UK government takes aim at ADHD/Autistic people
Louise
Epiphanies Host
Having already targeted trans people for persecution and government- backed pseudoscience to strip them of appropriate medical treatment, the UK government are using the same playbook to go after neurodivergent people - especially kids.
This was mentioned previously both here and on the Wes Streeting thread in Hell.
Basically despite recent and overwhelming scientific findings to the contrary, Streeting apparently doesn't like those results and so has appointed an alarming team to do him what looks suspiciously like a Cass style review on us - including the main person who horrifically damaged people with ME with his opinions on graded exercise.
As @chrisstiles said
And as I said
Well now it begins -
Streeting's hit squad just came back with an interim report which has been spun on the front page of The Times - the same newspaper that did the heavy lifting on spreading the persecution and smearing of trans people.
They know the overdiagnosis stuff is not true and that there's actually huge underdiagnosis because the services are under-resourced so all they've got is innuendo about 'incentivisation' and 'self diagnosis' and 'medicalisation of distress' - so basically all the dogwhistles for 'these people are putting it on and faking.'
It comes in the wake of a well known credentialled dinosaur ( apologies to dinosaurs) giving a woefully wrongheaded and out of date interview to the TES to attack late diagnosed Autistic people - especially women- and something notable about this was that the attack was taken up and spread by leading activists who persecute trans people and who have access to prestigious media platforms.
There is a significant overlap between autistic people and LGBT+ people- so there's been anti-autistic rhetoric in the anti-trans movement from the start - trying to say young trans people are 'just' autistic and trying to use prejudiced notions about autism to then strip their agency away from them to say they cant know their own gender.
But now it's got worse - and part of it seems to hang on the trans persecutors hatred of self-ID which they want to use to force trans people through discriminatory and damaging medical hoops to make life harder for them.
Because it's so hard and the waiting lists are so long to get a diagnosis if you're neurodivergent, a lot of people have to self-ID as they try to get access to help. So the chief anti-trans activists seem to have have seized on this too ( People like Helen Lewis and Kathleen Stock)
I'm honestly tired of this. I'm glad I backed trans people before their opponents really started coming for me too and I'm angry at the 'friends' who were taken in by them and especially at those who allowed these harmful bullying bigots to present themselves as 'feminists' and those who keep taking this line. I'm a woman - I'm not 'protected' - I'm attacked.
I dont know what these people are - they seem to hate autonomy and difference in others, or perhaps they're just social conservatives who want to bully things back to how they were in some imaginary golden age in their heads? When 'men were men and women were women' and autistic people were neither seen nor heard from because we were in institutions or forced to shut up and suffer till we went mad trying to be square pegs in round holes in a society which didn't accommodate us. These people make me sick - and the newspapers and media that platform them, and the political parties that harbour them and do their bidding.
I dont want to post this in Hell as it's so raw and personal for me but I cannot believe that this is what the Labour party have come to. That they are active enemies of so many people in our society and that they have chosen bullies and bigots and their lies over large groups of harmless people, many of whom previously voted for them.
What's the solution? What's the best way to fight them and the press and media who promote these moral panics? What makes them so effective?
When I work with local University students they know about neurodivergence and cheerfully accomodate me and I them because they've not drunk in this particular poison. When I work with older people I have to be a bit more careful because they can and sometimes do hold prejudiced views or just aren't aware about accommodating people- and they're the group most likely to read these newspapers or to consume 'both sides' traditional media which will treat Streeting's attacks with kid gloves.
What can we all do to fight this?
I'm changing my vote, as though not as bad as Labour, the SNP has not done as well as the Greens in opposing this and I'm taking the risk of being out more so people can put a known face to those Labour and the media are attacking. I know many others have it much worse but I'm so tired of this.
This was mentioned previously both here and on the Wes Streeting thread in Hell.
Basically despite recent and overwhelming scientific findings to the contrary, Streeting apparently doesn't like those results and so has appointed an alarming team to do him what looks suspiciously like a Cass style review on us - including the main person who horrifically damaged people with ME with his opinions on graded exercise.
