Тania Melnyczuk
@ekverstania
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Disability rights activist, artist & lifelong learner. Mostly at https://t.co/jlCNiy321g #NAFO #SaveGaza #ListenToNonspeakers 😷
🇿🇦
Joined November 2008
Challenge:. STEP 1.Donate any amount (e.g., $5). STEP 2.Get one other person to do steps 1&2. That's it! The goal is now reachable! 🇵🇸.
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Man, this is an interesting exchange. Many people are disadvantaged in this kind of situation: most of us don't have the full set of weapons and skills—body language, posture, tone, eye contact, reading the other guy's responses, quick thinking. This guy has… a lot.
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The argument wasn't won entirely on logic and words. The squeaky guy was discombobulated and allowed himself to be overpowered. The use of the chair was masterful. This whole scene could be analysed by students in a drama class.
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Squeaky was like, “OK, I am not getting a chance to come in with a considered response, so let me just allow this person to go off on a tirade and end up looking stupid”—except his tactic backfired, as the big guy ended up spouting a whole lot of good points—.
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[THREAD] If an enormous number of people end up traumatised by therapists who are doing their work by the book, within the ethical framework of their profession, then maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with that type of therapy.
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If you're used to watching b-boy battles, or male animals performing for females during mating season, in view of their defeated rivals, you'll see what I mean.
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So, lemme analyse how this worked over a series of tweets. I won't finish it all in one sitting, but I'll start here:. A key element is that Big Guy is a trans man who PASSES, and he knows just how well he passes. But at the start of the debate, Squeaky doesn't know he's trans.
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So Big Guy comes with this masculine appearance and body language, and Squeaky falls right into it and calls him “bro”. We, the audience, ALSO don't know he's trans, so it's only upon replay that we can fully enjoy that moment where he takes the bait.
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Oh, here's a version that was trimmed differently. It cuts out some of the middle parts, but retains the moment where Squeaky was still speaking to a previous opponent, and just before Big Guy takes the chair.
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Now the chair works symbolically throughout the debate. It starts with Big Guy beating other men in grabbing it. First masculine victory.
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Your child may have chronic pain and not tell you because they thought everyone feels like that, and they just have to push through.
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Big Guy then flips it with the back to the table, signalling to his opponent that something is a bit different here, but things are moving quickly, so Squeaky is not sure what it means or how to respond to it.
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The flipped chair not only says, “I'm going to do things a little differently here.” The chairback also creates a barrier—a gate or lid to a secret which is revealed later when the chair is flipped, and Big Guy reveals his secret.
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So he uses some kind of heuristic, probably considering the loose-fitting hoodie, the friendly smile, the large body, the beating of the contenders for the chair, and the voice—and he responds accordingly.
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Thirdly, he needs to integrate THIS idea of what a trans man is like with his preconceptions. This guy is SO NORMAL! No blue hair! No funky tie! A normal voice! Normal body language!.
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The speed at which all these things happen—the questions, the seemingly disconnected ideas, jumping from pregnant men to white supremacy—.
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it all moves at a pace of two light middleweight boxers coming in fast for the first punches, with the defending champion sussing out the unknown newbie's unorthodox style, while the newbie has already studied the old champ for a long, long time,.
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On top of it all, anti-trans people are usually arguing mostly with or about trans WOMEN, whom they regard as men. They have a quiver full of arguments ready about bathroom safety and sport.
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Firstly, Squeaky is no doubt super embarrassed for having so easily (in his mind) “mistaken” Big Boy for a man.
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I mean, what is more ordinary than a plain white guy with plain shortish brown hair and a bit of a beard, a plain grey hoodie with no slogan on it, plain denim jeans, and a bit of weight around the middle zone?.
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Secondly, he's probably processing the idea that he was “tricked” into it, only to have to admit to himself that it wasn't a prank or a drag act set up specially for him, because this is most likely Big Guy's NORMAL presentation.
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So now, in a split second, Squeaky must try to recall why he has a problem with trans MEN as well, all whilst listening intently to what this guy (er… "woman" according to his philosophy) is saying, so that he can respond contextually and (victoriously) in front of an audience.
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The last thing he's expecting is that he's sparring against (what his paradigm tells him is) a “woman”, and he has no prepared heuristic for this situation.
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and is priming him for the next round by landing some light jabs from arbitrary directions, confusing him, because it's unclear where he's going with this.
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The old champ is probably metaphorically thinking, “This guy is all over the place. I just need to wait for his first blatant non sequitur, then I will be able to land a barrage of punches and take him out with a TKO.”.
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So when Big Guy DOES reveal the secret, several things happen at once at a pace faster than Squeaky can handle.
