Autism and Likeability: Preliminary Notes

I’ve been dragging my feet on the post I promised Charlotte Ashley I’d write – an analysis, following my theory of character likeability, of why people claim that autistic characters are unlikeable.

I finally noticed the reason I was having trouble talking about this: It’s outside my experience. This has not actually happened to me.

Here are some complaints I’ve been given more than once (in critique groups and by beta readers) about my characters:

  1. They are too generic; we don’t get a sense of who they are as people.
  2. Their relationships are too generic; we don’t get a sense of why they care about their supposed love interests, or (in some cases) if they really do in the first place.
  3. They are too weak, passive, victimized, whiny instead of carrying the story. They just give up at the end.
  4. They come off as immature, selfish, or shallow
  5. They make too many stupid decisions, ignore obvious solutions to their problem, or generally flail around not knowing what to do / not planning properly.

Some of these are relevant to likeability, but none of them are quite the thing Charlotte was talking to me about. And the really tricky part is, I don’t think any of them specifically relate to writing autistic characters. For me they happen just as often, maybe even more often, when I’m trying to write an NT.

You could make an argument that some are related to me being autistic. It’s certainly easy to draw comparisons between 1 and 2 and a lack of cognitive empathy. But I really don’t like this line of thinking. Generic, shallow characters are a problem 90% of newbie authors have, regardless of neurotype. Writing deep and complex people is a skill. It’s learned! I’ve seen other aspiring authors on the spectrum wondering if they should quit before they start, because they’ll never be able to write deep and nuanced characters the way NTs do, and that makes me mad. When NT authors have problems like this, they get told to build their skills and given the tools to start doing that. I’ve improved a lot at writing good characters over the years, though of course I still have a ways to go – so I see no other reason other autistic authors can’t do the same damn thing.

Plus, while these five issues are chronic issues for me, they don’t appear in every story. In fact, I’ve been complimented on some of my characters and their likeability! It just depends what I’m doing, who I’m writing, and how in-tune with the story I am.

I find that, when I have a long time to experiment and play with a character – longer than the short-story medium generally allows – I get to know them much more deeply. So my most popular characters are in RPGs for the most part, which is perhaps not helpful.

As for weak, passive, victimized, whiny, shallow, immature, selfish, or bad at decision-making – I don’t think any of those are inherent traits of autistic people, though some forms of social skills training perhaps attempt to inculcate them into us. (I don’t think I got that kind of training, but there are other reasons why I struggle with character agency, which is the root that ties all of those complaints together.)

So, instead of having some grand and sweeping thing to say about autistic characters, I actually want to open up the floor. If you’ve tried to write autistic characters, or if you’re on the spectrum somewhere and have tried to write any type of character, what problems do you typically run into? What do you typically get told about your characters’ likeability or lack thereof? Have you built your skills at solving some of these problems? Or do they seem insoluble? Or do you feel that they’re problems with reader prejudice (like the problems that can crop up with “unlikeable” female characters), not problems that originate with you?

I’d like to hear a wide variety of viewpoints on this if people are comfortable sharing, and I’d be happy to hear experiences from allistic people, too, especially if you have some other marginalization which affects how you write characters and how your characters are received by readers.

Another thing about passing

Addendum to the “passing” discussion from a month or two ago:

I realized recently that I don’t actually pass as well as I think I do.

What do I mean when I say I have “passing privilege”? I basically mean that, if I’m prepared and understand what’s going on, I can walk into a room full of strangers, perform some expected interaction, and walk out again, in a way that approximates “normal” sufficiently closely that none of the strangers end up squinting at me and saying, “Hey, I bet that girl is disabled.”

I mean, this is a form of passing, and it is a form that some people can’t do. It is not a thing to take for granted, and I didn’t always have it (although the time when I didn’t have it was really only a couple of very bad years in my early teens).

In anything more complicated than the “room full of strangers” scenario, though? At work, or in a friendship, or – heaven forbid – in a romantic or family relationship? No, I don’t pass. People might not sit up straight and say “she’s autistic”, but with sufficient IRL interaction, everybody starts to notice something’s up, even if they can’t put their finger on it.

People who get this level of interaction generally fall into 3 groups.

1. People who get mad or dismissive or grossed out because I am weird. I don’t get as many of these as I used to in junior high school; partly because I really am doing better, and partly because I’ve learned to just freeze and be super quiet and not noticed instead of doing things that might elicit this reaction. I do occasionally still get them, though, especially if they are in a position of authority and are wondering why I’m not following their instructions properly.

