Thread by @EricMGarcia

For the first week of #Pride2022: a brief thread about why the fates of LGBTQ+ and #ActuallyAutistic people are intertwined (to say nothing of LGBTQ+ autistic people). This right here is Ole Ivar Lovaas, the father of modern-day Applied Behavioral Analysis. 1/

Lovas ran a clinic at UCLA, where autistic children were slapped, administered shock therapy. LIFE Magazine profiled his practices in 1965, showing how one girl was taken to a "shock room" when she made little progress.
neurodiversity.com/library_scream…

When children behaved well, they were given food and affection. Children were initially not given regular meals and only spoonfuls of food at first.

Lovaas had an extremely low opinion of his autistic patients. In a 1974 interview, he demeaned autistic people stimming (which we now know is a means of soothing). He also called them "little monsters."

But Lovaas's practice did not just end when it came to autistic children. As @stevesilberman wrote in his book #NeuroTribes, he also assisted with UCLA's Feminine Boy Project, which sought to cure boys of atypical sexuality, including homosexuality.

Lovaas collaborated with a researcher named George Rekers and co-authored four papers on homosexuality and other behaviors. One of their main test subjects was a boy named Kirk Murphy, whom they called "Craig."

Lovaas and Rekers' practices bore stunning similarities to Lovaas's practices on autistic children. Poor Kirk's parents were instructed to use poker chips. Blue poker chips were used as a reward to get candy while red chips meant he would be spanked.

CW suicide:
The red poker chips were given when he displayed feminine behavior. The whippings were so unbearable that Kirk's brother would hide the red chips. Kirk later joined the US Armed forced before he later died from suicide.

All the while, Rekers and Lovaas's research was used to show that conversion therapy worked. Rekers would co-found the Family Research Council, which opposes LGBTQ+ rights. More on Kirk's tragic end here.

Much of the language that conversion therapists used bears striking resemblance to retrograde ideas about autism. Joseph Nicolosi called homosexuality "an adaptation to an emotional breach with the parents," which bears similarity to "refrigerator parents" and autism.

If Rekers's name sounds familiar, it's because in 2010, he was busted in Miami with someone from Rentboy.com. It became a joke on late-night television but not after poor Kirk Murphy died. miaminewtimes.com/news/christian…

Poor Kirk Murphy and Pamela, the girl who was subjected to shock therapy shared a similar fate because the adults in charge of them punished them for who were.

People might wonder why I, a cisgender heterosexual from the suburbs of Southern California, included queer history in a book about autism. THIS is why. The same people who want to stop queer kids from being themselves are the same ones who want to stop me from flapping my hands

Conversely, when I first moved to Washington, the gay community openly embraced me and getting to know gay people helped me shed my own homophobia AND my internalized ableism. It's why transphobia also bugs me so much.

Learning about the shared DNA of gay conversion therapy and ABA reaffirmed what Martin Luther King wrote in 1963 "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

I am still on the fence about having children, mostly because I am afraid I would project my own hangups onto my kids. But being disabled HAS prepared me to love my kids whether they are disabled, gay, transgender or whatever.

Anyway, I wrote a whole book about autism that includes a more comprehensive history than I could write here. It's in stores now and the paperback edition comes out in August. harpercollins.com/products/were-…