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This is worse, because he can't say, “Ah, but you cheated! You wore a disguise.”.
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Patient: I have all these symptoms. Doctor: If you had all those symptoms, the problem would be very complex. I don't deal with complex problems, therefore you don't have all these symptoms. Here is the number of a psychologist who can help you to stop believing yourself.
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But in spite of some parallels, this ISN'T a boxing match, so there's no referee to hold back Big Guy thereby affording Squeaky a few moments to recover from the punches and get back solidly on his feet.
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@DogMachine3 As I said, he didn't win on logic. He just did the same thing to Ben as Ben does to other people, and he even said so when Ben took him on about that. Ben could have accused him of a tu quoque fallacy if he'd been more combative.
The argument wasn't won entirely on logic and words. The squeaky guy was discombobulated and allowed himself to be overpowered. The use of the chair was masterful. This whole scene could be analysed by students in a drama class.
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But that moment never comes, because Big Guy is on a roll, and the ring has turned into a stage. Big Guy knows that the audience is cheering on HIS performance, and he's fired up now by their encouraging signals and by his convictions.
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He stops responding, breaks eye contact for a moment, reaches for his water bottle and takes a swig. Of course, it could also be because he's a bit anxious by now and his throat is dry, but let's go with what it does tactically:.
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In front of the audience, he's “calmly” showing his opponent, “This is a lot of blablabla. I'm taking a quick break while you wear yourself out and run out of steam and then try to provoke me into a response. And I'll be ready to respond.”.
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Without a referee to say “Break” or “End of Round 2”, Squeaky comes up with what appears to be a move intended to stop his opponent's punches:.
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Squeaky is letting Big Guy have the ring for a minute or so, so that Big Guy will look foolish, punching the air performatively now that Squeaky is largely in the corner, not even actively taking part in the fight.
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At the same time, he's trying to think quickly about what he could possibly say as soon as there's a gap, something that could serve as a strong punchline or a final silencing gotcha.
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Note to non-autistic people:. When an autistic person tells you they're anxious of going to some social event, never ever tell them, “You'll be fine. Just be yourself,” because YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.
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So he moves from any expectation of a response or a debate into a full-on big picture sermon.
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He's waiting for the moment when he can smugly raise a pretend-calm eyebrow and say, “Are you done?”.
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One autistic kid used to giggle in class at the voices he could hear which nobody else could hear. Everyone thought he was hallucinating, till an autistic teacher asked him more questions which revealed that he was listening to the conversations of staff in the room next door.
True story - and sometimes it starts with the question "Do you hear things other people don't?" . One autistic person got misdiagnosed with schizophrenia because they answered yes - they literally heard things others didn't. Not that they were having hallucinations.
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I see Big Guy as a dude who runs his own business. He's an extrovert and he has several people reporting to him. Squeaky is a cynical introvert with some niche responsibility, and he's employed by Big Guy.
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Watch this whole thing again without sound. I'm going to tell you what I see. (Deaf people who lipread and who are better at interpreting body language may tell me I am oversimplifying the dynamic, but lemme say it anyway.).
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The Boss has come into Squeaky's office to address a series of selfish errors in judgement which Squeaky has made on the job. The boss is like, “What gives, dude? We don't treat you badly here. You're better than this! How could you do this to the team? Or even to YOURSELF?”.
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Notice how he “owns” the chair. He owns the business, he owns the furniture, and he moves and occupies it how he likes. He leans back fully. He sits forward. Squeaky is sitting on a chair and at a desk which he doesn't own.
Now the chair works symbolically throughout the debate. It starts with Big Guy beating other men in grabbing it. First masculine victory.
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I'm going to guess what Squeaky might say NOW if you asked him why he presented himself in such a weak manner: “I could have acted more powerfully, but I held back once I knew I was dealing with a woman. I know better than to argue with a woman who has a bee in her bonnet.”.
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But if he DID say that, he'd be opening himself up to a barrage of criticism from women too (although I don't know whether that matters to him). And that wouldn't explain away a couple of key moments where he DID choose to engage, and got smacked down.
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For example, there were one or two key moments where Squeaky tried to call attention to the fact that Big Guy wasn't making logical connections between things. At one point, Big Guy responded to that, effectively saying that he's merely giving Squeaky a taste of his own medicine.
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Squeaky could have called out Big Guy for using a tu quoque fallacy there. In other words: “Whether or not I'm a hypocrite is irrelevant, your argument doesn't automatically make sense just because I used this tactic in the past.”.
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Now, bear in mind that although Big Guy made a lot of good points, he didn't actually win on better logic. There were several places where Squeaky could have called him out if he had handled it differently.