2. People who like the weird, and who mention it as one of the reasons they like me. (Being in this category is kinda a prerequisite for dating me, BTW.) Nobody ever says to me, “You’re not weird,” except in one very specific context that I’ll maybe talk about later. But a lot of people say, “Hey yes, you’re weird in mostly good ways, and I like that about you.” Often these are people who are pretty weird or non-neurotypical in some way themselves.

(As a side note, this is why I’m not wild about the classification of the word “crazy” as a slur. Because a lot of the people in this precious second group use the word “crazy” to describe the things they like about me. It can be used in a dehumanizing way, but not always. “You’re crazy” can mean “Yes, I see you. I see the things that are different and sometimes-difficult about you, and it’s okay, you are cool in a way that includes these things.” It can mean other non-dehumanizing things, too. This is seriously ALL about context. I’ve been on the receiving end of all of these usages regularly, and the insulting ones suck, but I really do not want the non-insulting usages to be taken away from me. Replacing them with some random neurological or mental health diagnostic term doesn’t always make any sense.)

People in this group don’t pretend that my neurotype is all cute quirks and rainbows. They see that I struggle with certain things and that it’s hard sometimes. But they see that there are some really good things about being me, too, and overall they like me and like spending time with me. This is WAY better than people who pretend that my weirdness doesn’t exist.

3. People who treat me as though I have a chronic physical illness. This especially happens in professional contexts, when I am trying very hard to act normal and polite. I can cover up the “weird” and “crazy” behaviors if I try, but when I am simply overwhelmed and can’t function, there’s no covering that.

I had a friend in a church choir, for instance, who was always motherly and nice and never breathed a word about me being “weird” or “crazy”. But every few weeks I would get the You’re So Pale All Of A Sudden, Go Sit Down And Put Your Head Between Your Knees, You Should Eat A Lot Of Chicken Soup, Get Better Soon talk. Then she would drive me home and I would get home and be out of the overwhelming church environment and be just fine, thank you. No actual sickness here!

She never quite worked that one out.

This is a form of passing, but it’s not the same as being mistaken for someone whose physical/sensory endurance and emotional reactions work normally.

I think sometimes I over-emphasize my own passing privilege. It is a thing that I’ve worked for, and it certainly makes my life easier than it was in junior high school. But often when I get up and say “But Obviously I Have All The Passing Privilege,” it’s not about acknowledging the work that I’ve done to fit in, or about acknowledging honestly that some lives are harder than mine (which they are). It’s, perversely, a kind of a brag. Look At Me. Look How High Functioning I Am, even if I know better than to actually use that term. Look How Socially Approved All My Behavior Is.

Except not only is that insulting to other autistic people who don’t fit that metric, but it’s not true. All The Passing Privilege (as opposed to Some Of The Passing Privilege, Plus Getting Away With Things ‘Cause I’m Smart Or Cute) has never really been my life, anyway.

(Same goes for the other common refrain of high-functioning folks, “But I Get Through Life Without Too Many Accomodations”… Which, just like this one, is kinda-sorta-true-ish but not, and is a way of measuring oneself on entirely the wrong axis. What’s “too many” accomodations, anyway? Who decides?)

So, tl;dr, I need to stop talking about myself this way.

Autism News, 2014/05/08

(This particular news post lacks content warnings, I’m having trouble figuring out how to do them fairly this week. Content should be fairly obvious from the names of the links and from my short descriptions, but I’m not sure. Meh.)

Here is some FDA news. There was recently an FDA hearing on the use of aversives (including randomly administered electric shocks) for the treatment of autism at the Judge Rotenberg Centre; the panel recommended that the shock devices be banned. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should super urgently read this.

Ari Ne’eman and some other people live-tweeted parts of the hearing. This was really interesting to me and I wanted to Storify it but forgot that there is a time limit on when you can Storify people’s tweets, so there is no Storify here, sorry.

Very soon afterwards there was a hearing by a Congressional subcomittee on law enforcement treatment of adults with disabilities, following the death of Ethan Saylor, who had Down’s syndrome and suffocated while being restrained by police because of an unpaid movie ticket. I didn’t Storify this in time either. (Autistic people are subject to this kind of thing too, especially young autistic men who have a meltdown or other uncontrollable behavior when cornered by police.) Here is a (very short) article.

Other posts on law and professional care issues:

  • The FDA has a friendly reminder about bogus and dangerous autism treatments
  • The Combating Autism Act is still apparently up for renewal; here is a #StopCombatingMe PSA by ASAN
  • Star Ford on specificity, and on how professionals who are supposed to provide autism support often aren’t giving the kinds of support that we need most

April 30, the last day of Autism Acceptance Month, was designated Autism Positivity Day and there was a flash blog. Yay! This one comes with a bunch of poetry, too!

