You may think I mean the fight for equal pay for women, or equal protection under the law for nonwhite races, or the right to marriage for our LGBTQ community. Yes, their struggle may now be more difficult, but I’m not talking about them.
I’m talking about the civil rights battle being waged in schools and places of employment, as well as with insurance companies, that the majority of you have never heard of. This is the battle for equal rights in neurodiversity.
Not familiar with the term? Diagnoses like autism, ADHD and dyslexia, to name a few, are examples of neurodiversity. The battle may be harder, but hope is not yet lost.
To my friend with dyslexia who never thought she could get more than a high school diploma, I’m proud of you for going back to school and getting your degree this year. To the autistic man with graduate degrees I met this summer who is stuck driving a cab because he can’t make it through job interviews in his field, keep applying. To the woman with autism I met in Washington, D.C., last winter who was terrified of possible changes in how our government responds to the needs of the disabled, don’t stop advocating for your rights to federal, state and local government.
To the “typers” who use alternate means to communicate, don’t stop pushing to have your voices heard. To the parents fighting school districts to stop bullying and let us stay in mainstream classrooms to have the opportunity to learn the same things as “normal kids,” don’t give up on us now. To the adults with ADHD who need prescriptions to keep their jobs and families from crumbling away but that are “only for children with attention issues,” don’t stop pushing the insurance companies.
To everyone, like me, who is grateful every day that their mother defied doctor’s recommendations to put them directly into an institution instead of taking them home from the hospital at birth, don’t stop trying for a happy life.
This is a fight to stop having children die unnecessarily from restraints and seclusion, or from being forgotten on school buses. This is a fight to keep institutions like Willowbrook State School in New York closed. It’s a fight to get an equal education, to stay out of poverty and be able to have love and happiness no matter how our brains were wired when we were born.
We are fighting for the right to live, learn, work, love and play alongside our “neurotypical” and “physically able” neighbors. This is a call to action to support boots-on-the-ground and advocacy charities like the Autism Society and its affiliates, which have been fighting for disability rights for over 50 years, and other organizations in the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities.
Just like all the other civil rights movements required assistance from outside their core constituencies, we can’t do it alone. We need you to help fight for our rights.
Carly Fulgham is the Autism Society Ventura County’s first board president with an autism diagnosis. She is a founding member of the Autism Society of America’s Public Policy and Advocacy Committee and was appointed this summer to the Autism Society of America’s Panel of People on the Spectrum of Autism Advisors.