Peter Crosbie

#ProfoundAutism campaigners claim their proposed term is endorsed by the 2021 Lancet Commission. In actuality, that task force was about better supporting ALL autistic people. But it was hijacked by PR-savvy “profound autism” lobbyists to promote their cause. buttondown.com/TPGA/archive... #autism

Also a lack of reliable figures on how many people actually have an autism diagnosis.

"the construct lacks scientific validity and may reflect social or political considerations more than biological distinction."

Still grappling with the loss of Dr. Jason Arday, as you likely are too. He should still be here, he should still be with his family, he should still be sharing his Black autistic wisdom with students and with the world. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Appalling. Autism remains massively, massively underdiagnosed. The subtext here is not just that an autism diagnosis is bad, but that autism itself is bad. We’re still a long way from accepting autistic people for who they are, rather than fearing what they represent.

Everyone understands and accepts that each non-autistic person is unique and different. Why is it so hard to understand the same in regards to autistic people?

This x1000.

This isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerous and harms autists. No one is going to believe it, but it perpetrates the idea that something out there can “cure” autism. In doing so it shifts the discourse from acceptance and support to one where we need to be “saved” from our autism, that we’re damaged.

If any other population group had a life expectancy 20-odd years below the norm, there’d be a national outcry. Autistic people? Crickets..

"Yes it feels like there's this moral panic about these massive rises in the levels of diagnosis but in reality they're just rising to meet the underlying prevalence." (And this is only in children ... most adults remain undiagnosed.) www.instagram.com/reels/Dd4aES...

"... they are wilfully conflating autism and co-occurring conditions and disabilities, and then saying autism without those things isn't autism." @petewharmby.com

"The results of these surveys show that autism rates appear to remain similar across age groups ... the proportion of people born each year in the past 70–80 years who meet criteria for autism is stable." There is no increase in actual rates. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant." = no increase in autism over time. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Born in 1891, Dr. Grunya Sukhareva described autism nearly 20 years before Kanner and Asperger. Overlooked due to sexism, antisemitism, and politics, her ahead-of-its-time work is now being rightfully reclaimed. She didn’t just predict autism research, she helped shape it.

Autism has always been with us.

Setting understanding and acceptance of autism back half a century. It's going to be a long way back. Autistic people are being used as fodder in the culture walls, irrespective of the damage.

"as the National Autistic Society said, people are born autistic and remain autistic for life."

CN: Suicide "Autistic people face enough suicidal ideation without being asked to think of themselves as nothing more than burdens to their loved ones, & I can’t support or contribute to any conversation that increases that risk." @fodderfigure.bsky.social: thinkingautismguide.com/2025/03/auti...

"We confirm that autism is genetic. Most autistic people are autistic because of genes they got from their parents. This is why autism often runs in families. Less commonly, there can be other genetic factors." www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-g...

A precious and much needed book by Chantelle Jessica Lewis and Jason Arday - "We'll see things they'll never see. Love, hope and neurodiversity." Prof. Arday died so recently, after a barrage of hate. Anyone who holds up a light against the evil in this world may wish to buy it.

Autism starts in the womb, long before a child is born. You cannot become autistic, any more than you can become left-handed (if you aren't). It's how your brain is wired and how your mother made you. Vaccines don't cause autism because they can't. Born autistic, die autistic.

I know, let’s just pretend they don’t have ADHD or autism, and save lots of money.

We are running an Autistic Language preference survey. If you would like to take part, find out more here forms.gle/rqsFpXVdzbXL... #ActuallyAutistic #autism #Autistic #AuDHD #AutisticLanguagePreference

For anyone interested in the tragedy around Jason Arday, deep dive here challenging many of the accusations.

"If you see a disabled person online and they seem happy, remember that you are seeing one moment of their life. You don’t know what happened before they opened the app. You don’t know what will happen after they close it." @ayannasanaa.bsky.social: phenomenallyautistic.substack.com/p/the-loneli...

