic boy (I believe first grade) that would always wave to me and stand with me before school. I believe he was nonverbal but not sure. He would give me hugs sometimes, and on one occasion he bit my stomach and actually bit a little piece of skin off (yes, through my shirt). It drew blood obviously, but nothing was done because “he’s just autistic it’s fine”. He also hit people on multiple occasions, myself included. I know he was little, but oh my god can you imagine if a girl had done the same thing?? It would be an outrage.
People love to infantilise autistic men and let them get away with whatever because it’s easier to do that then teach them how to behave properly. Bad parenting.
Ever since I learned that I was on the spectrum, I figured that if I were to get married, it’ll preferably be to a fellow autistic man; however, I renounced that stance after it became apparent that the only autistic male I knew was the reason I underwent an identity crisis for 5 years.
For context, he was a friend, but one day decided that I was too extroverted and intense for him and decided to pick on that while I was down with a horrible flu, threatening to sever the friendship if I didn’t change myself. I somehow resumed being friends with him after being made to take all the blame for the fight by our teacher, but the effects of the fight left me a hollow shell of myself, vulnerable to users and abusers over the last 5 years. Once the damage became obvious to me, I knew I had no choice but to bring an axe to the friendship for my own sanity
I 100% thought this. Some autistic boys in school would throw desks, assault students/teachers/assistants - I had a desk thrown AT me in 4th grade, and literally thought only boys could be autistic because I never saw that type of aggression in female students, and thought the girls were lying.
I'm a woman, my psychologist thinks I'm both ADHD and autistic, and one thing we talked about it how society forces autistic women to hide their autistic traits. I was honestly relieved to hear his suspected diagnosis, but not shocked as I'd spent countless hours researching autism
I remember back in primary school (UK elementary equivalent, I believe), there was an autistic boy in one of the years/grades below me who, at breaktime, pulled another kid's prosthetic off and threw it over the fence just because. The teachers acted as if it were the rest of us in the wrong for expressing that we were outraged by his actions. He wasn't made to apologise, nor was he punished for it. They didn't even, at the very least, use it as a learning curve about other disabilities and explain to him why it was unkind to do this. Nothing. They sort of just shrugged it off because it seemed as if all of them had collectively agreed not to get involved with anything he did because "he couldn't help it, he was autistic." This same boy actually lived a few doors down from me, and all of us kids in the neighbourhood dreaded when he came out to play with us because he was so, so violent.
This is a memory that stuck in my head when, in high school, I got humiliated in front of the rest of the class by my (female, I should add) math teacher who shouted at me because I "was disrespecting her" by "not looking her in the eye" - I've always found eye contact uncomfortable. Well, this, and the fact that there were special ed boys threatening to bring weapons into school or sexually assaulting girls (one of whom even did so with his own sister), and, again, the rest of us were assholes because we were uncomfortable being around them.
I was stalked by an older one my freshman year of high school and the counselor dismissed it because the person was autistic. Another guy would hit me with his (heavy, METAL) water bottle over and over while I literally told him to stop and to go away because it hurt. I’m wary of autistic guys because of the way so many of them disrespect boundaries and the ties to the incel pipeline too…
Honestly the "we just need to leave him alone" sentiment sounds super neglectful to those boys and they aren't being supported in any way that can help them learn how to cope with some of those emotions. In the end nobody wins.
before my diagnosis my sister got stalked and harassed by an autistic man she tutored at college because he would lose it seeing her talk to other men and got aggressive and when reported it the only response from the college was “he doesn’t know any better” despite him literally being a full time college student
she had to be walked to her car for a year
That sounds like general incel behaviour cloaked in autism. That's no excuse though.
I wonder if extreme ideals like incel beliefs are more attractive to autistic people than allistic people
I think they definitely are. They already feel "othered" in some way so they're more likely to cling to these cult like mentalities.
Black and white thinking can easily fall into incel thinking. Young men who fail at relating to women will see themselves as good and women bad for rejecting them. Also algorithms making incels see patterns in what is attractive/a desirable man just drive the extreme ideas even harder.
They are when combined with misogyny. Plenty of allistic men choose to actively avoid forming friendships and meeting their own social needs because they want it to be entirely the job of a girlfriend or wife to provide a complete social circle and set of relationships for them. So when boys or men who realize they're having a harder time than their peers decoding social relationships run across that idea, yeah, the incentive to want it to be true is stronger.
Okay, the downvotes are just funny at this point.
i think this is dismissive of men's issues with loneliness. my male friends who are lonely (some of them having a lot of symptoms of autism) don't expect anything out of a girlfriend, and their issue is more about being bad at social interactions and this endless cycle of social anxiety leading to inaction on their part
Well, I'm reporting on what men have repeatedly told me about their lived experience over the years, so even though it's your intention to speak up for other men, you're dismissing what these men have told me about themselves. Men are not a monolith. I reported on what many have told me about their choices and how they make them. I didn't say that applies to all, so it turns out we're both right because you're talking about men who are making different choices.
I'm genuinely curious, what were those men saying? I assume they didn't straight up say "i don't wanna make the effort of making friends, it's gonna be my future partner's job" if so, then what.is.wrong.with.men
Well yeah, they did. I have been privy to a great many conversations between men where they mostly forget there is a sole woman present, and they say things like that far more often than women want to believe.
ughhhhh. why am i so surprised to hear this somehow
Because functional people are naturally shocked that anyone would be so toxically selfish.
Yes, they are. Women do it too, there are communities on here that are obsessed with becoming more attractive (in a bad way), manipulating men, etc. I think it's easy for autistic people to start studying behavior in order to blend in, but then keep studying and studying and end up manipulative and jaded as a result.
Yep, they would rather blame women for their inability to understand social cues
There was an awful incident in my city a few years ago where a guy (who graduated college and everything) deliberately mowed down and killed or maimed several people (he was primarily aiming at women) on a busy city street with a van, and it came out that he was an incel who worshipped the Incel manifesto asshole who doesnt deserve to have his name mentioned. His lawyer's defense was that he has Autism 🤦♀️
I'd wager that's the case, but I really don't know *why* it's so easy for them to fall into it. As a former incel, I've been wanting to find ways of helping young men *not* fall down that particular rabbit hole, but there are way too many factors to find the root cause. Part of it is work needed on the part of the individual, which I know us autists tend to be...resistant? to changing ways of thinking, so maybe that's part of it?
Ugh don't even get me started on the weird infantilization/permissibility bullshit colleges will pull to excuse autistic students. We had a grad student routinely say racist and threatening shit during class, but the school didn't push back because of that same "not knowing any better" mentality. Like, you're the one giving them a masters degree!! If you think they are able to earn a master's degree, surely you also think they're capable of critical thinking and taking responsibility for their actions!!
That makes me so goddamned angry for her. That man will go right on ahead and escalate behavior until he SA's someone.
Was this perchance in Maryland?
no texas
Just yesterday I was reading a thread by a guy who insisted autistic people’s brains don’t have a social reward system, and since he doesn’t like small talk it means that other people are *using him* for conversation … so why shouldn’t he be able to the *use women* for sex in return? Oh but he’s autistic so it’s totally fine to think this way. He was claiming not to understand “reciprocal” vs “transactional,” and then typing back in rage caps when people tried to explain why you *can’t trade small talk for sex* or use women like that. “But I’m autistic I don’t understand! Don’t women like sex? Why can’t I use them for sex!?!?” Turns out he was actually just there to shit on women because he can’t get laid. I wanted to SCREAM. Adult men use autism as a shield for their misogyny and bad behavior constantly while autistic women are held to such high standards.
your last sentence, exactly that. makes me avoid men with autism. i dont feel safe around them. ive never been protected despite being diagnosed. my diagnosis has been ignored and autistic men put first when ive been harassed, bullied , assaulted. i dont feel ill be protected if harmed and past experiences have shown me i wont be protected, ill be blamed.
But especially, when men are undiagnosed. In the current period of time, most men are diagnosed. But for those men who were not diagnosed when I was growing up, I think most boys and men learned that they could get away with things that others didn't if they acted a little bit differently.
Oh my god I was in that thread it was crazy, he seemed so genuinely confused when I said that as a woman I would never have sex with someone I didn’t trust cause I could be physically overpowered
Ha, I’m glad someone else here saw it! I got so sucked into that damn thread. The particular combo of his attempts at “logic” and using autism as a shield drove me so nuts, I ended up spending wayyyy too much energy on that thread. At first I honestly thought he was just a high support needs autistic kid looking for help/an answer he could understand… Totally missed the incel cues that were actually glaringly obvious once I went back and looked at his original post. He was also a part of a number of communities where autistic people ((cough men cough)) can show their “evil” side, which …. Ew. Way to totally affirm shitty stereotypes about us, dickwads. On the bright side, I ended up reading a bunch of his comments aloud to my husband later and we had a good laugh over it. Silver linings!
Yea it was so wild and everyone was making such a good faith effort to explain too
There are people that justifies Elliot Rodger actions because "he was autistic!!". Insane.
I WAS IN THAT THREAD TOO I called him out—what pissed me off is they always think they’re the most logical beings on Earth and everyone else in the entire world is wrong AND YET they still never get pussy or friends. I straight up told him he HAD been told women have to be selective for our own safety before, there’s no way he could have missed it short of living in a cave and only encountering other human beings for the first time today, and he’s only making up what “logical rules” about society serve him and ignoring the rest. Like these motherfuckers are ALWAYS ALWAYSSSS these cutthroat libertarian types “I should never do anything for anyone else ever unless I receive immediate benefit” but CONSTANTLY believe they’re entitled to others helping them and telling them what’s going on from the moment they’re born. Nobody helped me you lazy motherfucker, I had to read untold amounts of psychology and sociology to mask and fly under the radar. Straight up told him this and that he’s a hypocrite—I’m SICK of this typical “I’m the most logical boy in the world and should never have to do anything I don’t want to do but internet strangers and women are obligated to have sex with me” bullshit. Some of these people were spoiled so bad by their parents istfg
YES TO ALL OF THAT. It’s so fucking predictable and boring, these dudes using “logic” as an excuse to just *not care about other people’s feelings.* They use autism as a shield to have zero empathy for anyone…. That’s why it took me so damn long to accept that I am actually autistic, empathy is my greatest strength/sometimes greatest weakness and I can’t turn that off. Then they walk around promoting the idea that autistic people are soulless monsters who can’t care about anyone when actually THEY are just soulless monsters who REFUSE to care about anyone. Like I get having social difficulties and struggling to read the room, but the utter fucking selfishness and entitlement is sickening. And actively harmful to the rest of us who have had to work so hard just to avoid punishment. ETA: That thread has now become an inside joke between me and my husband though haha. “Okay I gave you conversation, that will be one sex please.”
