The powers-that-be love to frame autism and Autistic people as problems to solve. Puzzle pieces, if you will.

When I saw this incredibly powerful Tweet (what do we call Tweets now? Xes?) by Bishop Talbert Swan, I knew I needed to add my Autistic voice, highlighting transgressions against Disabled people:

Image description and transcription of Bishop Swan’s post:

Top image: a circular photo of Bishop Swan: a Black person with dark sunglasses and a beard, next to the words “Bishop Talbert Swan” and “@TalbertSwan”

A former Fox News host, who paid a settlement to avoid a sexual assault case, is Secretary of the Department of Defense.

The former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, who is accused of covering up the sexual abuse of minors, is over the Department of Education.

A former heroin addict, who is accused of sexual assault by a former family babysitter, is over the Department of Health & Human Services.

A 34 time convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, who has been accused of sexual assault by 26 women, is president of the United States.

When unqualified, morally bereft, white people occupy the highest positions in our government, y’all need to shut up about Black people and DEI.

Autism & Disability: When Power Talks About Us Like We’re a Problem

The President of the United States, standing next to his Secretary of Health and Human Services, holds a press conference about the “autism epidemic,” tying autism to Tylenol and vaccines in ways experts call misleading and scientifically unsound. 

That Health and Human Services Secretary has spent years promoting the false idea that vaccines cause autism and, under Senate questioning, refuses to clearly say they don’t, despite overwhelming evidence. 

From the podium of the nation’s top health agency, that same HHS Secretary calls autism an “epidemic,” and says it “destroys families” and “destroys our greatest resource.” 

In another briefing, he claims autistic people “will never play baseball, date, pay taxes or have a job”, erasing millions of Autistic children and adults, at all levels of support needs, who do exactly those things. More importantly, this narrative teaches the people to think of human value in terms of productivity, that is to say, the narrative devalues all human life by declaring that people who can’t work have no intrinsic value.

Meanwhile, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives tells constituents he believes vaccines “may be” causing autism, openly questioning CDC data, again feeding a myth every major medical organization has debunked. 

The same administration created a presidential health commission and boasted that “by September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures”. It was a promise disability advocates called impossible, misleading, and ableist. 

While top officials portray Autistic people as tragedies, burdens, or people with no future, their Education Department is busy rolling back protections: rescinding 72 guidance documents that spelled out the rights of disabled students under federal law. 

Successive Education Secretaries push voucher and “school choice” schemes that often require parents of disabled kids to sign away their IDEA rights (rights to an appropriate education, services, and due process) if they want to leave underfunded public schools. 

At the same time, the Justice Department removes multiple ADA guidance documents from its website: materials that helped businesses understand their obligations to disabled people. The DoJ called them “unnecessary and outdated,” even as advocates warn this weakens enforcement. 

Across federal agencies, DEI offices and resources, including those meant to help marginalized and disabled people access education and jobs, are dismantled or wiped from websites after a White House order attacking DEI. 

And when the administration proposes big cuts to Medicaid, they include eliminating or slashing Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers: the programs that let disabled people live in their own homes instead of institutions. Advocates warn these cuts would push people back toward institutionalization or family collapse. 

When we have:

  • A President and HHS Secretary promoting discredited autism-vaccine myths and calling autism an “epidemic” that “destroys families.”
  • A Cabinet health chief publicly claiming autistic people will never engage in adult activities and therefore declaring us all to be tragic burdens.
  • Members of Congress repeating vaccine-autism fears from the House floor and town halls.
  • Education officials shredding disability guidance and promoting voucher programs that trade away IDEA protections.
  • Justice and other departments quietly stripping ADA and DEI guidance that made schools, jobs, and public life more accessible.
  • Budget proposals that target Medicaid and HCBS, threatening the basic right to live in the community.

    And the people in the highest offices in our government are:
  • talking about autism as a disaster to be eradicated,
  • questioning settled science about vaccines,
  • acting like disabled people have no future (or even a right to exist in the present!),
  • weakening education and civil-rights protections, and
  • slashing the supports that keep us in our homes and communities.

They don’t get to lecture Autistic and disabled people about being “too sensitive,” “too political,” or “asking for special treatment.”

We’re not asking for pity.

We’re demanding science-based policy, civil rights, support and accommodation of our needs, and the right to exist in public as ourselves.

Shut up and support us.

All of us.

We ARE The People.