Remedy

Hey. I'm not sure at all about something that I've come up to in my writing.

To give a basic overview, I'm writing a story (first person POV) about a young woman on the autism spectrum; me, actually. It's all non-fiction and opinion (by that I mean, my opinions (and they're obviously just opinions) are non-fiction; there's also a good deal of just straight non-fiction too).

The thing I've come up against is Autism Speaks. They're a well known charity in the autism community, and honestly, the majority of us on the spectrum do not like them at all. I'll spare y'all from my rant about them (unless you want to know), but to put it at the least, they wouldn't be shown in a positive light in my writing. They're not the main part, but they're definitely going to be shown. If not in this, they'll probably end up being the focus of an article I'll do.

Is that going to be a problem? I don't want to write this whole thing, then turn around and not be able to get it published, and/or get sued for libel.

I guess what I'm asking is, what are my limits on this? I've tried looking it up, but I can't find anything conclusive.

September

Normally I would say that's fine, you're simply expressing your opinion. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. But then, I see you're from the US and I think suing is pretty common there. I think it would really depend on what you're saying, exactly. I, personally, don't think it should be an issue but that doesn't really help you legally...

Just Jim

Hi Remedy,

I would think that if you have direct personal experience with them, it would be OK. It would be dangerous to make comments based on what you've heard, because then you would have no defense of your negative comments.

Could you have the same effect by simply talking positively about the ASA or whoever? emphasize that if you want to support Autism then support these groups.

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Remedy

Yeah, we're kinda uptight about that to some extent, unfortunately. I don't think it should be an issue either, but people don't tend to do what I think, as right or wrong as that may be.

My experience with them is more or less nil, at least in interacting with them. The issue most of our community has with them is their slogans, manipulation to show their views, and outright insensitivity they show towards autistic children, as well as their insistence for a cure, without asking us what we'd like (the majority of us would not like a cure). I have testimony from more than one person, and I could easily get the same personal experience myself, but I don't know how the slogans would work. I also don't know how opinions on one of their videos would work.

Sorry, but no, I couldn't. Actually, if you wish to truly support Autism, supporting those groups is a bad idea. The only support they really give is to parents who see pretty much nothing good in their children (that sounds harsh, but it's unfortnuately fairly true; there are never any "yay, my child does ____" comments, only "My life is a misery because my child has autism" and "If I didn't have another daughter, I'd kill myself and my autistic daughter") and those who are strongly pro-cure.