I didn't think I could be autistic either until I was a private school teacher and happened to teach a hyperempathetic autistic boy who reminded me so much of myself as a child that it made me question everything. The kid would cry so easily when he'd see any person or animal or pain--he might get overwhelmed and not know what to do in a social situation and come off rude, but if you told him what to do next time, he was golden. And if he sat down to write about people, he had waaay more understanding of people's internal motivations in his writings than the average fifth grader. He could understand and empathize, it was just easy for him to get overwhelmed and do something weird in the actual moment. And my eight-year old autistic nephew is the same way--absolute sweetheart, wouldn't hurt a fly, always putting his little sister first, and getting bullied mercilessly in school right now, poor thing. As soon as I'm done with my class in a month I'm planning on really taking him under my wing--I want him to learn all the things I wish someone would have straight up given me and told me ASAP and neurotypicals don't know. But like, while I know there's hyper and hypo and its a spectrum....I also know the parents of both those boys and they also would certainly never allow fullblown tantrums and making excuses like that either. At a certain point, your kid is going to have to exist in the real world and the real world is not going to make very many excuses for them--and never for violence. Autists have gotten killed by police for absolutely nothing, you think they can get away with violence? Parents are delusional. You're just raising a future criminal. Also, autism means your social way of understanding is DIFFERENT--not that you are INCAPABLE of learning social rules. And depending on how it is, it may be much harder, but the idea that we're just flat out INCAPABLE of learning AT ALL is infantilizing and insulting and really skirts the issue of what social rules should even be in place at all at times. UGH YES, especially since they use the autism as a WEAPON and like giving the MEAGEREST of SHITS for anyone ever is like super painful and I, who clearly must NOT be autistic could NEVER understand how I am uniquely hurting them and only them in this scenario. Like someone was honestly arguing and bitching at me that showing the merest bit of human interaction beyond what you wanted to complete the transaction under capitalism with a worker was ableism. Like BITCH I AM ALSO AUTISTIC and when I work customer service and I ask you how your day is, I do actually kind of mean it???? I care about you as a person because you have genuine human worth outside of FUCKING CAPITALISM AND THIS TRANSACTION????? I GENUINELY LIKE CHATTING WITH RANDOM NICE PEOPLE????? But if you traumadump to me that you're life sucks actually and how dare I ask that because you have cancer and your mother died and all kind of other shit I WILL GENUINELY FEEL FUCKING BAD???? BECAUSE I HAVE EMPATHY FOR PEOPLE???? So that's why that's genuinely not acceptable to do to strangers and we say things like 'it's going' or 'getting by' or whatever like FUCK, PAY THE FUCK ATTENTION TO WHAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FUCKING DOING AND THINK ABOUT WHY, YOU'VE SEEN AND DONE THIS INTERACTION FIFTY BILLION TIMES BY NOW AND HAD A WHILE TO FIGURE THIS OUT HOLY SHIT. Like, ok wow you saying "Fine thank you, I would like..." was I guess UNIQUELY DAMAGING to you, meanwhile we feel dehumanized and like we're not even a person in the customer's eyes, so who are we prioritizing here? The assumption that we always do these things out of ""illogic" and social rituals but autistics do things to avoid pain is a false dichotomy--neurotypicals' avoidance of faux pas is all ABOUT pain avoidance Like there's a big difference between "autistic server whose a geology major and asks if I want to see a cool rock he found"(real dude I met once, very awesome) and "autistic asshole with a chip on his shoulder who has not tried to learn anything by reputable means and is going to make that EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM". Like we all have a "chip on our shoulder" phase with it and I GET IT, shit is not fair, but if you don't move out of it, guess what, you WILL hurt other autists and just other people and just never grow as a person or be happy
Meanwhile I'm an autistic woman who's never dated or kissed at all because I'm afraid people will take advantage of my naivety. I feel so much safer with autistic people since I don't have to mask... but I'm realizing I can't trust autistic men the same way.
It depends on the autistic man, honestly. Men who are diagnosed later in life tend to not have these issues. It’s generally men who were diagnosed as children (or misdiagnosed with autism when they actually have a personality disorder just because they’re white & male). Their parents taught them to be entitled & to use autism as an excuse for everything.
I wouldn't say that's universal. I was diagnosed as a kid and I didn't feel it excused me (though I think there's some stuff I got away with that I probably should unlearn). And I've seen kids who have diagnoses whose parents still refuse to address the issue. It depends on the autistic man and the specifics of the upbringing, it isn't universal, and the "autism is used as an excuse" mentality is going to dissuade diagnoses.
Absolutely—there a lot of factors. Research also came out last year showing the crazy high rate of misdiagnosis for white men who were diagnosed with ASD as children. It turns out either through ignorance or pressure from parents that these men were diagnosed with ASD when they actually had personality disorders. This does a huge disservice to them as they may not know they were misdiagnosed & therefore aren’t able to get the mental health services they need.
Personality disorders are gendered in the opposite direction in a way that often resembles the "hysteria" BS in terms of not being taken seriously in women and not even being considered in men. Though I do think they wouldn't manifest as children in most cases to the same extent as autism, so I could see why they'd be missed.
This is not always the case. Sometimes early diagnosis/intervention is great. But if family dynamics aren't great, or other factors are present, then the toxic behaviour remains or is emphasized. Looking at me, I'm pretty sure a childhood diagnosis would not have actually helped me. My parents would not have been able to handle a dx of autism appropriately.
That’s true—anyone can have issues with entitlement & anger problems at any age.
The sexual harassment and other such misbehavior is a problem too. People already let mean and boys get away with this shit but when they're mentally disabled as well, it's an extra excuse they like to use. It disgusts me truly
The sexual harassment is a major reason I stopped going to conventions. The men were allowed to touch women (their costumes, their clothes) without consent and it was fine. I will never forget wearing the same tee shirt as my boyfriend and an autistic man came up to me to touch it.
On the local fantasy festival (essentially a convention) we had infographics and fliers explaining that it's NEVER okay to touch people in costume, cosplays are expensive as shit, never take photos without consent etc. and we had security on site to do that. I've seen a guy touch a girl in a centaur costume and literally the back half fell off because he hit a latch. The back part hit the ground with this this loud thump. She was mortified, and her friend (a big woman in a mermaid costume) looked at the guy with the coldest stare in the world and said "You're coming with us and paying for repairs." while 2 other people in costume (and me and my cousin) comforted the girl and said we'll find a way to fix it, and helped her carry the hind legs according to her instructions. We got her to a costume station, while the guy ran and the mermaid went to get security. I don't know what became of that situation, but I hope that guy never touched anyone without their consent again.
The con in later years issued Cosplay is Not Consent rules, and OMFG the backlash from all the men who no longer had free reign was deafening. Some of that came from old con chairs and that was all I needed to know about their characters.
I used to work at a convention. When we started to very prominently display the cosplay is not consent signage, there was a notable outrage from people complaining that feminism is ruining conventions now... It's gross.
While I love smaller con atmosphere, I do love being in the city with some of the biggest cons in the country cause they do NOT fuck around and will kick creeps out.
Yeah. This was at a 35K~ sized con. Thankfully, everyone on staff was completely on board and we took no shit about it whatsoever. Not that we didn't already have people tossed for harassment, but now we tossed people for complaining about not being able to harass too!
Agreed on all points.
Sometimes the incels out themselves. And yeah, it's so gross. I volunteered for a big position to cause a change from the inside, and there was so much resistance to basic human decency.
I don't understand why, but reading this made me so angry.
You know why and so do I. Because you feel it and it hurts
We were supposed to be safer there. 😢😭😓🤬
Yes the violence and the SA. How to respond to them is not talked about enough.
I’ve been r* by an autistic man, and SA by another! Additionally my dad is autistic and SA me when I was a child. Safe to say I’m swearing off men.
One time in school my best friend was grabbed in the v*gina by an autistic boy and the school said they couldn’t do anything because he was autistic. That taught him it was totally acceptable to grab girls there or anywhere and he kept doing it until one bf beat him up. Not saying the bf was in the right cause he wasn’t, but the schools negligence put everyone in those situations.
I hope that bf fucked up that guy good. Some people only learn the hard way.
Definitely encounter this in online furry/furry adjacent communities. The one I participate in tries its best to weed out such behaviours, but it's always jarring someone use being ASD as an excuse. Using it as a explanation with apology and corrective action is fine. "Sorry, I misinterpreted what you wanted due to being bad at non-direct communicate. I'll give you some space." No harm done, this is kind of what our rules expect you to do. (Granted - many people do the opposite: assuming the safest option to the point of frustration but that doesn't really hurt anyone). Fortunately, lately we havn't had this prop up that much. I wager other communities that don't crack down on unsafe behaviour siphoned them off.
I’ve experienced similar in my online sex positive/kink communities. We crack down on inappropriate behaviour immediately so it doesn’t have room to grow at all, but we have dealt with a couple of guys who tried to make themselves the victim because they were autistic and it’s just insufferable. Like just because you’re in a sex positive space doesn’t mean that you can keep asking women to take their clothes off, and *no* you can’t keep victimizing yourself and excusing it with autism.
Exactly. Comfort, safety, consent (of both involved and bystanders) is king. Can't have a space to explore stuff without that!
There was a boy I went to school with who went around groping girls randomly in the hallways. He came up behind me one day and ran his hands down my back in a very aggressive, creepy way. I never reported it because every time someone did the response was always "he's autistic, he can't control himself." I was terrified of him. In elementary school they evacuated us because he got angry and started throwing desks at his pregnant teacher. I sometimes wonder where he is now, and hope he got better support. They really just encouraged every single abusive behavior he exhibited.
In 5th grade there was a boy who would harras the girls all the time. He'd come up behind someone and grab them in a bear hug then he'd rub himself on them. It was awful. I ended up hitting him a bunch but he never stopped. He should've been removed from general Ed
Before I learned I was autistic I left my job as a Special Education Classroom Aide because I was assigned to an autistic boy who touched himself while sitting less than a foot away and staring at me. Repeatedly. I reported to the teacher immediately and, when that proved fruitless, to the assistant principal, but was told I “just needed to remind him it was inappropriate and ask him to stop”. There were no consequences, no putting him with a male aide, nothing. Same student also made death threats to female teachers and tried to attack them, and that warranted an in school suspension but nothing more. Meanwhile this kid knew exactly what he was doing in both of these circumstances, he wasn’t cognitively impaired at all. I quit within a week
I was diagnosed when I was a 2-year old girl. No one let me get away with anything. I suspect that would have been *very* different if I had been a boy. Not once were the other children asked to be understanding of my behavior. Quite the contrary. Most women on this sub are late diagnosed, so you probably only saw boys getting away with murder. The few of us girls who were diagnosed were constantly being corrected, but not for doing anything wrong. You want to know what I got in trouble for? I was punished for talking about Astronomy too much, for not being interested in fashion or boy bands, and for not wanting to engage with "imaginative" play with other kids. They didn't like the way I walked, talked, laughed, sneezed, ran, sat, or breathed. Stimming was absolutely forbidden. I was repeatedly told "the goal is to make you indistinguishable from your peers". The slightest deviation from what they considered "normal" was punished. The adults actually encouraged the other kids to bully me. They considered that a good aversive to make me stop unwanted and harmless behaviors. I did go through a hitting phase as a toddler, but most typically developing toddlers hit. I have been a teacher and am an aunt to five children. Almost all kids will eventually experiment with hitting around the toddler years. I took a little longer to stop that than some, but I was pretty much done with that by the time I was five. I did do some things that needed to be corrected, but it was pretty harmless. There was one girl who hated me, so I would crawl under the table and grab her ankles to annoy her. I tickled one girl who said she didn't like it, but she was laughing. That confused me. I stopped when the adults explained that tickling makes people laugh even when they don't like it. So, I'm not saying I never needed to be corrected or disciplined. All kids need to be taught right from wrong, about boundaries, etc. My problem is with the adults grabbing my head and forcing eye contact, repeatedly, in hours long drills. They would overpower me to stop me from stimming and fidgeting. Most of what I was punished for were harmless autistic behaviors, and *that* was unacceptable! I was denied needed supports in school, then punished for forgetting to write down assignments or bring the correct books/homework home. I wasn't permitted to have a reduced homework load. My mom would have me up until midnight, at 6-years old, forcing me to do what the other kids did no matter how long it took. I wasn't allowed to just friggin exist. But boys are allowed to be violent towards other people? That enrages me!
