Tech Workers: Is Autistic Conversion Therapy, ABA, in Your Company’s Ad Stock?

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We autisticAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline.  If... More people helped build these tech platforms and companies and the collaboration cultures they run on. Is ABAUltimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it... More, autistic conversion therapy, in the ad stock at the companies and platforms we poured our lives into? Almost universally, yes.

ABA ads are everywhere. YouTube videos that we embed on StimpunksStimpunk combines “stimming” + “punk” to evoke open and proud stimming, resistance to neurotypicalization, and the DIY culture of punk, disabled, and neurodivergent communities. Instead of hiding our stims, we... More.org pages warning about ABA have ABA ads on them. It’s a systemic problem that neurodiversityNeurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a... More and disability advocates face on every platform.

Why is ABA bad? Our glossary goes into detail on the problems with radical behaviorismUltimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it... More. None of us should be in the business of behaviorism.

Behaviorism

Trainers are rejecting behaviorism because it harms animals emotionally and psychologically. What does that say about classrooms that embrace it?

This “science-driven” mantra has been seen before through eugenicsEugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.Eugenics is an inaccurate theory linked to historical and present-day forms of discrimination, racism, ableism and... More.

Therefore, eugenics is an erasure of identity through force, whereas radical behaviorism is an erasure of identity through “correction.” This all assumes a dominant culture that one strives to unquestionably maintain.

Empty Pedagogy, Behaviorism, and the Rejection of Equity

QueerBeing queer means constantly questioning what's considered "normal" and why that norm gets privileged over other ways of being. It means criticizing who sets these norms and recognizing the privilege... More and neurodivergentNeurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite... More liberation are entwined. If you wouldn’t run ads for gay conversion therapy, you shouldn’t run ads for autistic conversion therapy.

…plenty of autistic people are LGBTQ and experience a double portion of discrimination. The desire to eliminate the traits that make autistic people unique is rooted in the same impulse to suppress people from affirming their genderDue both to their ability to denaturalize social norms and to their neurological differences, autistic individuals can offer novel insights into gender as a social process. Examining gender from an... More identity or sexuality.

We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation

Learn about the shared history of gay and autistic conversion therapy in “🌈🌈 Neurodiversity and Gender: You Hit So Hard With All the Colors That There Are”.

🌈🌈 Neurodiversity and Gender: You Hit So Hard With All the Colors That There Are

We built these cities. Stop advertising for our abuse and eradication using what we made.

Eugenics

None of us should be in the business of behaviorism.