Intersectionality section:

Misc:

Meanwhile, in the Sad Things section, we have Robert Robinson, a 16-year-old Canadian boy murdered in a murder-suicide by his mother last month. Once again, mainstream news coverage mostly blames this on “lack of services”.

Autism and Appropriation

This is a partial response to Jim Hines’ post “Diversity, Appropriation, and Writing the Other“. Jim’s post makes a lot of good general points that have been made before a lot of times (and he rightly links to some of the more marginalized people who have made those points before). He also says:

Another facet of the conversation: when talking about autism in fiction, the titles I see people recommending again and again are often written by neurotypical authors. I wouldn’t say that automatically means these authors are appropriating the stories of people with autism. Some of those stories are very thoughtful and well-researched. But it troubles me to see whose voices are being promoted, and whose are being ignored. And while some of those stories may be well-researched, others are not. They portray a shallow understanding of autism, reinforcing myths and cliches for the entertainment and consumption of neurotypical readers.

While I don’t actually disagree at all with this point, I think it would be useful for me to clarify some aspects of how appropriation works, in the disability community, which Jim and other abled readers might not be aware of.

Disability can be considered a cultural identity sometimes (as in “Deaf culture” or “Autistic culture”) but it’s not generally a cultural identity which is passed down in the same way as racial or ethnic identities. Even when two autistic people get married and have babies, there’s no guarantee that the babies will all be autistic, since the genetic components of autism are complicated and not well-understood. So for most autistic people, there is a stage when the person (or their parents, or teachers, or doctors) are starting to think that they might be autistic, but they are not sure yet.

There are also a lot of autistic people who have no idea yet that they could be autistic. And there are a lot of autistic people who know perfectly well that they are autistic, but who have chosen not to disclose this to the public, even when they are talking about autism-related issues.

Many other disabilities also work in this way. There is legitimate uncertainty, and also legitimate hiding.

So when we get very worked up about the idea of appropriation, and the idea that only disabled people should do certain disability-related things, we risk making a couple of mistakes which can be more harmful to disabled people than actual appropriation. First, when people are in a stage where they’re not sure yet, we can inadvertently give them the idea that it’s not okay for them to talk or think about themselves in disability terms, because they’re not a “real” disabled person and they’re being appropriative. Second, any time we start talking about “real” disabled people we are at risk of a form of identity policing which silences invisibly disabled people, disabled people who choose to pass as non-disabled, or anyone who happens not to fit our stereotype of what disability should look like, for whatever reason.

No one should have to prove they’re disabled enough to tell their own stories. This is a type of gatekeeping that DOES happen – sometimes in the name of avoiding appropriation, and sometimes for more obviously ableist reasons. (Like when people say insulting things about autism, and autistic people complain, and the people who said the insulting things do a dance of “But you’re too high-functioning to know what this is really like!”) It’s sometimes meant well, but it is always insulting and intrusive.

Here is an example from Tumblr recently, in which a person gets yelled at for wanting to use autism communication badges at a potentially non-autistic event. The person who invented the badges then shows up with a very interesting explanation of why communication badges (and many other accessibility technologies) are actually good for everyone to use!

Here is my personal policy: If you write an insulting or inaccurate story about autism, I’m going to call you out. If you write a good, accurate, and insightful story about autism, I’m going to point that out too. If you’re openly autistic and it’s relevant to the story, I’ll mention that. If you’re openly autistic and folks are asking me for a list of SFF books by openly autistic people, I’m going to mention your SFF book. But if you are not openly autistic and feel you can write something accurate and insightful about autism, please DO. I am NOT going to call you appropriative for doing that, regardless of how you identify. We do need more stories by openly autistic people, but we also need more stories BY ANYONE, point blank, in which we are written intelligently and respectfully and treated as actual humans.

We need those stories WAY MORE than we need more identity police.

It is fine if your personal policy is not the same as mine. But please think very, very carefully before you accuse an apparently-not-disabled person of appropriating something from the disability community. It can hurt much more than it helps.

Goblin Love Song

I’ve got a spooky little poem up in the latest issue of The Literary Hatchet.

It’s free! And I love how they illustrated the page. This one’s possibly NSFW, though, especially if you read out loud. 🙂

Lip Service to Diversity?

I had a very busy weekend and it may be a few more days before my online presence is up and running again. But for now, here is a link to a cool article by Bogi Takács. Bogi talks about white, cis, able-bodied American men who get signal boosted for talking about diversity, and then links to a bunch of other people you can signal boost instead. I’m flattered e picked Autistic Book Party as one of the 5 + 1 diverse blogs e enjoys reading! The others on the list are cool, too.