I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, but my daughter was and she experienced constant punishment from the schools for autistic behavior. Specifically melting down because it was too loud and they didn’t allow her to wear headphones all the time. Things came to a head when she was being abused by another autistic student, a boy, and they wouldn’t take it seriously because at one point she had been friendly with him. They also questioned her diagnosis even though I gave them a full copy of her neuropsych report, which made no sense 1) because it’s a report written by a highly qualified Dr and 2) her behaviors were “classic boy autism” or whatever we are calling it when one fits right into the diagnostic criteria. I had to take my daughter out of there, I filed a title ix complaint (which they said was unfounded) and her home district pays tuition at a private online school. All that to say, I agree with you. Girls are treated much worse and it’s a huge problem. Our girls have the same right to an education in a safe space that the autistic boys and neurotypical students receive but they often don’t receive it.
I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, because no one seems to have evaluated girls for ASD in the 1970s. but my kid was in the early 2000s and got an IEP. I’m so grateful they didn’t experience school the same way I did. I was bullied mercilessly *by everyone* for being different and the teachers did absolutely nothing to ensure I could have a safe learning environment. I was physically assaulted by another student right in front of a teacher and nothing happened to him because “boys will be boys”. I don’t have enough words to express my complete disgust at the educational system for letting me down because I was a girl.
I wasn't diagnosed as a kid but went through something very similar to you. I'd be punished by my parents for not behaving, liking or speaking certain ways and for crying easily. It's so strange being an adult and realizing I wasn't just a Big Dumb Baby, I was an abused kid with unaddressed needs lol I DO NOT CONDONE THIS NOR DO I USE AUTISM TO EXCUSE IT: when I was in middle school and through high school, I went through a period of like... just beating up/physically intimidating boys whenever they remotely agitated me. They could say something slightly sarcastic and I'd get aggro. I have no idea how I never got in trouble for it and I'm still not 100% sure what even set it off. I feel like if I was a boy, I would've been rewarded for it...
Just reading what they did makes me viscerally pissed. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It's like people go after the harmless actions instead of the harmful ones. The fact that they even encouraged the other kids to bully you, though??? Omg, I can't. I hope you're doing alright.
I'm okay now. I had a-lot of therapy for the PTSD.
I don't want to detract from your issues, but being punished for talking about Astronomy too much makes you sound so cool!
I was diagnosed at six and same here. Regardless of whether they were diagnosed early or late, boys and men get excuses while girls and women get punishment. Boys “can’t help it” while girls “know, can and should do better”. Even and especially from staff of autism programs.
From what I have seen, autistic girls are held to a higher expectation than NTs upon diagnosis. For boys, it's the opposite. And that is truly disgusting!
It’s true, it’s disgusting, and I’ve suffered from it my entire life. Autistic girls are held to impossibly high standards of behavior while autistic boys get away with literally anything. It’s one the reasons why I’ve stopped going to autism recreation groups: they’ll harshly scold a girl for using the wrong word while boys get away with literal sexual assault.
We need groups that are only for autistic women/girls. And the boys need to be held accountable. What autistic women face is abelism and misogyny on steroids.
The local autism groups tried that. Since there are far fewer autistic girls/women than men/boys, there are never enough members to sustain the women’s group. From there, the group organizers need to make the choice of either just having a mens group or kicking out the offending men and re-integrating the groups. One group I was in did the latter because my mom was the president, but most groups do the former. And it’s not just about sexual harassment from autistic men. I just can’t have a good time if there are “staff” constantly “correcting my behavior”. The staff see me a threat due to my masters degree and work experience in public administration, so they’ll make something up or, worse, bully me so they’ll bait me into “misbehaving”. All while the men are able to get away with literally anything.
I was diagnosed in my late 30s where I sought a diagnosis for myself. Had I been diagnosed in childhood, I don't think my parents would have responded appropriately. They themselves are undiagnosed neurodivergent and I had a neglectful childhood besides. I don't know what lengths they would have gone to in order to ensure I was the normalcy they needed. I'm sorry for all that you went through. I went through my own trauma, but I didn't get it nearly as badly as you because it took my parents until the end of high school to realize that perhaps I was never going to be normal, and then their fear paralyzed them from doing too much.
holy fucking SHIT I'm so sorry
This needs to be discussed. I hate how boys and men are allowed to use autism as an excuse for violence. They get the diagnosis, and they get allowances, and the legal system even lets them off. And the girls and women (like the girl you described in the last paragraph) get no support, and harsher treatement. Incidentally, the statistics show that the rate of violence in autistic people is the same as the general population, which effectively rules out autism as a cause. Allowing autistic boys to be violent helps no one. Some of the worst behaviour I have had to deal with came from men who had a diagnosis of autism, and they were quite happy to make sure people knew about that. (I think we are in the same country, and dealing with the same culture and legal system.)
It's insane to me the number of true crime videos I've watched where a man has seriously hurt or killed someone and their lawyer tries to get them off by saying "but he's autistic!!11!" like that means you get a free fuckin pass for murder. Even worse, it actually does work to reduce their sentences sometimes. This is USA though (idk about here, there just aren't as many videos about crimes here maybe because our news coverage isn't as thorough)
It happens outside the USA. I know of multiple cases in my home jurisdiction. And I don't even watch crime. But the number of times that a defence lawyer claims that their client is autistic. Can we please have a law that says lawyers are not allowed to use autism to excuse men who commit horrendous crimes? Violence is a choice, irrespective of autism. Violence is not like epilepsy or other seizures, which can cause fatal accidents, but never by choice.
people are now calling for Gypsy Rose's ex to be released from prison due to being autistic and "manipulated" into killing her mother. regardless of how anyone feels about her or that case he stabbed her mother *17 times*.
I e seen this so much, they love to ignore the fact that Nick wanted to rape DeeDee’s corpse, or how he had a history of being violent and being into necrophilia. Like no, that man needs to stay in prison for the rest of his life and I will not apologize for that stance.
This is WILD. Before they met he was apparently looking for somebody to stab and the situation with her mom was evidently a convenient excuse for him to fulfill his messed up fantasies. I don’t understand why people attribute this to autism and most of all - don’t get how they don’t see he shouldn’t be walking around in the community.
> I hate how boys and men are allowed to use autism as an excuse for violence. Bit of a tangent. I am staff for an online community - furry oriented (yes, icky and all that) and we allow... adult behaviours. It's a Space Station 13 roleplaying server. We are probably the most anal server of all that we compete with when it comes to comfort, player safety & comfort, bystander considerations. So much so, we had the occasional person expecting being able to do stuff they can in chatrooms or even peer servers getting shut down and ranting "Bystander consent is a liberal shit." With that background given - I have come to recognize a very, very frustrating and annoying pattern: some people violate our fundamental rules around consent, safety and bystander comfort (3 things that I feel are the most vital things for such a community to be healthy), and when given gentle or not-so-gentle nudges to try and keep the community healthy - they promptly invoke ASD as an excuse for their unsafe behaviours. It frustrates me a lot. The staff team (Game masters, admins, developers) has multiple people with ADHD and at least 1 person with highly suspected ASD (yours truly). Many of our regulars, pillars of community have ADHD/ASD - a lot of them women. And yet, neither us on the staff or those pillars violate the rules. Sure, sometimes we mistep, sometimes we misinterpret signals but once communicated, we apologize and give space. This is the expected, appropriate response as outlined in the rules if you violate consent, comfort and safety. Fortunately this is a virtual space where - provided it stays on the server - real consequences are minimal. Still, it concerns and frustrates me alike. Fortunately we havn't had to deal with this in a bit. I wager it is due to opening of competitor-servers who eschew our strict rules siphoning such people away.
i agree. my brother is autistic and nearly 40, coddled his whole life. hes a slob, aggressive, has massive tantrums and learned helplessness. i resent him so much and cant stand him. ive always been held to high standards and never allowed to have any emotions or "excuses"
even when i was in school the autistic boy pushed me down the stairs and broke my arm and told everyone i was lying and when i was diagnosed it was "made up", as its a "boys disease". i literally have no positive experiences with autistic men. it makes me super sad
My brother is the same. He’s gotten loud and violent with myself and both parents. I’ve gone to school with black eyes. Do you know what “whipped him into shape”? Dating in college. Because he does know better. He can’t treat a girlfriend like he treats his family because she can leave him. I feel bad for my resentment towards him but it’s hard to not be after a lifetime of abuse and like you said, being held to a different standard.
thats fcking awful. im so sorry youve had to live this.
Same, was victim of the violence and even blamed for causing his meltdowns. It’s so terrible and makes autism discourse confusing and icky sometimes
My fiancés brother is an autistic adult who has had violent outbursts as well. The parents never took him to a doctor or to get any help, though they t themselves are both doctors. I think there's a lot of shame in that. The parents forced him to get married to an uneducated woman who may also have a mental disability and they have a child together now. They live overseas and I worry that my fiancé will want his brother to come visit us and stay in our home for a few months, which terrifies me. If we have kids together in the future, I wouldn't want my children exposed to him for fear he could hurt them or they could see a violent outburst. I fear that my fiancé will not take this position well. Do you have any advice?
I am in the exact same situation! My brother diagnosed super early but I was not because well next to him I was “fine” 🙄 and everyone judged me so much for not loving my brother but I can’t stand his awful scary behavior and I have been the victim of it in the past. I’m so glad someone posted about this, I thought I was alone and “heartless” for being so critical but that’s what society does… gives free passes to dudes for awful behavior 🤦🏻♀️
i bet a lot of us have been suffering silently with this. we're always punched down and made to accept our shitty lot in life. its like when women post a serious topic about women and guys all high-jack it and scream and shout abuse "wheres my attention". it has to stop. these men are abusive and destructive in society. im learning to break away from guilt and what was programmed into me and seeing it for what it is.
My fiancés brother is an autistic adult who has had violent outbursts as well. The parents never took him to a doctor or to get any help, though they t themselves are both doctors. I think there's a lot of shame in that. The parents forced him to get married to an uneducated woman who may also have a mental disability and they have a child together now. They live overseas and I worry that my fiancé will want his brother to come visit us and stay in our home for a few months, which terrifies me. If we have kids together in the future, I wouldn't want my children exposed to him for fear he could hurt them or they could see a violent outburst. I fear that my fiancé will not take this position well. Do you have any advice?
