Last week President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States’ secretary of health and human services, held a press conference during which they linked use of the common pain reliever acetaminophen during pregnancy to autism. The pair also promoted the drug leucovorin, a derivative of vitamin B9 typically used to help with the side effects of chemotherapy, as a “treatment” for children with symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.
Scientists around the world have denounced the administration’s claims about acetaminophen, with Autistic Self Advocacy Network releasing a statement on behalf of multiple advocacy organizations calling for “decision-making based on quality science and compassion for the autism community.” Kennedy’s previous suggestions that vaccines can be linked to autism have sparked pushback as well.
I’ve made futile efforts to apply some measure of logic to the Trump administration’s gravely misinformed, recklessly regressive claims about autism over the last few months. But there’s no denying how damaging their rhetoric is for autistic people like me.
As a later-diagnosed AuDHDer with relatively low support needs and a writer who has equipped myself with the tools needed to speak out against my own oppression, I’m all too aware of the privilege my anger contains. I’ve become a student of the neurodiversity movement because of how empowering its language has been for the parts of me I’ve repressed and swallowed over the years. In 2023 I created a podcast titled Dreaming Different to explore a future designed around the power of neurodivergence.
Even when it isn’t buttressed by misinformation and invective, ableism shames and isolates. But it’s such a pervasive part of our daily language and social norms that it can be hard to avoid—including as a disabled person. My own shows up as guilt over not being “productive enough” by hypercapitalist standards or “normal enough” to fit into a social setting.
But I’ve also come to love my neurodivergence. It informs the depth of my artistry and my capacity to care for others. In a world that constantly frames disability as a disease—a world where a member of the U.S. Cabinet has asserted that “autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children”—loving myself fully is an act of resistance. I wish it weren’t that way.
More often than not conversations about autism are led by people who parent autistic children or care for an autistic person in their life. While these are important pathways to collective understanding, autistic people themselves can no longer afford to be left out of the discourse. If you really want to understand what it means to live with autism, read books by autistic authors. Follow conversations happening on social media platforms by searching #actuallyautistic, #autisticjoy, and #autist. Beyond just following the individuals on Love on the Spectrum, seek out content creators who are sharing their daily, direct experiences of being Black and autistic, Asian and autistic, queer and autistic, multiply disabled and autistic. Diversify where you get your information, because as another saying goes, “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”
As the Trump administration’s rhetoric ramps up, we should continue to focus as a society on accessibility and inclusion, empowerment, and understanding. Autistic people don’t need to be peddled a chancy fix or to be treated like burdens to the people around us. Instead we should receive better research, better health care, and, most of all, better representatives. We may not have control over how the White House portrays us, but we can hold on to the vision of a better, more humane future—and design our lives around the values that can make that vision possible.