Cybersecurity industry & Fed exploiting autistics as spies

Meanwhile, the ADA has never included people on the spectrum of whom, 80-90% are not employed and holding college degrees

Does it surprise you to know that the Americans with Disabilities Act has never accounted for people on the spectrum? Or that the federal government recently started recruiting neurodivergent people for cybersecurity careers. Neurodivergents as a distinct neurotype were essentially declared into being by the United States government. Effectively leapfrogging over the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, where Autism Spectrum Disorder remains a psychiatric designation that influences how people on the spectrum are treated. 

In other words, the federal government conveniently declared us into being. The good news is that we are now a people with a distinctive neurotype. The bad and not at all surprising news is that they did it to exploit young neurodivergent minds to become the country’s spies. Why not? It’s not as if autistic people are not othered and feared enough.

Meanwhile, your tax dollars are poured into autism services (a cost to reach 1 trillion by 2025, according to the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research at UC-Davis) which makes money for non-autistics while stats for autistics not working hold at around 90%.

Now that U.S. cybersecurity, by declaring neurodivergents into being as a people, has given us all permission, let’s dispense with the language of the Lanterman Mental Retardation Act era and use ‘neurodivergent’ for those of us in the neurominority and ‘neurotypical’ for the neurological wiring of the dominant neurotype. 

As long as the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) does not include autistic people, billions of taxpayer dollars are paying for this colossal failure. The culture or influence of this growing autism industry has been that it is widely thought permissible to speak or make decisions for people on the spectrum without ever finding out from us how we feel or what we think. Non-autistic researchers, educators, and policymakers-the autism professionals-continue their tyranny over autistic lives because they consider their findings and opinions sacrosanct. They believe they are helping. If we are invisible and have no voice or credibility, how do we as autistic people tell non-autistic professionals that they are harming more than helping?

Is it any wonder that autistic adults are ten times more likely to commit suicide than everybody else?

I don’t think the autism industry is lacking kind-hearted neurotypicals. What is sorely lacking is a place to put that compassionate intent to beneficial use for the neurodivergent community. How are neurotypicals to do this when they don’t seem to notice or mind that neurodivergents remain invisible and voiceless? Even right in front of them, screaming?