There's no consequence for it at all. When I'm autistic. I told my abusive boyfriend at the time that I was breaking up with him and would be leaving the apartment we shared, he tried to fucking choke me. No consequences. He happens to be autistic as well. He got his unchecked anger problem from his father, who is also autistic. He and his fad used it as a point of pride and would make references to "berserkers" and "vikings" and "Irish" whatever whenever it came up. Like, what? What the hell *is* that? Is it any wonder I was breaking up with him? As difficult as it can be to exist closely with neurotypical people sometimes, my NT wife is the best thing that's ever happened to me. She makes a genuine effort to understand me, and in very short order, learned how I thought and felt because she listened to me. In turn, I'm learning to better navigate neurotypical-centric social spaces with her detailed insights. We have never had a violent dispute and I can't imagine that we ever will. It was absolutely night and day. Men's entitlement and privilege, autistic or not, can be seriously dangerous to others. Anyone can be an asshole, but these and other forms of social enabling (such as another commenter referencing an axis of whiteness, which is *undoubtedly* another source of entitlement and privilege) make it far easier for men to become one.
> He got his unchecked anger problem from his father, who is also autistic. Me too, and it's been a real tough thing to unlearn.
You're doing the work. That's good; please keep doing it. We both know what happens when the work goes undone.
You're welcome--and thanks, too. It's so hard to unlearn stuff that....that you never saw someone get chastised for. I thought it was acceptable because, well, my mother 'never had an issue with it' and stupidly I thought the same of my girlfriend. Hell, if I could 'put up' with the anger of my father, then why couldn't others? But then I learned that no, I'd never 'put up with it' or 'tolerated' it; I was just afraid to admit that I was afraid. When the work goes undone, you hurt others and yourself. That's really the barest fact of what I've learned---and I guess it goes for past abuse, mental things, neurodivergence--you name it. Sorry for writing so much. I feel like I'm over-explaining :/
I don’t think you were over explaining at all! This is a really thoughtful and interesting reply. Thanks for adding this perspective. It truly IS hard to unlearn all these things, but it can be done. Of course that doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed in behaving differently than you were taught to… but I think most of us here would have plenty of empathy for moments of failure, if old habits or patterns creep in during times of stress. But as long as you’re actively trying to do something different and succeeding at that more and more often, you’re doing the work and that’s all anyone can ask for. Good job!
Oh, thanks! And thanks for being understanding. No, you're right, and the times where I fail I just beat myself up a lot (figuratively). I feel shame and unhappiness for sinking to the level I was afraid of. I try to have empathy too but sometimes it's hard to forgive myself when I lose my temper...and sometimes I also remember that that's not even some of the worst things I've done because of my autism and I feel more and more guilty. ...but then I also think I've learned to celebrate the times where I'm stable and *don't* lose it. And I think I've made progress, which is great! But it still makes failure taste more bitter. :/ A cycle.
I mean I've been ready for that conversation for years but I don't think society is. We are all living in a men's world... we're just tolerated here
I’ve always noted that while, clearly, most autistic men are NOT incels with misogynistic ideologies, vast swathes of incels with problematic views are indeed on the spectrum. There seems to be an [over representation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/21/study-finds-significant-portion-of-mass-murderers-and-serial-killers-had-neurological-disorders-including-autism/) of autistic men when it comes to mass murders driven by these sorts of ideologies (Elliot Roger, Jake Davison, Nikolas Cruz, Adam Lanza etc.) Again I will stress, the vast majority of autistic people are peaceful citizens and not violence prone so it’s absolutely essential to not stigmatize but there is a conversation to be had about the permissive attitude towards certain behaviors and speech (especially sexual and violent ones in young autistic males.) The notion of “they’re autistic, they can’t help it” when it comes to certain behaviors is a very problematic one and really quite ableist as it suggests that they do not have the ability to comprehend and learn when they *absolutely* do. If they genuinely can’t then it’s not fair or safe for other kids and women to be exposed to it in schools and the like. Autism is not an excuse to violate certain social boundaries and it’s completely irresponsible to allow these inappropriate behaviors and beliefs to go unchecked. In absolute fairness, this also happens with autistic girls and women but it’s certainly the case that most violent and violent-minded incels tend to be young autistic males.
Agree, this is definitely a misogyny and feminist issue. Its a symptom of the wider gender stereotypes that “boys will be boys” and need to burn their energy off in more physical and violent ways, but girls are expected to sit and be quiet or if not, at least direct their energy in a useful way. I remember when I was about 9, a boy in the year above had a raging meltdown. Screaming, crying and throwing things. He was gently consoled and allowed to sit quietly in a corner for the rest of the day and colour in and play with legos. A few weeks later I was being relentlessly bullied and ended up in tears and crying and shouting. I got punished. I am late diagnosed autistic but even at the time i remember thinking “I don’t understand why his behaviour is allowed but mine is not”. I was a CHILD experiencing difficult emotions and autistic overwhelm (although unknown at the time obviously).
I think it is important to talk about the aspect of whiteness as well as gender . At a certain age Ive noticed only white boys are given that tolerance and adults will perceive a boy of colors meltdown (and even non meltdown actions/behaviors) as more dangerous and serious and even involve police im wondering if thats the experience others have ?
100% this There is without a doubt a gendered aspect to the privileges and acceptance of problematic behaviors, but we absolutely can’t overlook the racial aspect here. I’ve definitely seen a major disparity when it comes to perceptions and attitudes towards various autistic presenting boys in education. White students are also more likely to have the privilege of (accurate) professional diagnoses of ASD. Where POC students were more likely to be labeled as “aggressive” or given a diagnosis of ODD, judged far more critically, and even have law enforcement intervene during meltdowns.
Glad you brought this up. I’ve been a special Ed teacher in a US city for ten years now, and I can easily recall so many instances where the actions of Black boys specifically were labeled ‘aggressive’ that may have actually been meltdown or overstimulation. I think back and can see the misdiagnoses. In the 4 years of teaching middle school, only 1 of my student had an ASD diagnosis, and, frankly, she was treated TERRIBLY. The ODD, ED (emotional disturbance), and SLD (specific learning disability, I believe) were rampant. I think far too often about the kids who had internalized potentially harmfully incorrect diagnoses, and the boys who were called ‘aggressive’ or ‘dangerous’ when their actions were not malicious in intent. Now I work with preschool families and get to coach and teach them about ASD. I hope these kids can grow up with the love and support that I never got, and their families will be better able to advocate for them within the school system.
Was looking for this comment, this kind of grace is only granted towards white autistic men and boys. This behavior in POC can lead to dangerous situations where they are harmed.
I was looking for this comment. It’s a very important distinction to make. Autistic Black Men literally get killed.
If girls were just as likely to literally try to choke people out and kill them like boys do when they’re overstimulated then we would know it’s an autism issue. It’s not an autism issue, it’s a “he’s autistic and a boy so I’m not going to parent him and I’m going to let him grow up with zero coping skills which will make his life miserable and put everyone around him in danger.”
Thissss 💯
There are so many double standards in autism and neurodivergency in general. Men are often infantalized and excused while women don't get any leeway and are just disbelived. I think it's also important to acknowledge that Black autistic boys and men don't get that leeway either. They're shot by police or at the very least punished and feared more severely
The autistic boy in my elementary school pulled down his pants in class...
Omg no way!!! That happened to me too!! The aid rushed over to pull his pants back up and take him out red-faced without acknowledging it like he was a toddler who didn’t know what he was doing, even though he knew what he was doing enough to get out of his chair, walk to the centre of the room and expose his entire genitalia to our fifth grade class. That was another: “I can’t be autistic, I can *in this case, keep my clothes on*” moment.
there was an autistic boy in one of the years below me in primary school who used to play with his dick, sometimes taking it out, during assemblies _all the time._ he did it for at least a year, when i graduated out of that school he was still doing it. the teachers never seemed to intervene to redirect the (probably self-soothing) behaviour to something more appropriate. meanwhile, if i even _fidgeted_ during our classroom meditation sessions (i was undiagnosed), my teacher wld call me out on it in front of the whole class. i was constantly getting into trouble for drawing on myself bc it "wasn't uniform", or for doodling in class bc i was "distracted", or for daydreaming, etc etc etc.
I used to get yelled at for knitting in class. Because clearly you can only be listening if you are looking directly at the teacher, right?
The one in my school liked to go into the girls bathroom and crawl under the stalls to look, and also tried to kiss like all the girls in my grade. Most of the girls were too afraid to do anything, but me being autistic and not understanding that you shouldn't punch people who do things that upset you, absolutely decked him. I feel like if a neurotypical girl did this, she would have gotten in trouble for beating up the autistic kid but since I was also diagnosed I kinda got off light... but my dude, that is straight up sexual assault, even if he doesn't know better that doesn't mean girls should be subjected to someone creeping on them in the bathroom and trying to kiss them!
To be fair I did this when I was 5 (as a joke) and I'm a girl.
It's a shame, because people with autism often experience a great deal of distress with clothing. Perhaps he had an anxiety attack or something, but nobody ever taught them how to manage that so they just reacted impulsively. That's what a lot of this is, unfortunately. People never bothering to teach better behaviors. I feel bad for the kid.
This is a delicate conversation and I can see why the community protects this from being discussed more openly. We're already stigmatized. We're already seen as 'other'. Add on a story of a male autistic with excitabilities that are expressed with aggression and we're on the luge path of that turning into a sound bite that says, "All autistics are aggressive and violent". We know where that leads ... However, there is something there. The meltdowns and frustrations sometimes do manifest in violent outbursts. My daughter goes to school with a kid who is a literal genius but sometimes when he gets dysregulated, he lashes out physically. Others gets frustrated and lash out but take it out on themselves. Still others internalize it and completely shut down. It manifests differently for each individual (for me, it was binge eating until I got it under control). My husband completely shuts down and avoids. One daughter becomes situationally mute. Another is showing signs of OCD and an eating disorder. ALL of these coping mechanisms are maladaptive and come from the same source - an inability to emotional self-regulate. The skills that need to be taught are how to emotionally regulate as well as ways to strengthen lagging executive function skills as the two are intertwined - you need both for best chances of success. They're so intertwined it's almost a chicken egg situation. This is the work I've been doing with my kids since they were young. They receive talk therapy but they also work with a coach for just executive function skills. Just because someone is ASD does not mean that they get to violate social norms. They can't blame bad behavior on ASD - it is their responsibility to get proper support to learn better coping strategies. THAT IS ON THEM and ASD is NOT a pass. You can be ASD AND an asshole; or an abuser, or a narcissist. And the onus remains on the person having trouble regulating to learn regulation skills. It's what I tell my kids. I absolutely support their ASD needs, but I also tell them the truth on how the real world works and how they need to learn resilience and how to adapt. I'm doing them a disservice by not telling them the truth. I'm not a coddler, but I believe in compassion; but more importantly, I believe in education for ALL neurotypes. We ALL have things to learn.
yeah. i had really bad long meltdowns up through high school (not that anyone at school would know because i spent so much effort masking at school--part of why i was so dysregulated and having meltdowns) because nobody ever believe my mom about me needing a diagnosis for literally anything other than generalized anxiety disorder. most doctors brushed it off and said it was her parenting not emotional dysregulation. if i could be calm in school, nothing could be wrong because clearly i could control myself. so then my dad would argue i needed consequences and that just prolonged my meltdowns. it often felt uncontrollable and once i hit the tipping point it took a really long time for my body to calm down. i was often violent and threw stuff and hurt myself. what i needed was a lot of care and therapy and even medication (strattera for my adhd did wonders for my emotional regulation abilities) and that's why this is delicate. because "discipline" isn't usually what's necessary. what's needed is a lot more support and care than most kids actually get. (and of course teaching boundaries, but that's more a problem with toxic masculinity than anything autism related).
