The Inviting Trap Of Aspie Supremacy

‘Non-autistic people rarely think about the results of their actions on others…It’s almost as if we (Autistics) have a much higher propensity for self examination’

I came across this in a LinkedIn post recently. I generally ignore posts that don’t resonate with me but are otherwise harmless, and try to call in where a post aligns with isms and reinforces systems of harm, provided the poster has more access to whiteness than myself. The latter was applicable here, so I shared my thoughts. I didn’t receive a reply from the poster. I am not writing this piece to single them out, nor to invite any ill will towards them or those who share these kinds of views. It is, however, something that needs discussion. This way of thinking is present in many posts, many events, in some ways the whole approach to Neurodivergent advocacy and activism, and the response from the community is generally positive and normalising. There is a prevalent narrative among Autistics that we are in some ways ‘better’ than non-autistics, and though sometimes this inference is subtle, once you are on a journey of healing from the underlying ableism at play here, you can’t un-see it. In writing this piece, I hope to help others to begin to heal.