Jim Sinclair (activist)
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Jim Sinclair is an American autistic activist and writer who helped pioneer the neurodiversity movement.[1] Sinclair, along with Xenia Grant and Donna Williams, formed Autism Network International (ANI).[2] Sinclair became the original coordinator of ANI.[3] Sinclair is an advocate for the anti-cure position on autism, arguing that autism is an integral part of a person's identity and should not be cured.[4] Sinclair is intersex and uses Xe/Xem/Xyr pronouns.[5][6]
Biography
[edit]Sinclair grew up Jewish with a mother, a father, and a brother. At a very young age, Sinclair identified with other disabled people. Xe saw a blind man walking with a cane and imitated it with a cane found in xyr grandparents' basement. When Jim was 6, xe played with a set of Johnny West action figures with xyr brother. If one of the arms came loose, Jim would secure it by turning the lasso into an improvised sling. For another figure that broke, Jim fashioned a wheelchair for it. Jim explained that "from very early on, I had the concept that you don't throw people away for being broken".[7]
Sinclair has said that xe did not speak until age 12.[4] Sinclair was raised as a girl, but describes having an intersex body,[8] and in a 1997 introduction to the Intersex Society of North America, Sinclair wrote, "I remain openly and proudly neuter, both physically and socially."[9] Xyr first act of self-definition was to jump off xyr father's lap and shout "No!" when xyr father sang to xem about being "Daddy's little girl". Jim objected to undergo a Bat Mitzvah, saying xe "didn't want to do it under false pretenses".[7] Jim appeared on the Jesse Sally Raphael show as a guest with the alias "Toby" to talk about being intersex and asexual.[10]
Jim was taken to a series of doctors and therapists to determine why xe struggled to get ideas across. Xe did not initially get an autism diagnosis, but would be told by xyr parents "stop acting so autistic!" when flapping hands or rocking.[7]
In 1998, Sinclair was a graduate student of rehabilitation counseling at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.[3][11]
Sinclair was the first person to "articulate the autism rights position".[1]
Views
[edit]In 1993, Sinclair wrote the essay "Don't Mourn for Us" (1993) with an anti-cure perspective on autism.[12] The essay has been thought of by some[who?] to be a touchstone for the fledgling autism-rights movement and has been mentioned in The New York Times[4] and New York Magazine.[1] In the essay, Sinclair writes,
You didn't lose a child to autism. You lost a child because the child you waited for never came into existence. That isn't the fault of the autistic child who does exist, and it shouldn't be our burden. We need and deserve families who can see us and value us for ourselves, not families whose vision of us is obscured by the ghosts of children who never lived. Grieve if you must, for your own lost dreams. But don't mourn for us. We are alive. We are real.[12]
—Jim Sinclair, "Don't Mourn for Us", Our Voice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1993
Sinclair also expresses their frustration with the double standard autistic people face, such as being told their persistence is "pathological" when neurotypical people are praised for their dedication to something important to him.[11] Sinclair has criticized the medical view that autistic people have deficits in social skills, arguing that autistic people can be compared to a different culture in a neurotypical-dominated society.[13]
Sinclair is the first documented autistic person to reject people-first language.[6]
Autreat
[edit]Sinclair established and ran Autreat, the first independent autistic-run gathering,[14] for fifteen years after attending conferences that mainly included parents of autistic children and professionals. Xe and other autistic adults described these conferences as isolating and dehumanizing. Autreat explicitly prioritizes autistic needs, with programs like an "Ask a Neurotypical" panel.[6]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c Solomon, Andrew (25 May 2008). "The Autism Rights Movement". New York Magazine. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
- ^ Shapiro, Joseph (26 June 2006). "Autism Movement Seeks Acceptance, Not Cures". NPR. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
- ^ a b "Information About Presentations". Autreat. 1998. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
- ^ a b c Harmon, Amy (20 December 2004). "How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 November 2007.
- ^ "Personal Voices-Toby: An Asexual Person". Ace Archive. Archived from the original on 6 March 2024.
- ^ a b c Pripas-Kapit, Sarah (2020), Kapp, Steven K. (ed.), "Historicizing Jim Sinclair's "Don't Mourn for Us": A Cultural and Intellectual History of Neurodiversity's First Manifesto", Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline, Springer, pp. 23–39, doi:10.1007/978-981-13-8437-0_2, ISBN 978-981-13-8437-0
- ^ a b c Silberman, Steve (2015). NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. Avery An Imprint of Penguin Random House. pp. 432–434. ISBN 978-0-399-18561-8.
- ^ Leith, Sam (16 February 2013). "Family Differences". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
- ^ Sinclair, Jim (1997). "Self-introduction to the Intersex Society of North America". Syracuse University. Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
- ^ "Sally Jesse Raphael interviews Toby, a neuter, genderless person (1989)". YouTube. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
- ^ a b "Learning to Live With Autism". Syracuse Herald Journal. 16 August 1999. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
- ^ a b Sinclair, Jim (1993). "Don't mourn for us". Autreat. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
- ^ Sinclair, Jim (22 February 2010). "Being Autistic Together". Disability Studies Quarterly. 30 (1). doi:10.18061/dsq.v30i1.1075. ISSN 2159-8371.
- ^ Ari, Ne'eman (2019). "The Neurodiversity Movement". In Rembis, Michael A. (ed.). Disability: a reference handbook. Contemporary world issues. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. pp. 99–104. ISBN 978-1-4408-6229-8.
External links
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- 20th-century American LGBTQ people
- 20th-century American writers
- 21st-century American LGBTQ people
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- American activists with disabilities
- American health activists
- Non-binary asexual people
- Autism activists
- Intersex non-binary people
- LGBTQ writers with disabilities
- Living people
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- Syracuse University alumni
- American intersex writers
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