As @chrisstiles said
chrisstiles wrote: »There are some early indications that it'll be run on a similar basis to the Cass review:
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/alarm-over-governments-choices-to-lead-over-diagnosis-review-that-could-help-ministers-cut-benefits/
There was a narrower investigation by NHS England that concluded that adhd at least is probably underdiagnosed: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/report-of-the-independent-adhd-taskforce-part-1/
Perhaps that result wasn't politically convenient.
And as I said
By the time a well-massaged report hits newspapers and media who lap it up and trumpet it, it's too late. Streeting can weep crocodile tears about how his hand has been forced and the press will totally cover for him. I'd look at what he does and what he's done - not just what he says.
If he had genuinely changed his views he would stop this review and respond to the research already there which shows underdiagnosis, and he would tackle the well-known barriers that stop ADHD folk especially accessing diagnosis and meds. This stuff isnt a mystery.
Streeting has already shown what he is by how he treated trans people. Nobody should trust him after that.
Well now it begins -
Streeting's hit squad just came back with an interim report which has been spun on the front page of The Times - the same newspaper that did the heavy lifting on spreading the persecution and smearing of trans people.
They know the overdiagnosis stuff is not true and that there's actually huge underdiagnosis because the services are under-resourced so all they've got is innuendo about 'incentivisation' and 'self diagnosis' and 'medicalisation of distress' - so basically all the dogwhistles for 'these people are putting it on and faking.'
It comes in the wake of a well known credentialled dinosaur ( apologies to dinosaurs) giving a woefully wrongheaded and out of date interview to the TES to attack late diagnosed Autistic people - especially women- and something notable about this was that the attack was taken up and spread by leading activists who persecute trans people and who have access to prestigious media platforms.
There is a significant overlap between autistic people and LGBT+ people- so there's been anti-autistic rhetoric in the anti-trans movement from the start - trying to say young trans people are 'just' autistic and trying to use prejudiced notions about autism to then strip their agency away from them to say they cant know their own gender.
But now it's got worse - and part of it seems to hang on the trans persecutors hatred of self-ID which they want to use to force trans people through discriminatory and damaging medical hoops to make life harder for them.
Because it's so hard and the waiting lists are so long to get a diagnosis if you're neurodivergent, a lot of people have to self-ID as they try to get access to help. So the chief anti-trans activists seem to have have seized on this too ( People like Helen Lewis and Kathleen Stock)
I'm honestly tired of this. I'm glad I backed trans people before their opponents really started coming for me too and I'm angry at the 'friends' who were taken in by them and especially at those who allowed these harmful bullying bigots to present themselves as 'feminists' and those who keep taking this line. I'm a woman - I'm not 'protected' - I'm attacked.
I dont know what these people are - they seem to hate autonomy and difference in others, or perhaps they're just social conservatives who want to bully things back to how they were in some imaginary golden age in their heads? When 'men were men and women were women' and autistic people were neither seen nor heard from because we were in institutions or forced to shut up and suffer till we went mad trying to be square pegs in round holes in a society which didn't accommodate us. These people make me sick - and the newspapers and media that platform them, and the political parties that harbour them and do their bidding.
I dont want to post this in Hell as it's so raw and personal for me but I cannot believe that this is what the Labour party have come to. That they are active enemies of so many people in our society and that they have chosen bullies and bigots and their lies over large groups of harmless people, many of whom previously voted for them.
What's the solution? What's the best way to fight them and the press and media who promote these moral panics? What makes them so effective?
When I work with local University students they know about neurodivergence and cheerfully accomodate me and I them because they've not drunk in this particular poison. When I work with older people I have to be a bit more careful because they can and sometimes do hold prejudiced views or just aren't aware about accommodating people- and they're the group most likely to read these newspapers or to consume 'both sides' traditional media which will treat Streeting's attacks with kid gloves.
What can we all do to fight this?
I'm changing my vote, as though not as bad as Labour, the SNP has not done as well as the Greens in opposing this and I'm taking the risk of being out more so people can put a known face to those Labour and the media are attacking. I know many others have it much worse but I'm so tired of this.
Comments
Likewise, except I'm also gay and almost certainly autistic. So the amount of self-immolation this entire shower of cosplay fascists can do is pretty limitless, as far as I am concerned.
I mean, I'm AuDHD and gay, and thus part of the inconvenient population on several levels.