There can never be too many people diagnosed autistic. There can only be too many autistic people left undiagnosed.

Amongst the pearl-clutching in regards to the numbers of people being diagnosied autistic, it's clear that much of the world has failed to grasp just how many autistic people there really are. Diagnosed autistics are only the tip of the iceberg. 1% of the human pop. 81 million of us.

Jason Arday's friend, the Cambridge University Professor of Clinical Psychology, Simon Baron Cohen, posted on X on 31 July 2026

Anti-vaxers go on an on about how the multitude of vax/autism studies on millions of kids which show no link are invalid because they don't use a placebo. (Not strictly true, but heh ...) Yet they're all in on the discredited Wakefield study. Which didn't use a placebo or control group of any kind.

For as long as there have been humans there have been autistic humans. We’ve always been here.

To be regarded as “not autistic enough” is to face a double whammy, to be erased twice – first by the invisible disability, then by disbelief. -Peggy Lee www.straitstimes.com/opinion/when... #autism #autistic #neurodiversity

Aha! So, to recap, Prof. Uta Frith reckons autistic people might be imagining it/catching it off TikTok, etc (paraphrased) and it's not science.🤔 Her old pupil, SBC, has ventured forth with a research team who've said, "Oh yes it is!" And for ADHD. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... /ctd

There is no known biological mechanism whereby a vaccine can cause you to become autistic. Just as there's no known biological mechanism which can change your handedness. Both are hard-wired into your brain from birth.

Alongside Silberman’s Neurotribes, this is compulsory reading. Expands on Chapman’s Empire of Normality

Dear journalists: Please stop featuring parents who obviously resent their autistic children, belittle things their children love, and catastrophize their disabilities. Dunking on kids is a shitty thing for any parent to do. That includes autistic children (kids or adults). 1/2

"It takes more work to communicate with someone whose native language isn't the same as yours. And autism goes deeper than language and culture; autistic people are 'foreigners' in any society." -Jim Sinclair, from the foundational essay Don't Mourn For Us: www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.h... #autism

"Autistic children only get one childhood, & they deserve properly qualified & properly experienced professional teams. Teams that consider autistic ways of communication, ethics, human rights & potential harms very carefully indeed." @annmemmott.bsky.social: thinkingautismguide.com/2023/05/aba-...

Oh fascinating! SZA says she got a formal autism diagnosis. This is a huge deal because Black and female #ActuallyAutistic people frequently get overlooked or go undiagnosed. Hopefully this leads to less stigma around who can be autistic. www.complex.com/music/a/alex...

Society: we want you to be able to work, even disabled Disabled person with a job but needs accommodation or simply understanding Society: no, not like that Now disabled person without a job needs assistance to live Society: stop being lazy & get a job Yall, we can’t win

If people are wondering why autism diagnosis rates are increasing here's a clue - there's a massive population of undiagnosed autistic adults. "in the UK 89% of autistic people aged 40 to 59, and 97% of those aged 60+, are undiagnosed." Clearing the backlog. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

One of the hardest adjustments after discovering our neurodivergence in adulthood is realising how striving for “normal” is an uphill battle we were never meant to climb.

Avery Mann, 32, received the phone call from friend Freya Emerson, 29, at 4.53pm last Saturday for a “catch up” with no clear purpose that lasted an excruciating 73 minutes.

"A big part of #ableism is the inability to understand that being able to do something occasionally with great effort doesn't equal being able to it for 40 hrs/week." Credit: laylamessner #MySeveralWorlds #DisabilityAwareness #MyChronicLife

My latest for Psychology Today: "Why We Need Neurodiversity Pride." "To be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent is to be...a social outcast." www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/livi... cc: @thinkingautism.com @shannonrosa.bsky.social @disabilitystor1.bsky.social @lollardfish.bsky.social

RFK Jr demanded the *retraction* of a 20 yr Danish study that showed aluminums in vaccines do not cause health issues. The journal REFUSED saying the study has been peer-reviewed and found to have no significant flaws. Imagine asking science to un-science itself.