Autism Speaks is one of the largest and most well-known of the Autism organizations in North America. A lot of Autistic people, and some parents of Autistic children have a problem with Autism Speaks. Those who do support Autism Speaks are just unaware of how terrible the organization is.

For a charitable organization, only 4% of their very expansive budget went towards helping actual Autistic people and their families. (From the Autism Speaks Tax Exemption Form)

Also from this form, it is clear that 44% of their budget went to research. This research, however, does not help Autistic people. This goes into research to find a cure for Autism. Although, if you listen to actual Autistic people, many of them and their loved ones do not want a cure. Furthermore, it is impossible to cure Autism. Autism is a developmental disability, and is present since birth. What makes a person Autistic is due to the fact that their brain developed differently. Autism Speaks is trying to develop a prenatal test by finding the genetic trait that causes Autism. This does not help Autistic children, adolescents, and adults that exist now, but aims to eventually eradicate Autism as a whole, despite many Autistic people believing many of their Autistic traits are advantageous.

Moreover, Autism Speaks does not have a single Autistic member on their board.

“Imagine, if you will, that an organization existed by the name of “Womanhood Speaks”, which, on the surface, appeared to be in support of women’s rights. Now imagine that the governing body of this organization only included members of the male gender, with not one female represented in its ranks. Imagine that its actual aim was to create a registry for all females and force them to become more masculine, completely disregarding the fact that a majority of females were perfectly content with their womanhood and even found it to be advantageous. Imagine that members of its leadership appeared on popular TV programs talking about the epidemic of womanhood and how it needed to be eradicated.” (Cody Boisclair, An Autistic Speaks about Autism Speaks)

This example, Womanhood Speaks is Autism Speaks, and it becomes clear how terrible it is that, despite the organization’s aim of speaking for Autism, there is not one single Autistic person represented within the ranks of the organization. Although there are many Autistic people who are fully able to advocate for themselves and are fully able to express what sort of support they would benefit from, like myself, Autism Speaks wants very little to do with them.

Autism Speaks also produces advertisements and small films about what a burden Autistic people are to society, therefore fueling the negative stigma and hate towards Autistic people and their families. They present Autism in an inaccurate way, working on the fear and pity of the uneducated public by using words such as epidemic, crisis, and battle, purposefully to raise money. One of their videos, Autism Every Day featured a member of their board talking about contemplating murder-suicide of her daughter in front of her daughter. This video has now been removed from Autism Speaks’ YouTube channel. Autism Speaks is also responsible for the atrocity known as I am Autism: A short film that features an ominous voice saying things like “I am Autism… I know where you live… I work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer, and diabetes combined… I will make sure your marriage fails.”

In short, Autism Speaks is part of the problem. They create a stigma that makes it far more difficult for actual Autistic people like myself to be heard, to have our opinions matter, and to fall anywhere outside of the “autistic angel” and “screaming, violent, rocking in the corner autistic” stereotypes.

When the Autistic community heard that Lindt was giving 10c from every Lindt Gold Bunny sold in the United States, as well as doing other various activities to support this virulent organization, and have done so for the past several years​, many of us were mortified (as seen by the currently 51,000 notes). Myself, and many people in the Autistic community would like to propose that Lindt breaks their partnership with Autism Speaks, and instead partners with either the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, or The Golden Hat Foundation. These charities and organizations help Autistic people and their families, as oppose to Autism Speaks, which is a toxic organization based around hate and fear.