The argument wasn't won entirely on logic and words. The squeaky guy was discombobulated and allowed himself to be overpowered. The use of the chair was masterful. This whole scene could be analysed by students in a drama class.
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To all these UK people who are puzzled about why there's sooo much pneumonia going around in your country, lemme tell you a short story about TB (tuberculosis) in South Africa to help you understand what's going on. 🧵.
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I want to tell you something that many people in the autism industry don't know:. Many well-known autistic activists in your local community and the international autism advocacy community ARE STILL BEING ABUSED BY THEIR PARENTS and they can't afford to tell the world. Many.
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And I am not saying Squeaky could have won, but he certainly could have at least stalled his opponent by taking him on logical detours for long enough to run out the clock and to leave no clear winner.
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There are also additional tactics that you can use if someone keeps talking over you or interrupting you, and Squeaky didn't use them. I suspect it's because he was already emotionally defeated and annoyed from early on, so he didn't regain the nerve to fight back with vigor.
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I believe that most autism professionals don't know why nonspeaking autistic people don't speak. They're also not making an effort to learn why. That means most of them don't provide therapies that help nonspeakers to communicate. Yet they make money off nonspeakers' plight.
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I am encouraging a boycott of autism research participation by autists and parents of autistic children, unless autistic people are involved in setting the goals of the studies. Don't participate just because it's about autism. The study design and ethics may be up to maggots.
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[THREAD] If you're an autistic activist who speaks, and you've recently joined the fight for the communication rights of nonspeaking autistic people, I want you to know that you're going to have opposition, particularly from ABA people. This thread is to help you in that fight.
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There are many ABA therapists who, upon hearing of the trauma of ABA survivors, will tell you that "my ABA is not like that" and "you'll always have a few bad apples".
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Your child may have chronic fatigue and they told you they were tired several times when you had things for them to do, but you said, "You can't be tired already, the day has just started.".
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The ABA therapists who were praised were the ones who departed from the textbook and BROKE THE RULES.
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No sensible person agrees to a discussion with Mehdi Hasan without being aware that this is how he does things. As the proverb goes, never bring a knife to a gunfight. You have to have a way of handling this, or you shouldn't agree to the interview.
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Mehdi Hasan's interviewing style includes frequently interrupting the person he's interviewing to pepper that person with accusations to press them for a reply, like this:
If you're following the Erik Prince controversy, you'll enjoy a new highlight clip from my interview with him, in which I ask why he's building 'training facilities' in Xinjiang, where a million Uighur Muslims are in camps, and he tries & fails to deny it:.
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Here he's relentlessly pressing Jill Stein to take an unequivocal stand on whether Vladimir Putin is a war criminal who deserves to be arrested:.
Jill Stein: Netanyahu "is a war criminal, period.". Also Jill Stein: we mustn't call Putin the same because "name-calling" is counterproductive. ↙️. I'll just leave a certain photo ↘️ next to her Mehdi Hasan car crash interview. It seems apt for some odd reason. #Kamala2024
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Those who are wise, who know and value themselves in both strength and weakness, don't allow internalised ableism to get the better of them to the point of humiliation. There is enough humiliation as it is without attracting it through a life of arrogance.
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I'm going to bed now, so I'll explain why later. Most of my autistic friends already get it, because most of us can't effectively pull off these complex dynamics. Many of us end up with body language like Squeaky even if we have a good thing to say.
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Your child may know they are different from other children and constantly be trying to figure out why instructions that work for others don't work for them, but you chose to hide their diagnosis from them instead of equipping them with understanding.
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Remember that study that showed that the autistic subjects were more altruistic, so the researchers pathologised altruism to be able to say that autism is bad because it isn't pragmatic?. Well. .
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Imagine that, starting in the 1970s, researchers came up with the idea that the solution to autistic people's problems was to surround them with neon yellow. They do gazillions of experiments subjecting autistic children to neon yellow and congratulate themselves on the results.
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He keeps talking. He smiles slightly. He uses polite professional facial expressions. Regardless of the CONTENT (which he appears to be thinking up as he goes along), he retains a fairly phlegmatic demeanour.
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Now, although Mehdi manages to corner Erik Prince using logic along with this rapid fire tactic, Prince isn't new to this from Mehdi, and he doesn't show himself to become flustered like Jill Stein does.
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I've heard a few autistic people speak well of their behaviour techs. So the "it depends on the therapist" principle is sometimes true, but not for the reasons you may think.
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I have undertaken to post a piece of writing, or a video or some other artefact every day from a nonspeaking autistic person who uses words or word-linked symbols to communicate.