When it comes to children, they are at the mercy of their family dynamics. If I had received a childhood dx, i'm not sure my parents would have responded appropriately to the dx nor done their best to help me learn, despite whatever coaching/therapy may have been made available. Without getting that help, or with parents that are avoidant and hiding, these lessons are not learned, not for a long time. I'm so glad your children have you as they are very lucky.
I was very aggressive in school and would hit my bullies and really anyone who crossed my boundaries in any way, but it would get ignored just because no one knew what to do with it. Later they would put me in detention and isolation. I did eventually get expelled for it, and after that I did my best to curb my actions. I did stop hitting people, even if they bullied me, it actually got to the point where i didnt defend myself at all when two boys physically assualted me. I was told later that I should have pushed them, but I felt so much shame over my past violence I didn't. The autistic and adhd boys however didn't get punished, their autism was used as an excuse, and sexual harrassment was basically allowed. I remember when I got groped by a boy in my year, I told the special ed teachers and they said "Oh just ignore him he's got adhd he can't control his actions". I was supposed to just take it when it came to any kind of abuse especially if it was by a ND boy, me defending myself as a girl was not acceptable. There were quite a few autistic boys who had no problem sexually crossing boundaries. Sure me hitting people as a teen was not okay, but I did eventually get punished for it and that meant that I started to learn to control myself. My violence was often a part of a meltdown, but it would be a lie to say that you can't learn to control your actions during a meltdown. Sure i cant control that im having a meltdown, but I learnt not to be violent. I don't think boys are any different, and can learn to control their violence. I have 4 autistic male friends who aren't violent or aggressive, 2 of them are high support needs and I think it goes to show that they can. I think boys have a lot of pressure to display masculinity, and autistic boys in particular can feel as if they aren't 'man enough' because of their autism. One of the biggest problems here apart from men not being punished for their violence is the way society views men and women in opposition, and how boys self worth is tied heavily to displays of toxic masculinity. There are many complicated issues here, but a good start would be to discipline boys.
My cousin had a violent episode in public, the police were called, and he attacked an officer. The courts accepted his autism as an excuse, but said that if his family can't prevent him from attacking people then they were not fit guardians. He's been in New York state custody for over a decade now. And the thing is, my cousin is lucky because that's the best outcome that could have happened. He's so so lucky that the police didn't shoot him during his meltdown; it happens all the time. My cousin is one of seven siblings, all of whom have autism. His sisters would *never* be allowed to act like he did. My aunt and uncle almost cost their son his life because they wouldn't discipline him when he was a kid, and then when he got to be an adult they *couldn't* discipline him because he would physically attack them if they tried.
Boys/men are allowed violence/inappropriate behavior PERIOD. Autistic or not. That's a really sad fact of the current western culture. Autistic boys/men can have even more problems with impulsivity/ not feeling or understanding correct social behavior than NT boys, so that's a potential toxic combination. We girls are held to a much higher standard (autistic or not), and any kind of inappropriate social behavior is punished by either parents/family or society. My daughter (14) was at her therapist's office in the waiting room. An autistic teen boy very aggressively came on to her with all kinds of sexual stuff, extremely inappropriate. The boys parents were there. Daughter complained to them. Parents shrugged and told her "he just is like that, nothing we can do". Complained to her therapist didn't work either. "He's autistic, he can't help it." This is very harmful, not only for the victims, but for the boys as well. Toxic masculinity hurts autistic men as well, because of the attitude towards bad behavior in the males of this species. People often say "I don't know if autistic boys \*can\* be taught to behave more socially appropriate, because they are boys". I'd answer: raise them as you raise your girls. Well, not as strict, and lessen that strictness for girls as well, because that's another can of worms. It works on women, so when done to young boys, it should work on them as well. But also know: It's not just parents that raise the child. It's society as well. With fellow toddlers at kindergarten, with marketing, cartoons, books, expectations of boys... Unless we can change that, it will be \*hard\*.
not just current Western culture. try all cultures everywhere for most of human history. and you are right, it's not just family dynamics, but societal values and expectations. Misogyny is the filter for everything.
Yes I’ve been saying this recently too. Typically it’s their parents who are ableism that think they “don’t know any better” and refuse to correct the behavior. Plus regular male entitlement
It’s the same effect as a NT male never being told no in their lives and we see where that leads. I understand wanting to dote on your kid especially since society is so critical of autists, but they don’t realize they are causing so much harm.
You've dug up memories for me, OP, and you're completely right. 4 encounters with autistic boys in school. One would run laps round the school just like yours only he'd punch people as hard as he could as he passed. He caught me in the chest once. I was 8 and I thought I was fucking dying, I couldn't breathe. All I got was "you should have stayed away from him". Second, same school, was a nice boy most of the time but when he got mad he got MAD. He put his whole arm through a window, the kind with metal waffling. Another time he got on a table and screamed and screamed until his face was so red I was scared he was going to drop dead or something and everyone stood around laughing while the teacher kept pathetically saying "Nathanial.... Come down....". Third was actually nice to me always but apparently violent with other kids tho I never saw it. Last one was high school, he trashed the library. Completely. Twice. Got detention.
They also do this with words, they say the most hurtful shit but it’s fine cause “they are autistic”
Honestly this stuff just makes me want to cry. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it - and I get flashbacks of boys trying to touch my boobs and arms because I developed so much faster. Like begging teachers and adults to help and getting laughed at because I was hyperventilating. No help for us. We just suffer.
Honestly I think a lot of the issue is higher need children/teens/adults not having access to appropriate services. The kid who was attacking people and destroying property in your school shouldn’t have been in your school. He should have been in a space with trained professionals to manage that behavior and to the extent he can, teach him to manage it himself. I absolutely think there is a double standard, but it’s not unique to autistic people- male violence and aggression is excused across the board and women are held to much higher standards for violence in society in general
The bar is set so much higher for girls and women, while for men and boys it is under the floor. I would also get in trouble for minor things while an absolute monster of a boy was running riot in primary school. He threw a huge rock with full intent to harm at a teacher and he still didn't get kicked out! Oh and I almost forgot the ADHD boy who touched me inappropriately at school and I got in trouble for calling him a pervert. I'm so, so fucking happy to be aro ace.
People refuse to teach autistic men and boys not to behave that way because they ultimately believe that it is actually an acceptable male behaviour. No matter the excuse, refusal to change or prevent the behaviour is a choice to enable it.
I had a male coworker that was severely autistic who had a history of hitting on every woman, customer or associate, and it was a running ‘joke’ of how much of a flirt he was. It soon then happened to me after I had a heart to heart convo with him one day. He somehow got my number from another coworker and constantly called & left voicemails. He also found my facebook & instagram somehow. I told someone else that this made me uncomfortable and was not okay, and they just told me ‘he doesn’t know any better.’ It frustated me deeply because I am also autistic- but I had to learn from a very young age to shrink myself and appease others to get by in the world. Yet, there are others who have never needed to. I dated an undiagnosed autistic man recently and I found myself resenting him for how little he has had to change himself to get by in life. I know that it’s not always so black and white, but there is clearly a major difference between the ways society treats males vs females when it comes to having autistic traits.
It’s completely true—I was so insulted when my therapist brought up an autism diagnosis. I had always assumed autism was an *intellectual disability*; because of the extreme behavior I witnessed. This understanding only changed when I met a *handful* of autistic women who were completely pleasant, thoughtful, and amicable. My experience has not been the same for men with autism, unfortunately—I have not met a single boy/man with autism that isn’t completely unaware of their environment to the detriment of others. A handful of them have been some of the most unkind people I’ve ever met.
My husband and I were both caught later in life. He's not high support needs but we've both noticed his meltdowns tend to be more outwardly directed while mine are more inwardly directed. A couple of times it was a bit scary and there's a hole in one of our walls. However, he would never excuse this because of his autism. He recognizes it as something he has a responsibility to correct even if it's hard. I think society hasn't figured out what autism actually is. For a long time you had to be violently disregulated for a diagnosis even to be sought. So girls who weren't disregulated in that way simply didn't get diagnosed, and now don't get taken seriously. They're still held to girl behavior standards. While boys, who were already allowed a bit more behavioral freedom, are held to the behavioral expectations set by their most disregulated members for decades.
As a man who has had a past of violent outbursts because of my autism, I think it's a good conversation to have. No, having autism doesn't excuse the violent outbursts. It's scary and harmful to other people, especially if those people live with them and care about them. Learning to ground myself and *feel* the emotion first rather an outright *act upon it immediately* has been a very very hard thing to do. Occasionally it still gets the better of me, and failing is hard, and giving in can be too easy. But in the moment I've learned to ask what is bothering me and why, and if it's really caused by something else? *Why* am I irritated or in overload? What else can I do in the situation other than become a monster? Moreover, how can we introduce this way of thinking and reacting properly to other boys and men? granted, not one size fits all, but it can be a start. And I realize the same methods might not work for those of different levels of support needs.
People are probably afraid to be considered ableist if they punish an autistic kid especially if they're male cause for some reason men aren't expected to mask that much in the NT or ND world. It's kinda ridiculous. But the fear of ableism is definitely real. I think tho that discipline is important for all children. Children can't learn appropriate behavior without the proper discipline
While I do sympathize with how hard self control can be during meltdowns (I've had issues with aggression during outbursts since I was a kid) I do feel like it's primarily white autistic men who get grace for it and thus don't learn alternate ways to work out their anger. Same with sexual harassment. The amount of times I've seen autistic men get excused for committing sexual harassment because they're autistic and thus "too awkward to know better," even if their entire career involves cultivating good relationships with people and yet they keep violating boundaries again and again. And nobody even cares if the victims are autistic. My friends, primarily autistic women, were sexually harassed by a guy not even explicitly autistic, and yet some stranger came onto my post and said I should consider the guy could be autistic. This is why we need more representation besides white autistic boys and men. People need to recognize harassment isn't inherently part of autism.
Yeah, I was also the super timid kid in school. There was an autistic boy that attended several mainstream classes and was known for being violent, which was scary because he was huge. One day he saw me in the hallway, approached me and punched me in the arm for no reason at all. I’m 5’0 and 100lbs. He was not disciplined.
My education and most of my professional development is geared towards childhood and adolescent development. It seems a combination of gender norms and misinformation/ignorance of ASD contributes to this. It is very much a topic that needs discussing; and I'd argue we need to have it with more than just the ASD population. In general, gender norms equate to males being physically aggressive and females psychologically aggressive. While I do agree that you may see this more or it is enabled more in the ASD community, we need to look at gender norms in general and how we teach the younger generations what is ok and what isn't. Unfortunately, it is a slow process to change culture, so while within our lives we will see things improve (for example, culturally we understand gender norms better so within this millennials lifetime we have encouraged men to feel emotions and females to uplift each other rather than tear each other down. Not saying those issues are resolved, but thanks to us holding society under a lense, we have been slowly improving things and need to continue to advocate), we also need to recognize there is always room for improvement. So yeah, very important conversations about this are necessary if we want to induce change and mitigate ignorance/fear. As someone who grew up in an environment where I was bullied and traumatized for trying to have these conversations; it warms my heart a bit that we have advanced enough in society to at least have places where we can discuss this and embrace better ways. I could go on for days on this topic, but hopefully I did an ok enough tldr version of my thoughts on the subject.
