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Argument, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
A panellist argued autism research had been built through a white, male, cisgender lens
In short
Asked to explain intersectionality at the closing dialogue of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist asked who had shaped the field’s understanding of autism, and whose lives it left out.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
The question Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, put to a panellist at the closing dialogue of Australia’s first Autistic Pride Day Symposium, in Melbourne on 18 June 2023, was what intersectionality is and how it affects anyone, not only autistic people. The panellist used the answer to ask who had shaped the field’s understanding of autism, and whose lives that understanding left out.
You could do a PhD on it, the panellist said, so they would speak broadly. Intersectionality offers a critical framework of analysis. It asks questions about socially constructed identities, and more particularly it asks about power, about oppression and about power sharing. Applied to what they had heard that day, the panellist said, it would reframe the question and ask what the implications are for people whose identities intersect with race, with sexuality and with gender.
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Sources the story draws on
- Patterns in Reporting and Participant Inclusion Related to Race and Ethnicity in Autism Intervention Literature: Data from a Large-Scale Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Practices (opens in a new tab), Autism (Steinbrenner, McIntyre, Rentschler and colleagues), record on the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute site
- Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics (opens in a new tab), University of Chicago Legal Forum (Kimberlé W. Crenshaw), record on Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive
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