In this episode of Autistic Advocacy, Matt and Angela take a hard look at the “Make America Healthy Again” executive orders—examining how proposed wellness camps and health policies echo dangerous historical patterns and pose real threats to autistic and disabled communities.

🎧 What You’ll Learn:

• A history we can’t ignore – How fascist regimes have targeted neurodivergent people, including Hans Asperger’s eugenics-linked legacy of labeling autistic people as “worthy” or “unworthy” of survival.
• Autism is not an illness – Why autism can’t and shouldn’t be “cured,” and how it’s an integral, natural part of human diversity.
• Internalized ableism & ABA harm – The impact of internalized ableism among low-support-needs autistics, plus a breakdown of ABA’s behavioral roots and its troubling ties to Lovaas and gay conversion therapy.
• Flawed autism levels – Why “functioning labels” are classist and ableist, more about capitalist performance than true support needs.
• Representation doesn’t equal advocacy – Why Elon Musk’s autism diagnosis doesn’t make him a voice for the autistic community’s values.
• Intersection of rights – The overlap between trans and disabled rights, and how political policies dehumanize both groups.
• Myth-busting vaccines – A reaffirmation that vaccines do not cause autism, and that autistic people have always existed—and always will.

Resources:

Facebook Post – Dr. Angela Kingdon – A personal autistic perspective on the dangers of the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative and its implications for disabled and neurodivergent communities. Read on Facebook

ASAN Statement – Autistic Self Advocacy Network – “ASAN Condemns Announcement of President’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Commission” outlines how these policies are dangerous to autistic and disabled people and rooted in harmful ideologies. Read the full statement on ASAN’s website

Related Episodes:

Fighting Internalized Ableism

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