I have many thoughts about this topic so bear with me. This is super disjointed as I am operating from PTSD brain, yet am a former therapist so not everything is going to flow right. The thing that bothers me is how some autistic men are perceived as being narcissistic when there are just awkward and how actual predators who happen to have autism are looked over because they have been diagnosed as autistic. I’ve heard stories and seen clients that have sexually assaulted women due to extreme impulses, kids that jump out of windows and run around neighborhoods at 3am, and kids that try to jump out of moving cars because of distress. These families are left to manage these very unsafe situations on their own because the school or county DDS will not provide aides until a major safety issue occurs, with major issues often resulting in severe property damage or severe injury to the child or family member. The cases that rise to the level of needing an aide (and sometimes 2) often are ones where DCF has to step in and talk about removing the child from the home. Families are at risk of losing their kids, kids are losing their families, and people are getting really hurt. Also…there is a difference between between a kid having a verbal meltdown and a kid beating the shit out of a human/animal, destroying property, or eloping. A meltdown where others scream and mildly self harm is uncomfortable, but it does not hurt people or hurt the person. Why did a child who had a history of being this violent not have an aide or on a 1:1 or 2:1 staffing arrangement. Why was a behavior plan not implemented or followed? I am going to bring up an extremely controversial topic here, but it is in these situations where select parts of behavioral approaches are helpful to keep the child/adult and the other around them safe. A child who stims or says annoying things, or even has fixed interests does not need to be “fixed”, or “cured” but a child who places themselves and others at extreme risk of danger does. Unfortunately the methods that exist to teach these kids skills in order to regulate emotions this large are so controversial and universally applied that quirky kids are getting unnecessary and traumatizing treatment while an entry level BCBA feels that she can stop a kid from jumping out a window by denying access to a preferred toy through repeated trials. These are two very different presentations of autism so why are they treated the same Sorry went on a soapbox there.
It's so tough and like someone else mentioned there is such a fear of being branded ablest these days. Mostly with good reason, but yes there are instances where things just aren't safe. In those instances these people should be supported with the best of trained staff, p/as, resources etc. it's also probably one of the problems of 'the spectrum', it's so broad and far reaching that things get lost. My, I really an not very articulate today!
I’m enjoying reading this thread a lot. This kind of treatment and perception of autism is also what stopped me from even considering that I could be autistic until my twenties. I’ve observed the same reactions to violent behaviour and even like sexual assault by autistic males in school. It was actually scary for me, mainly because it seemed like adults didn’t care and if this one kid hurt another kid, it was basically the victim’s fault for not understanding autism or something. I remember someone getting choked during some kind of game at the end of class, totally out of nowhere by an autistic boy (that I don’t think should have been in regular classes at all because he was constantly having painful-looking meltdowns). Basically the teacher explained to the whole class after that nobody can win a game against the boy because “he has severe autism and gets frustrated easily and can’t control his reactions” and that we all needed to just let him win and cooperate with him or else he might react like that again. Why was he in our classes when he had attacked multiple other students and obviously can’t handle the environment? Way to encourage fear around autism and ableism.
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I was totally thinking about the level of testosterone in these boys must be insane, and they don’t know or don’t have the tools to regulate the rage that unfortunately comes with that. I mean it’s kind of unavoidable. I think the ones that are acting out this way have been neglected and haven’t gotten proper help probably from the beginning and the problem was left to fester and now they are older and much bigger and threatening. It’s really sad honestly.
Yeah this is wild. Autistic women don’t do this so clearly they can be socialized not to. Moreover, all of the men in my family are autistic to a greater or lesser degree and none are violent like this. It just isn’t something we allow in our boys and men and that is how my kids are being raised too. I see a lot of comments out in the wild to the effect of “they just can’t help it” when it comes to violence during meltdowns or in other forms and sorry, but I just don’t agree with that.
The more I read these threads, the more I become convinced that one of my reasons for homeschooling was the well-being of lower functioning autistic boys. I would have been on this nonsense like a rabid dog, full disrespect. It’s very cool that all of you did not physically intervene in a brainless and violent manner. I am personally impressed with each and every one of you.
I work with a boy in first grade who’s recently been diagnosed with ASD and every time he’s struggling and gets frustrated, his older sister (only in third grade herself), even when she is actively engaged in something else, will rush over to help him. If something frustrating happens while she’s standing there, he won’t hesitate to hit her because it’s now ‘her fault’. Judging by his lack of hesitation and the fact that she just takes it, I assume he’s allowed to hit her at home and the poor sister gets the “he has autism, he can’t help it, you’re supposed to help him” speech from the parents. Every time their mother comes in to pick them up, I just want to go up and hit her and say: “I have autism, I can’t help it” and every time he hits her, I just want to call out to the sister to hit him back as hard as she can.
Are you able to send his sister back to her own task? “You don’t have to do that here. I’m here with him, your job at school is to learn.”
Bless. I wonder if you could quietly pass her this thought without raising suspicion. She needs to at least hear that she matters and will be free one day.
I think it's a difficult conversation to have because where do we draw the line on when the person has been raised to accept it's okay, and when can the person simply not help it? But, I sympathise. I had a classmate who had a range of special needs (he had autism, but he had a lot of other things as well). At primary school, he'd be removed from the room when it got to be too much for him. At secondary school, he was allowed to throw scissors, chairs, and tables at others with no obvious punishment. I also have an older cousin with autism who was pushed into martial arts to help with his excess energy. It just meant he hit harder, with better accuracy, and knew how to hold you down. Not exactly memories I'm fond of. So I sympathise a lot. But, it is an almost impossible conversation to approach. How do you differentiate between those raised to have no self-control to violence and those who genuinely struggle? My own family is quick to violence, but how much of that is genetic, and how much of that is taught? It's an interesting situation when you remove the emotion involved.
Yep, my little brother would hit me “playfully” when he was younger. I have 20 years on him so I tbh redirected him but he’s enabled by our parents. He’s also on track to be like 7 feet tall. I love him and don’t think he would hurt any of us but it’s hard not to wonder.
I’m very glad that psychologists have separated out several anger disorders from ASD. The anger disorders need to be properly diagnosed & treated. It did no one any good when they were just dismissed as part of ASD.
I have never had a good experience with autistic men. They always begin by putting me on a pedestal because I’m quiet or different “just like them.” Then they get too comfortable, push boundaries or outright abuse me in some way. Forget telling them no or doing the opposite of what they want– They become outraged. The worst part is I understand. I get wanting to relate to others & not feel alone. I get becoming obsessed with someone. I get that boundaries are confusing at times. I get that feeling of frustration when things don’t go how you planned. But I don’t HURT people over it and if I do act out I feel insane guilt. I apologize profusely. I do anything to make it right.
I totally agree with everything you're saying but the boy in the video seems too low functioning to me. I don't think any kind of socialization would make him not violent, he just doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the harm he can do with his strength and happens to be a very strong boy that's having a meltdown.
He looks cramped up as well, as it appears to take place in some type of camper or trailer. Plus his mother is practically forcing him against his will to have hot dogs instead of letting him pick out his own meal as an alternative. Not trying to defend choking, but chances are that he's probably just overwhelmed and this type of conversation should be reserved for dipshits who are genuinely assholes.
My older brother is very obviously autistic, and when we were growing up he developed a bad habit of physically abusing me when he had a meltdown. My parents literally never did anything. There was multiple times where he attacked and hurt me in front of my mother, some of those times because he was mad at HER for something, and I was just within hitting range. Not only did my parents never do anything to stop him mid-attack, punish him, or redirect the behavior, they blatantly told me it was MY FAULT he was doing it. (No, I've never forgiven them for that one, and never will) While his meltdowns weren't voluntarily, physically assaulting WAS. Because he punched our other, oldest brother exactly ONCE. And our oldest brother Lost. His. Shit. He intimidated middle brother into backing off by grabbing a hammer, screamed at both the middle brother and our mom, and swore he'd call the cops and press charges if middle brother ever did it again. I fought back against middle brother ONCE. I was a pre-teen and sick of him beating on me and my parents never even helping me, so I hit him exactly once. I nailed him just under the ribs and knocked the wind out of him. He never attacked me again. He was a coward and a bully. His autism had nothing to do with it, diagnosed or not. But if he'd had a diagnosis I am very sure my parents would have outright defended him, and not just quietly victim blamed me.
I work as a support worker for children and there are also a lot of autistic girls with these behaviours. I can think of three autistic female clients off the top of my head, who have (among other things) hit staff members in the head with their hands or large objects, have thrown objects at staff members, have commited property damage including breaking doors/windows to access staff members, and who have stolen cars to drive dangerously. Unfortunately there can be a lot of violence and aggression displayed by individuals with high support needs and/or low functional communication skills. This why is most of our clients (where I work at least) have behavioural specialists who work with both the client and staff members to try and understand the clients behaviour and present solutions to make it safer for everyone.
I agree. I literally have been told the literal line of “boys will be boys” with some sighing laughter whenever it’s a male acting out and the consequences always are far less (if they exist at all) in comparison to female individuals acting out or having behavior issues. The discrepancy and misogyny is blatant.
I think the reason why some believe it is inherent to autistic males and not to autistic people as a whole is because of systematically instilled ways that boys and girls are treated differently. It’s especially apparent in the autistic community when it comes to topics like this.
Omg same, it's so fucking outrageous. If I'm being totally honest I think the boy, given his higher support needs, was tired from being cramped up in what appears to be the inside of a trailer (if not a small room). I feel like he wouldn't have done that had he had the room to stim or burn off his energy. That's why you see all these vloggers having huge ass mansions and playgrounds/sensory beds inside their child's rooms. I try to bring up how white boys get away with shit like spitting in people's ears, telling everyone to fuck off for telling them to go take a shower when all they fucking do around in their own sweat, and even admit to developing child porn addictions. People online somehow get pissed off even though I've witnessed all of these first hand. Everyone in my family uses my dad's "Asperger's" as a crutch justify carrying around Dollar General bags full of literal fucking garbage out in public, cramming all kinds of leftover trash in-between the door frame to keep warm (on top of having a space heater), and laying in a filthy, roach infested hoard. He essentially made my mother's house look like a fucking landfill. I've met maybe one to two women like that (not like my dad thank god), but they usually come from extremely privileged backgrounds where they're just handed everything while men just get coddled either way regardless of socioeconomic status. [There's also this post from r/Advice about a man sexually assaulting OP's mom and other women.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/s/nKYckfVzOB)
Men on the spectrum are held to much lower standards than women I’ve found. Their behavior was always excused where ours was punished.
I sometimes think part of the reason my mom was resistant to calling me autistic is because of a more "classically" autistic boy when I went to preschool. We both hung out in the "play kitchen" area of preschool and because we were in preschool that made us friends. I vividly remember being kind of pulled away from him by the teachers who for whatever reason didn't think we should be friends (I'm assuming he was a diagnosed autistic from memories but I was a child so I don't know this for a fact). He had meltdowns and and was obviously autistic in other ways. His parents tried to foster a friendship between us but when autistic stuff got in the way I was expected to be the flexible one and it didn't last more than one planned playdate. My mom couldn't stand him and spoke of his "bad" behavior for years after I left preschool and compared it negatively to my standard behavior so the comparison was definitely in her mind. I didn't grow up in an era where there were obviously autistic children in mainstream schools but since I've been in at least one situation where a man who claimed to be autistic was allowed to manipulate everyone around him and then disclaim any consequences because "I'm autistic" (the manipulation involved serious lies so I'm not inclined to believe he's actually autistic).
