Two weeks ago the President of United States announced to the world that his administration was confronting the “horrible horrible crisis” of autism. He attributed its cause to maternal acetaminophen use during pregnancy. His appointed Secretary of Health & Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, referred to increasing autism rates as “alarming” and compared autism to lung cancer.

Coincidentally, the day after this proclamation, I was scheduled in class to cover the topic of ableism—the discrimination that results from our deeply-engrained beliefs that some bodies and minds are less valuable than others. To prepare for the lecture, I pulled up a slide I had designed months ago to illustrate cultural examples of ableism in the U.S. Befittingly, the slide included a 2015 image of then presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, openly mocking a physically disabled reporter. Also embedded in my slide was one of the multiple ads I had received from social media inviting me to join a class action lawsuit initiated in 2021 against baby food companies accused of causing autism. There is nothing new in the Trump administration’s proclamation; it’s just ableism repackaged with a red cap. Ableism is the real epidemic, and it’s exhausting and harmful.  I’m tired of autistic people being presented as a tragedy that people outside the autistic community are conveniently claiming to solve and profit from.

I’m tired of people in positions of power trying to shift communal responsibilities for children’s health and development onto the backs and bellies of women—simultaneously trying to control and to blame us. Blaming autism on acetaminophen use during pregnancy both shifts the “problem” of autism onto pregnant women, while simultaneously denying them critical pain relief in the process. Conveniently, the narrative also tends to absolve the U.S. government and society at large from our contributions to disability (e.g., segregation, violence, discrimination, defunded supports).

I’m tired of the incessant stream of correlational studies attributing autism to everything from baby food to amount of rainfall. First, correlation isn’t causation. All sorts of things are associated but do not cause one another. Take this illustrative example by Kaelynn’s Autistic Angle: the number of shark attacks is positively associated with ice cream sales during summer, but the association does not mean that one causes the other. Eating less ice cream isn’t going to decrease the likelihood of a shark attack. While this example may seem obvious, we are much less likely to question the causality of correlational findings when they align with our pre-existing assumptions and biases. For example, if we assume autism is “bad” then we are biased to assume it must be caused by other bad things, like toxins or too much screen time, which brings me to my second piece of research advice.

Let’s stop assuming autism is categorically “bad” and start listening to Autistic people. Autistic advocates have been telling us since at least the 1990s that unidimensional deficit-based portrayals of autism are wrong (see Botha et al., 2024). Autism is a culmination of various human traits, that together can bring significant everyday challenges, yes, and also, joy, insight, and community. As noted on the Autistic Self Advocacy Network webpage, “Autism has always existed. Autistic people are born autistic and we will be autistic our whole lives.” Research should focus less on cause and more on the priorities emphasized by the Autistic community—priorities like communication access, early social learning opportunities, and support for everyday living (e.g., Roche et al., 2021).

Speaking of communication, I’m also tired of society’s incessant stream of ableist metaphors and slurs. Remarkably, this includes the prominent rhetoric of the current U.S. President and his appointed Secretary of Health & Human Services. But it also includes many of the public remarks of those criticizing them. Ableism is so baked into our cultural DNA that we don’t even recognize how common phrases, like “Are you deaf?” or “Did I stutter?”, are using disability as an insult. Common slurs, like ret*rd, stupid, idiot, or moron are using people with intellectual disability as the “butt of the joke” or the barb, as the case maybe (see Autistichoya  2022 for a more examples).

Similarly, when we ridicule the president’s difficulty pronouncing acetaminophen or Robert F. Kennedy’s voice disorder as if it is the source of our distain, we are insulting everyone else who has speech-related disabilities. And if you find yourself thinking “That’s not what people mean” or “Those are just words,” ask yourself why you are getting defensive. Because I’m tired of that too. Words have power. They tell on us, individually and communally—where we have been, what we value, and where we intend to go.

Autism is not a tragedy or an epidemic. Ableism is. And no amount of Tylenol is going to cure that, but we can.

Notes

My use of identity-first language (i.e., autistic person) rather than person-first language (i.e., person with autism) is intentional to reflect my view of autism as an identity and potential disability rather than inherent disease or disorder. In addition, identify-first language is the overall preference expressed by autistic adults across multiple studies to date.