rss feedAutism Speaks attempts to sue autistic child
A fourteen year old from the UK created a parody of the Autism Speaks home page and dubbed it “NT Speaks” (NT = neurotypical). In response, the autism “charity” organization sent her a letter threatening lawsuit and claimed that her site was responsible for them losing $90,000 in fundraising efforts.
This has been causing huge uproar in autism/Asperger message forums, namely aspies for freedom (thread) and livejournal (thread). They decided to “drop the suit” when they found out she was a minor, but they also scared her into taking down her site. As a result, members from various message forums got together and re-purchased the URL and put up their own parody.
(Here’s a blog commentary on the situation.)
The whole thing is ridiculous. Obviously, “Autism Speaks” is a gross misnomer, and the irony is that this organization has singlehandedly demonstrated the concept of the NT Speaks parody: if autism does speak, then surely Autism Speaks isn’t willing to listen. (Or, the next thing they’ll say is that the girl wasn’t “autistic enough,” so perhaps she doesn’t count. Because unless you want to be cured, you don’t have autism.) *groan*
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