Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Raissa Mendes
I love this mic.
I feel like Beyoncé.
It's so cool.
I was invited here to talk about autism.
It's a topic I know quite well for two reasons.
First, I studied it during my PhD in Social Psychology,
and second, I myself am on the autism spectrum,
since I have Asperger's syndrome.
So, I kind of have a double hat.
But when I was preparing this speech,
I thought it would be even more interesting
to talk about non-autistic people.
Yeah, that's you.
You see, I've been observing you my whole life,
and truth be told, I find you quite fascinating.
So, yeah,
you definitely deserve your own PowerPoint.
Ta-da!
"Neurotypical people."
That's how we call people who are not on the autism spectrum.
So, you too have your own little label.
What about symptoms?
Well, neurotypical people love small talk.
This is like your national sport!
You talk,
but you say nothing.
What a strange custom!
At first, I had no idea why you did that,
but I get it now.
Small talk serves a real purpose,
because it enables you to connect with people
in spaces you share,
like with your neighbor in the building you live in,
or with your colleague in your workspace.
Over the years, I learned how to make small talk.
But sometimes, it's tricky.
Like, the other day, I ran into my neighbor in the elevator.
And I was feeling confident, you know, because I was wearing my lucky outfit.
And this is, of course, my lucky outfit, in case you're wondering.
So I was feeling like the world belonged to me,
and so I decided to engage in small talk.
And I saw he was carrying bags full of groceries.
So I had this stroke of genius
and asked him this really profound question:
"Oh, you did some shopping?"
Yeah, well,
as I said, I have a PhD, so -
And the neighbor answers,
"Yeah, I went to the market, but I won't go there anymore.
Too many Arabs."
"Okay."
And I swear, it's a true story.
So, we went from small talk to racial slurs real quick.
You also have a very special way of communicating.
You use sarcasm, double meaning,
and you often tiptoe around the truth.
You have an almost pathological inability to communicate in a straightforward way.
What you say can have multiple meanings,
and you always have to read between the lines.
I don't know how you do it!
It's exhausting!
And you are so twisted
that sometimes you even ask questions you don't want to have the answers to.
Like, for example,
if one of my girlfriends says,
"Oh look, I bought this new foundation the other day
and I am wearing it right now; how do you like it?",
I know by experience that it may be a rhetorical question.
She probably is just trying to start a conversation
or wants to be reassured.
So if I give her a straight answer, like any autistic person would,
and say,
"Well, your face is orange,
and it kind of makes you look like Donald Trump,"
that's no good.
All those social codes and social conventions
can be particularly hard to understand for an autistic person.
We say what we mean, and we mean what we say,
to the point of being brutally honest.
And I really think that if you're ready to put your ego aside
so as not to take everything personally,
it's a much more efficient way to communicate
because you can save a lot of time and energy.
You should try it.
But we also have similarities, like special interests.
Autistic people tend to develop an intense interest
in one or more subjects.
It can be the subway lines,
or exotic birds,
or historical figures, like Angela Davis.
We can accumulate a considerable amount of knowledge
to the point of becoming experts in our special interests.
It's considered a symptom because it can be all-consuming.
But the truth is special interests
are an important resource for people on the spectrum,
and we need them as much as we need air to breathe.
But you too have your own special interest:
socializing.
You spend so much time socializing,
with your friends, during your coffee break,
or even with the bus driver.
It seems normal to you because most people function that way,
but if you lived in a world dominated by autistic people,
you would be the weirdos.
And last but not least, your natural habitat.
Can I read it for you?
Neurotypical people are best observed at nightfall in a dynamic environment,
with their peer group.
Of course, as you may have noticed, this slide is a bit cliché,
because not all neurotypical people drink champagne.
And I hate to be the bearer of bad news,
but there is no cure, for the time being.
It's so sad.
But seriously, though,
what do you think about all this?
Don't you feel a bit stigmatized?
Were you not thinking just now,
"That's a bit demeaning and simplistic"?
Yeah,
I know the feeling.
Can you imagine living in a world where you are the minority,
where your way of being is deemed pathological,
where people will tell you stuff like,
"But you don't look neurotypical"?
Or, "I know all about neurotypical people
because I saw an entire season of 'Friends.'"
A world where people will try to standardize you,
a world where you would constantly feel like you are not enough.
Now finally, you can understand the kind of crap
I've been dealing with my whole life.
Welcome to my world.
It gets on my nerves when people talk about the causes, the "symptoms"
and the "treatments" of autism.
I really think that we are going the wrong way.
We should spend more time
trying to give people on the spectrum the place they deserve in our society,
trying to empower them and make them independent.
Autistic people don't need a cure,
but they do need appropriate educational approaches
to grow and flourish.
They also need their rights to be respected.
In France, only 20 to 30% of autistic children go to school,
and a very small number of autistic adults have a job.
I can't tell you how many exactly, because we don't have the numbers.
There is not a single study on the subject.
We don't know either
how many of us are currently locked up in psychiatric hospitals.
But, you know,
one is too many.
We are doomed to a lifetime of loneliness, poverty and exclusion.
And it's even more difficult for women on the spectrum.
When you are at the intersection of autism and gender,
you experience unique difficulties
because you are not only the victim of autismophobia;
you are also the victim of sexism,
and those two forms of oppression interact together.
Let me give you an example.
We are just now starting to realize
that the diagnostic criteria for autism are gender-biased,
because they have been established taking into account the behavior of autistic men.
That and the fact that autism is expressed in a much more subtle way in women
are the reasons why so many women on the spectrum go undiagnosed
or are misdiagnosed.
Kimberlé Crenshaw was the first to come up with the concept of intersectionality
to reveal the problems faced by black women,
and she did an amazing TED talk about it.
So, you should watch it.
But like, not now, of course.
This is my big moment.
I remember meeting a researcher a few months ago.
She was very excited about the recent discoveries
on the impact of oxytocin as a treatment for autistic people.
It seems this treatment allows people on the spectrum
to socialize better or more.
I told her that it raised a number of questions
because if I had been given this treatment and had been pushed to socialize,
I wouldn't have had time to accomplish
all the things I've accomplished in the past six years.
I have a blog,
a YouTube channel,
I did my PhD and I published two books.
So, I don't spend time socializing with my friends,
but who cares?
I get things done.
It doesn't make sense to me
that people would want me to be less autistic.
It is because I'm autistic that I am extremely focused,
resilient,
hypersensitive,
and thus very creative, honest,
and that I have many areas of expertise.
And yes, I know that my experience is not the same
as the experience of autistic people who are much more dependent,
but still,
I think this type of research raises ethical issues.
I'd like to live in a world where I can just be myself,
where my voice matters,
where I can get the kind of support I need,
a world where I don't need to be this poster child of autism
in order to be loved and accepted,
a world where I don't have to fight stereotypes and discrimination
every single day.
This is the world we have to build.
And in the meantime,
I'd like to say to my fellow autistic friends
and to all the people who are different out there:
you are not a mistake,
you are not a disease that needs to be cured,
and you are enough.
Thank you.
(Applause)