I am autistic, but I am not Spock!!

I am autistic, but I am not Spock!!

I have just read a quite disturbing post from a fellow autistic which appears to perpetuate the myth that we autistics are unfeeling automatons and as such “less than human.”

It is widely acknowledged amongst the autistic community and autistic researchers such as Dr Damian Milton : (Milton, D. (2012) On the Ontological Status of Autism: the ‘Double Empathy Problem’. Disability and Society. Vol. 27(6): 883–887) that the majority of autistic people, including myself, do NOT lack emotion and are NOT “biologically incapable of feeling emotion,” nor are they biologically unable to feel or demonstrate emotion. Nor are autistic individuals “oblivious to how they are perceived by others.” Many of us are very self-aware and traumatised by how they are perceived or misinterpreted by others.