I mentioned this incident briefly in another thread, but now I’ll go into the details about a fairly recent time when I felt discriminated against (forgive me for a rather long post).
I’ve mentioned here before that I identify as polyamorous. In October 2021 I started attending a polyamory Meetup. They would meet for picnics in a park. I was hoping to make some friends and/or maybe even find someone (or a few people) to have a relationship with. I always acted friendly when I socialized and people seemed nice.
When I wasn’t there, and met with my speech therapist, she gave me some tips on how to act there – how not to look “weird” or “creepy” – like not staring at people or standing by people waiting for them to notice me. She also suggested not walking around the place waiting for a good moment to start talking to someone. I tried to apply those suggestions when I was there. Nobody ever seemed to show any negative feelings towards me – certainly none that would appear obvious.
Then at my 4th time with the group, there were a group of women walking to the restroom. I needed to use the restroom, too, and I didn’t quite know where it was, so I walked with them. It simply never occurred to me that following them to the restroom would make them feel uncomfortable. When I arrived my 5th time with the group, one of the organizers said that people had been complaining about me. She mentioned the incident of my following the women to the restroom, and that I was standing too close to people. She also mentioned that people were trying to give signals that they wanted to stop conversing with me and I kept on going. That certainly had me shaken because I know all about my various kinds of behavior that I’m often unaware of and that other people may find undesirable. I’m certainly not good at reading body language. I do better with verbal signals. Like if someone told me I was standing too close I would have backed up. So at my 6th time with the group I disclosed to the organizer that I’m autistic. She seemed to understand – she said her brother’s autistic, and that she was just trying to be helpful with her feedback and not to chastise me. That day seemed to go quite nice.
But the following week I got a message from one of the organizers that they got more complaints from people, and they removed me from the group. They said they don’t have the ability to provide support to me necessary to address the apparent foibles while ensuring others are not impacted. And that the only condition for me to return is for me to have a support person to attend with me. That was plainly ableist discrimination!
There’s an organization I’m part of that provides support and services to autistic people. I told my personal advocate about it, and she had a meeting with one of the organizers about it. She said they said one of the participants complained that I touched her leg and when she got up to go somewhere else she thought I was following her. That sounds completely false. If I did touch someone’s leg it was an accident. But I can’t see how that could have happened without my noticing it. I also don’t remember following anyone that day. It could be that I got up to talk to someone else and walked in the same direction, or I was walking around and simply passed this person. My personal advocate said the organizer said that they understood I meant no harm, but their policy is that they take all complaints seriously, and that anyone who gets 2 complaints from people gets removed from the group. I was told this issue could be revisited in 6 months, but I don’t know if it would be worth it. Even if I gave in and started coming with a support person, people might still complain about me and I’d get removed again. So maybe what happened is a best case scenario and I should just say screw the group.