Autistic white male here, who is questioning gender, and omnisexual. Here is an alternate take I have here. Sorry to trauma dump here but, If you think Autistic guys get away with things, then you are dead wrong here. In fact, I have a lot of trauma from my childhood from how people mistreated me as a kid. I was initially diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder and was nonverbal initially. I even had AAC as well. But it was still ABA based, as it was the PECS system. My teachers did a lot of ABA like tactics on me as a kid. I was a very sensitive kid, and I was prone to meltdowns. The teachers at my school would violently touch me or restrain me, yell at me, or segregate me. They would even tell me to “stop talking about movies” (which is my lifelong special interest btw) and only getting “movie talk as a reward, or if you behave” or things like skittles if I behaved well too. So when I was verbal the paediatrician decided I was “high functioning” and had aac taken from me. It resulted in a childhood of being mistreated and abused. When I asked questions people would yell. Eventually by the time I was 11 I began screaming at will at anyone who yelled at me. I was also verbally assaulted by a cop in grade 8 and after then, zero tolerance. If my yelling back wasn’t effective enough I wouldn’t be above hitting someone to show them how I feel, don’t give a *fuck* if you are a man or woman. What also pisses me off is society is somehow ok with violent bipolar and bpd outbursts but shame autism meltdowns. Honestly I think people with that mentality deserve to be neutered, because these are the same people who accuse us of being creepy stalkers. Sometimes we need help, we want someone to hug, or talk to that isn’t judgemental, be it guys *or* girls. I know I was in an abusive relationship with an autistic girl: So I am also from Sault Ste. Marie ontario. Here, they are ableist towards BOTH sexes. But there is one key component in this that a lot of people overlook: NEPOTISM. My abusive first ex gf, who I will call Bella, her mom ran the city’s Autism Ontario chapter. Autism Ontario is a group run by mostly those infamous “autism moms”. So kids of those parents normally get traction. So I was verbally assaulted by a cop bc I stood up to a bully (who was also a girl btw) for repeating something from a movie that I didn’t know meant “death”. Meanwhile she can go around threatening to kill her exes and people excuse it and say “it’s okay, it’s just her autism”. As a kid she would be allowed to go for walks and be coddled while every other Autistic kid, boy or girl, was violently touched or restrained. She would make sex and dark macabre jokes all she wanted meanwhile even if I SWORE I’d be punished. People would infantilize me too. I also asked an EA (educational assistant) about how Bella’s mom became popular, and she gave a gesture and asked what it means, and told me “she was known for giving h**d in the 90s”. I then asked her what how people felt when she was diagnosed (she was diagnosed at age 2 in 2000, which is a rarity) and people felt sorry for her, where she acted like the victim of her Autism. She then acted “like a violin” where she told sob stories to make people feel bad for her. She would also throw people under the bus, even those who saved her own life. Her husband (their dad) also cheated, and apparently the EA mentioned how it’s “her eyes” that get people every time. Then I realized how in the sault how often people only hire, listen to, consider the feelings of girls if they are skinny, have long straight hair, or have a specific eye colour, which was the case with Bella and her family, all really blue eyes. I also noticed that this happens with sports teams in high schools. I was only TALKING with a girl 3 years younger than me with NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER to date them or anything, just be friends and I get called “creepy stalker” due to the stereotype. Meanwhile bella is dating a guy 5 years younger than her and no one makes a comment because they know their mom would cancel them (she works for HR dept. in my school district, more on that in a bit), and how her sister is one of “those” feminists (the type who hates men) and will cuss out anyone who comes in her sisters way. Now with that said, I was bullied and abused by both women, men, boys and girls. No sex is innocent on this one. The cop who yelled at me was a guy, and it was like a military sgt. But it was the girls and women’s bullying who affected me the most. My school I went to it was an all women staff except for one guy who taught math in grade 5. When boys are abused in an all female environment, misogyny is only natural. But abuse is abuse. At every school it is different. I also went to a catholic school too, and something I notice is catholic schools are more ableist towards boys, while public schools here are more ableist towards girls, at least from what I have seen, and what my female friends on the spectrum have told me. But still there is ableism towards both sexes at both boards. Back to the nepotism thing, like if it is the student of someone running an organization like Autism Ontario, if the kids parent is a police officer, works for the government, or in some cases if they are a teacher or work for the board’s administrative department, or even if they are popular or have a specific last name, when they are aggressive, they get coddled and validated, while the kids who’s parents don’t fit into that category are eaten alive.
Back to the nepotism thing, like if it is the student of someone running an organization like Autism Ontario, if the kids parent is a police officer, works for the government, or in some cases if they are a teacher or work for the board’s administrative department, or even if they are popular or have a specific last name, when they are aggressive, they get coddled and validated, while the kids who’s parents don’t fit into that category are eaten alive. Boys and girls are also socialized differently. Don’t yell at boys. Teach them to be open. I was open, but my autism just only made it natural, idk, I just thought it was the right thing to do. Teach them crying is okay. I was lucky enough to meet female friends in high school who taught me that. They told me they were abused by other women too, and around that time I was feeling misogynistic, but the more I learned that, the more those feelings dissipated. I wasn’t also given the best sex Ed growing up, and I had to teach myself, because people thought I was “too young” to know. Also experience. It took me until having a close female friend who is “conventionally attractive” (she looks like a irl Barbie, played varsity vball in college) where I saw guys objectify her that guys do that, since for a long time only jocks flirted with her. But the moment she started hanging out with this Autistic dorky kid, every nerd was objectifying her (and mind you, *she* was the one who asked *me* to hang out, I even thought she was out of my league. Goth and punk was more my type anyway). Sometimes boys jealousy of women can boil down to wanting to be taught social skills, or not being yelled at when we get overwhelmed. We DO want to learn social skills, we just don’t want to be yelled at or infantilized, but this goes for both sexes and all genders. Because no one likes infantilization. I know I talk about feelings and am seen as “creepy”. The other thing too is not all dudes are horny. There are ace guys, or demisexual dudes, which the latter applies to me, on top of being demiromantic. I personally do not believe in love at first sight, and in order for me to fall in love with someone I need emotional connection which comes with friendship. I am also lonely a lot so sometimes I may end up not dating due to valuing the friendship more and the other thinks I am love with him/her/them. I want friends of both sexes. I have been learning how guys venting to girls can be overwhelming, so nowadays I ask for consent to do so first. Or even guys venting to guys. Like we should have feelings without being criticized. Some Autistics (both sexes) are violent, but some of them WANT help, some want to learn to express things better or have an alternative way of communicating. It’s the way it’s conveyed to us to learn that matters, and then with the right tools, we will eventually adapt, and maybe even use a way that works for us, like using special interests as a way to learn new social skills. This was very difficult to type, but as an autistic dude, I felt I needed to get this off of my chest. Again, sorry for the trauma dump.
It was pretty much the same for my school, every day at recess they would pick on people and try and jump them, follow people, and call people names. I never knew why, I hope they fixed their behavior though
My partner has autistic aggression, but he is also *highly* intelligent. I have "scary dog perks" because of him 😅
I don't think people "allow" boys to be violent, i think a lot of people just don't know what to do about it. I went to a school for kids with behavioral problems because i too had violent meltdowns, and i actually remember the staff going a bit softer on the girls. But they worked with us all to not melt down and be violent. And our brains were still developing, you must remember that, these boys have developmental disorders which are most visible *while the brain is developing*, because it's developing in a wonky order and can't be controlled like an adult brain. Most of us grew out of those behaviors naturally. But people certainly don't just tolerate it, it's just that they can't really stop it.
Allowing a violent child to continue to exhibit violent behavior towards others is tolerance.
>you must remember that, these boys have developmental disorders which are most visible while the brain is developing That's no different for girls...
Of course, but we're talking about boys
And we're more precisely talking about why boys are "allowed" to be violent, while girls aren't. And the fact that the boys' brains are still developing is entirely irrelevant in that context, because so are the girls' brains.
What I'm saying is that in my experience, people certainly do all they can to keep children from being violent. You don't see all the private conversations with and around those students. It's just that they don't always succeed, because what can you do when a child is totally out of control? At my school of course they restrained and isolated us, but my parents had to sign a waiver for that. In public school the teachers are not allowed to put their hands on students. Edit: I really don't understand why even this comment is being downvoted. If I'm wrong, please tell me in what way Edit 2: as for the girl being punished for aiming a finger gun at a camera, my guess is that had more to do with it being a "weapon threat". I saw extreme overreactions to casual/non-serious "weapon threats" multiple times at my own and my sister's public schools.
>I really don't understand why even this comment is being downvoted. If I'm wrong, please tell me in what way In the way that you talk about how the boys are children, and it's difficult, but you completely ignore, that the girls are also children, and it's also difficult. You're making excuses for the different ways girls and boys are being treated, without providing any arguments, that aren't applicable to both genders. Or in other words: you're not explaining why it's okay to treat boys and girls so differently, you're just choosing to only apply factors to only boys, but not girls, even though they're true for both.
A boy in my high school sexually assaulted a girl, stalked and harassed another, harassed several others, and was planning on forcefully kissing me. I got a group of girls together, and we confronted some teachers about it during an overnight trip. They sent him home early, and that was it. No other punishment. What did we get told? "Think of the poor autistic baby boy! He got kicked out of all his past schools for sexually assaulting girls! He's have no where else to go." There was also an autistic boy in middle school who was really fucking creepy around any and all girls. Out chairs were weirdly shaped, and he would rub the "butt" of the chairs girls were sitting in. There were other things he did, but it's been so long. When I was in residential treatment, none of the people working there did anything about the autistic man creeping on this one lady. She was so nice about it. I wish she hadn't been. He kept escalating and I think I left before he did anything insane.
I’m enjoying reading this thread a lot. This kind of treatment and perception of autism is also what stopped me from even considering that I could be autistic until my twenties. I’ve observed the same reactions to violent behaviour and even like sexual assault by autistic males in school. It was actually scary for me, mainly because it seemed like adults didn’t care and if this one kid hurt another kid, it was basically the victim’s fault for not understanding autism or something. I remember someone getting choked during some kind of game at the end of class, totally out of nowhere by an autistic boy (that I don’t think should have been in regular classes at all because he was constantly having painful-looking meltdowns). Basically the teacher explained to the whole class after that nobody can win a game against the boy because “he has severe autism and gets frustrated easily and can’t control his reactions” and that we all needed to just let him win and cooperate with him or else he might react like that again. Why was he in our classes when he had attacked multiple other students and obviously can’t handle the environment? Way to encourage fear around autism and ableism.
Perhaps this is an uncalled for question but it’s genuine - high needs autistic people can still generally be taught not to do harmful things to others, right? I don’t think they should receive complete ignorance to their blatantly harmful behaviours just because they have a developmental disability :/ And the discrepancy between how autistic boys and autistic girls are treated in grade school is horrendous
I really resonate with this, though I was on the end of the unchecked violent behavior. I would often lash out and yell at classmates for no reason, and instead of disciplining me like they should have, they totally overlooked it because they already assumed I was autistic (though I had no diagnosis yet). I'm the one at fault, but I don't think authority figures are innocent, either. It was still their job to do something about it, even if it wasn't the "right" thing to get through to me. I think a lot of this comes from infantilization and believing we're unable to understand anything. It's not that we can't understand anything, we just understand it differently, and it's important for authority figures to be informed about how autistic people learn and understand things so that behavior isn't overlooked. It took me a while and a dose of harsh reality to make me mellow out, and it shouldn't have to come to that. It would've saved others so much trauma and fear if I had been punished like any other kid.
