Always calling it a special interest or obsession stigmatises autistic people.

Always calling it a special interest or obsession stigmatises autistic people.

It’s a well known stereotype that autistic people have special interests. Often that stereotype extends to the point of assuming that the interest in question is the only thing an autistic person is interested in and able to focus on or cares about one little bit.

This attitude is an attitude that continues to pathologize and stigmatise autistic people. It may not be intentional, and I know some autistics who are happy to have their interests special as they are very intense about them and happily call them special.

The thing is though, generally, a non-autistic person with that same interest would most likely have that characterised as a hobby or a passion.

You see, for many, the whole notion of special interest is loaded. It’s loaded with the idea that I am somehow special, read disabled, that my interest is somehow abnormal and unhealthy.

It is quite a ludicrous situation that neurotypical people have hobbies and autistic people have special interests or obsessions.

Another way this tends to stigmatise us is that it plays into a narrative of autistic people not being capable of living life successfully. They won’t be able to do this, because they are too caught up in their special interest.

It’s certainly true that at times our focus on our hobbies is more intense than the non-autistic person’s is, but this is not due to us being more special or even the interest being more special. It is more about the fact that a strength many of us have is a strong ability to focus very strongly on single things, pattern recognition and excellent memories.

When these strengths are trivialised and only ever seen to be about “special interests” this contributes to the difficulties autistic people can have in obtaining accomodations to improve their life. It adds to the issue of the extremely high unemployment rate for autistic people.

This is mainly due to these traits, that are in fact strengths, generally not characterised as strengths but us traits that add to a negative perception of what it is to be autistic.

There are many many employment situations where these skills could be applied in beneficial ways. Unfortunately though, too often, they are only recognised in line with the special interests we are perceived to have.

If this wasn’t bad enough, there are times when autistic people express aspects of their identity, be that gender identity, sexuality or other aspects where that is simply dismissed. It is dismissed on the sole basis of it somehow being a special interest.

Absolutely, it is not an isolated case for a transgender autistic person to have great difficulty accessing needed treatment such as hormones and surgery, on the sole basis, in the eyes of a single clinician, that there actual real identity is nothing but a special interest.

Not only is this a horrible trivialising of a persons identity it is gatekeeping of the highest order.

Oh no you’re not really transgender you just have a special interest in women’s clothes is one that I have personally experienced.

It’s time to stop classifying autistic interests as special and non-autistic as hobbies. It certainly may be special to you, because you are intensely interest, but it’s not special in that it is a pathology of autism. It is special because you love it. It is special because you are passionate about it. All of these statements apply equally to what others would simply call their hobby.

I have friends who love cycling. Every chance they get they are out cycling, cleaning their bike, watching cycling and so on. Cycling is their hobby. They are intensely interested and involved in it. But, there is no pathologising of it, there is not a situation raised where it is considered they can’t live a useful life because of it.

No, it’s a hobby, an interest and a passion.

Please stop stigmatising us with statements and questions like “so what’s your special interest then?”

Oh, and this may be news to some of you too, many of us just don’t have special interests at all. How shocking!