I Don’t Want to Be Cured of my Autism or Queerness

So why is this still up for discussion?

Image credit: Miss Luna Rose on Wikimedia under Creative Commons Licence

The Daily Mail published an article on Sunday about a study that claimed autism can be “reversed”. The newspaper’s standards of journalism are poor, and it was clear that it hadn’t done any due diligence on the research claiming to “cure” autism.

I’m a Ph.D. student, academic, and registered mental-health nurse, so headlines like this always raise suspicion and require further investigation. So, I downloaded the original research paper to go over with a fine-tooth comb.

I’m also autistic, and I’m tired of researchers trying to find a cure for a core part of my identity. I’m also queer, and in the UK, conversion therapy is still perfectly legal. I wish people would refrain from trying to fix folks like me.

We’re not broken.

Last week’s King’s Speech introduced a draft bill by the governing Labour Party to ban LGBTQ+ conversion therapy. Theresa May’s government had vowed to ban conversion practices in 2018, and Boris Johnson supported a ban before making a U-turn, followed by Rishi Sunak, who also failed to pass a ban. Their excuse was that it was a complex issue for trans people. It isn’t.

The Labour Government’s draft bill will be fully inclusive of trans people…