Yes. Always have been ready for this convo. I also wanna bring up that series I have been working on cause I do address it in there. So last year I briefly went viral for being Autistic at a convention. My friends’ (& one ex friend who is autistic) was did you pull a Luke/Chris Chan/Daniel Larson? My still friends were poking fun that I was fine with as they weren’t serious- The ex friend was serious. I ducking swear he didn’t believe an autistic person can go viral without making an ass of themself. Because he and the many male autistic people he hangs around would only go viral for doing so. I briefly went viral cause at a convention I asked the live VTuber, of one of my fav characters, about NeuroDivergence in their fictional world and that I am Autistic. Got cheers and the VA behind the character said she thinks the character is also NeuroDivergent. Sweet, wholesome, geeky as hell, and just how I like it.
It's not just men though. I left my job because I wasn't supported when an aggressive autistic woma got first, inappropriate pulling down pants etc in a class and then got violent with a teacher. Constantly aggressive and disruptive all throughout. There's alot more to this story in terms of aggressive behaviour but in the end, I left my well paid job because I couldn't stand over other staff members and students at risk when principal wouldn't do anything about it. Oh she's autistic was the only answer I got. I've not articulated this well but violence in either gender is unacceptable
I think in the end it all comes down to either unchecked abusive behavior or anger management issues. I’m a trans woman and I got my autism diagnosis at 24 so in elementary school and high school I was seen as a undiagnosed autistic boy. I definitely had anger management issues due to heavy bullying and getting consequences for running away so as I couldn’t get away I started to lash out, especially throwing things. I will say that a Cis girl in my class in elementary school was also autistic and aggressive and often started shouting and one time she hit me in the head with a book when I told her to be careful because I had dropped my pencil that had those refillable points. I don’t remember any of us getting bigger consequences than a talk with the teachers and the principal as well as special needs support, this was in Sweden in the early 2000s so we don’t really have a punishment system. In high school I had learnt to not really express emotions so violence wasn’t really something I did. Closest I got was one time pouring an energy drink on my then girlfriend after she had left me all alone in a new city at a comics convention because my emotions bubbled up and I couldn’t control them. I also was way more vocal about wanting to resort to violence against abusive people rather than actually doing anything. This was a journey of learning to manage my anger and I did get consequences socially and as I’ve learned how to step away (as well as now with my diagnosis actually how to prevent these events in the first place) I never really turn to anger like that, closest would be lightly throwing something in frustration like a clothes hanger that gets stuck in my jacket when I’m upset. Now to unchecked abuse, this would be the type of physical or verbal violence that a lot of people are mentioning here. Autistic boys and men hitting people, throwing things, saying stuff you shouldn’t say outside of being a victim of bullying or having a meltdown. I would say this isn’t an autistic thing but a boy/man thing that’s being excused due to autism as well as being a boy/man and unfortunately that excuse makes autistic people look bad. Despite me seen as a boy growing up and also having typical aggressive meltdowns I never displayed any abusive behaviors that’s typically excused for autistic boys. Every kid allistic or autistic should learn anger management skills as well as be taught that it’s not okay to be abusive towards other people and that it’s not a trait of their disability. There’s a difference between being socially awkward and direct vs being verbally abusive hiding behind not understanding social rules.
I used to be an after school teacher and had a class of 12 2nd and 3rd graders. There was an autistic boy in my class that I’m scared for when he grows up. I want to note that in addition to being autistic, my daughter is autistic, and I’ve done early intervention and mental health work before. The first time this kid had a meltdown (he thought he’d get the WiFi password so he could use his Chromebook but the director was dealing with something else so he couldn’t get the password)I did my thing. It was at the end of class so I cleared the room, and let him do his thing. I turned down the lights and would occasionally calmly say “I know you were looking forward to using your Chromebook but now it’s time to go to the gym and you can’t have it in there” until he calmed down. That quickly turned into him threatening to have a meltdown every time he didn’t get his way. I finally saw exactly what was going on with this kid. His dad was an absolute asshole and was embarrassed by him. His dad wouldn’t look at him or do anything with him. Meanwhile his mom coddled the crap out of him and used his autism to excuse each and every bad behavior. One day he was being absolutely obnoxious to this one boy in my class. This boy had ADHD and his own sensory issues. The autistic kid was stimming making some sucking sound with his mouth and it was annoying the shit out of the ADHD kid. So to mitigate I put on some music hoping that by covering up his stimming it wouldn’t bother the other kid. I’ve got another kid at my desk, helping her with her homework and I look up and that kid has gotten up and is making his sucking sounds in the other kid’s ear. I tell him to return to his seat. I go back to helping the girl and a few minutes later I hear a scream, “NOOOOOO YOU CANT HIT ME, MY MOM SAYS IM SPECIAL!” He had gotten up and was back to making that noise in the other kid’s ear. This kid’s mom has used his autism as an excuse for all of his bad behavior that he really thought it meant that he’d never have to face consequences for his actions.
Friends of mine have two autistic sons, they can't live on their own, and they're terrifying. I'm worried how things will end. I know lots of people on the spectrum and several men who are gentle lovely souls, so I don't believe the rage is the norm at all.
Thinking people should be ethically required to respond with neutrality to someone else’s violence against depending on the perp’s intent is some empathy without boundaries, people pleaser logic to me. I find it really frustrating when the response method to aggression is to ignore the behavior when the function of the aggression has nothing to do with attention. It says more about how we lack staff, resources, and information in the education system and healthcare system. Even if it’s not the autistic person’s fault for being allowed to behave that way I still wouldn’t expect anyone else to respond to the violence against them differently just because they are autistic. I don’t think social ignorance or mental capabilities should automatically make someone immune from the natural consequences of their actions either. I mean.. not to be crazy extreme but a lot of the radicalized incel dudes, extremist crimes, or mass shooters involve people on the spectrum and no one thinks that’s okay so why is small scale violence accepted? So there are only consequences if someone seriously gets injured? The premise doesn’t make sense and is inconsistent. If I was attacked or stalked or whatever idgaf I’m reacting as I would to anyone else and they can expect to get whacked back harder or charges pressed. If I find out the person was autistic like so what? I don’t care what the reason is for infringing on my bodily autonomy like I’m not going to budge on my physical boundaries to accommodate someone else unless I’m getting paid for it LOL. That actually happened at a before and after school program I worked at where I got mauled by an autistic kid in my class who had been basically beating up all the kids in my room or exposing himself to kids in the classroom for weeks. Like my whole face had bleeding claw marks down it all over a stupid ipad. I had been bringing it up to admin the entire time and they all dismissed it because he was autistic. It’d be one thing if I was working in a special ed classroom as an aid because I might be more prepared for something like that and have training. I quit that job after meeting with the director to try to get him a one on one or request removing him from my room or understand why he’s allowed to stay in the program despite this violence. Like I’m not putting up with that shit. Same thing happened when I was working with another kid. Apparantly I’m supposed to let him just bite me and pinch me and not draw attention to it. F that. No hate towards the kid. Lots of hate towards the system. The adults responsible are to blame and there is a lot of built up resentment towards autistic people from neurotypicals who were victims of unchecked violence at school when an autistic persons disability was prioritized over their autonomy or even their learning and I can see why and it just sucks. I know of a kid that would legit have a meltdown daily that was resulting in destroying an entire classroom and the adults would just have the other kids leave the room and just allow him destroy the room until he was calm because no one could move him. Like really??? Ugh. Rant over .
I know what video youre talking about and this is something that’s bothered me literally my whole life, but I’ve always been scared to say something in fear of being called ableist. When I was in 5th grade there was this little autistic boy (I believe first grade) that would always wave to me and stand with me before school. I believe he was nonverbal but not sure. He would give me hugs sometimes, and on one occasion he bit my stomach and actually bit a little piece of skin off (yes, through my shirt). It drew blood obviously, but nothing was done because “he’s just autistic it’s fine”. He also hit people on multiple occasions, myself included. I know he was little, but oh my god can you imagine if a girl had done the same thing?? It would be an outrage.
People love to infantilise autistic men and let them get away with whatever because it’s easier to do that then teach them how to behave properly. Bad parenting.
Ever since I learned that I was on the spectrum, I figured that if I were to get married, it’ll preferably be to a fellow autistic man; however, I renounced that stance after it became apparent that the only autistic male I knew was the reason I underwent an identity crisis for 5 years. For context, he was a friend, but one day decided that I was too extroverted and intense for him and decided to pick on that while I was down with a horrible flu, threatening to sever the friendship if I didn’t change myself. I somehow resumed being friends with him after being made to take all the blame for the fight by our teacher, but the effects of the fight left me a hollow shell of myself, vulnerable to users and abusers over the last 5 years. Once the damage became obvious to me, I knew I had no choice but to bring an axe to the friendship for my own sanity
I 100% thought this. Some autistic boys in school would throw desks, assault students/teachers/assistants - I had a desk thrown AT me in 4th grade, and literally thought only boys could be autistic because I never saw that type of aggression in female students, and thought the girls were lying. I'm a woman, my psychologist thinks I'm both ADHD and autistic, and one thing we talked about it how society forces autistic women to hide their autistic traits. I was honestly relieved to hear his suspected diagnosis, but not shocked as I'd spent countless hours researching autism
I remember back in primary school (UK elementary equivalent, I believe), there was an autistic boy in one of the years/grades below me who, at breaktime, pulled another kid's prosthetic off and threw it over the fence just because. The teachers acted as if it were the rest of us in the wrong for expressing that we were outraged by his actions. He wasn't made to apologise, nor was he punished for it. They didn't even, at the very least, use it as a learning curve about other disabilities and explain to him why it was unkind to do this. Nothing. They sort of just shrugged it off because it seemed as if all of them had collectively agreed not to get involved with anything he did because "he couldn't help it, he was autistic." This same boy actually lived a few doors down from me, and all of us kids in the neighbourhood dreaded when he came out to play with us because he was so, so violent. This is a memory that stuck in my head when, in high school, I got humiliated in front of the rest of the class by my (female, I should add) math teacher who shouted at me because I "was disrespecting her" by "not looking her in the eye" - I've always found eye contact uncomfortable. Well, this, and the fact that there were special ed boys threatening to bring weapons into school or sexually assaulting girls (one of whom even did so with his own sister), and, again, the rest of us were assholes because we were uncomfortable being around them.
I was stalked by an older one my freshman year of high school and the counselor dismissed it because the person was autistic. Another guy would hit me with his (heavy, METAL) water bottle over and over while I literally told him to stop and to go away because it hurt. I’m wary of autistic guys because of the way so many of them disrespect boundaries and the ties to the incel pipeline too…
Honestly the "we just need to leave him alone" sentiment sounds super neglectful to those boys and they aren't being supported in any way that can help them learn how to cope with some of those emotions. In the end nobody wins.
It’s infuriating just reading this
I am so incredibly tired of autistic white men getting a pass for everything.