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"You're too high functioning to. " is Ableist Code for "If you're autistic and I can understand what you're saying, I don't want to.".
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This is an important signal to his base, who won't have a problem with a few logical inconsistencies during cross-questioning, but who admire him for what they perceive to be suavité, conviction and calmness under pressure.
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You know where Planned Ignoring leads? Children turn into insecure adults who think that when you can't give them attention because you're busy, tired etc. it must be about them, like you're doing it on purpose to punish them.
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So what does this Prince of Darkness do that Squeaky Man doesn't do?.
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Dx = diagnosis.Fx = fracture.Hx = history.Px = procedure.Rx = prescription.Sx = symptom.Tx = treatment. Someone who used to work in pharmacy just named these abbreviations, which were the ones they could remember. Now the rest of us know too!.
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@elsalwilliams One of my friends was suicidal but too numb to look as depressed as the doctor expected so he sent her away telling her she's fine even though she said she wasn't.
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A weird thing here is that much of what's happening here shouldn't matter.
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Do you realise how often ableism involves "You have to stay"?. You have to stay in the room. You have to stay on the phone. You have to stay in the conversation, the classroom, the kitchen, the workshop. If you leave, it's rude. It's passive aggressive. It's everything except.
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[THREAD] It appears that most of the autism training given to teachers and autism professionals is based on a science fiction book from 1997. .
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BAD AUTISM STUDY. Thank you for your interest in our Bad Autism Study. This study is based on previous bad autism studies, but with some enhancements and extra questions to make it worse. If you're a veteran participant in bad autism studies, you'll recognise some old questions.
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When they diagnosed your child with that disability, did they tell you to make contact with as many people as possible who actually have that disability, and to read a great variety of their writing? Or did they just tell you to chat to their parents?.
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Your child may have many symptoms that don't fit that diagnosis, but you are using that one diagnosis to explain everything, and you're calling it all 'behaviour'.
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I don't think this hat suits me. For comparison, here's a pic of me without the hat.
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[THREAD] .If you are teaching autistic children, you must not teach them an oversimplified lie like that if someone smiles, it means they are happy. If you do, you're basically gaslighting them. You can teach them that smiling is often a sign that someone may be happy.
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. his mother has fired a lot of therapists before finding this one, because most of them were unaccustomed to nonspeakers setting their own goals, and couldn't work with that.
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I also want to describe what one autistic teenager has said. He's still in ABA he speaks well of ABA. He says it helps him. Unlike most of the therapists praised by autists, HIS therapist seems to be going mostly by the book. And. .
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Random acts of kindness are no replacement for consistent acts of justice.
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It's not 'growing pains'. There's no such thing. It's PAEDIATRIC PAIN and it is NOT a normal part of growing up. It hurts because something is wrong. You should have been believed. You should have had support.
@Madames_Obscura Growing pains don't exist. If a child has regular inexplicable pain, then Something Is Wrong and this should be investigated. Like, if you have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or a tethered cord, early diagnosis and management can help.
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What these people are advocating is child abuse. I know the way they put it doesn't sound bad, but this is about a very controlled, clinically callous form of manipulation. I'll drop some more links below so you can understand the context.
Active ignoring is one of the best ways to reduce attention-seeking behavior. But remember, active ignoring takes time and practice to perfect. Some caregivers also work with a professional trained in effectively utilizing active ignoring. These tips come from a conversation
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This is the vibe we're getting now: . "I wanted a career in helping autistic children. It never crossed my mind to ask a lot of autistic adults what helped them when they were children or what they would have wanted, so now I'm a BCBA with momentum, looking to justify my work.".
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Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is so tough, because people end up learning to disguise just how clingy they really are, knowing that friends many abandon them if they know the extent of the desperation. So they act all casual and frivolous while in a state of constant fear.
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Being believed when you're autistic and sick (but similar things happen to many other people, esp. those with a psychosocial disabilities and anyone who is female or trans). And ask Black women about getting pain acknowledged by people in healthcare.
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Us: Listen to autistic people. Them: No, you're adults. Our research is about children. Us: We were once children, and we care about children.
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@NeuroBee @SueReviews @CampsmountAcad The purpose of this school is to teach children that adults are mostly unwise and unfair, for, were it not so, the system would have been overthrown. She has learned well.
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If you are any kind of autism professional, you need to interact with actual autistic people in person regularly in an environment where you have no authority. To learn.
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If you recently got a surprise diagnosis of autism in adulthood, welcome to the club. I got mine nearly 13 years ago in my early 40s. A word of caution before you go around doing autism advocacy now: get some insight into the breadth and depth of other people's experiences.
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