Ableism & the Assange Trial
It may shock Assange trial prosecutor James Lewis, but I’ve decided to write an article, something that I do quite regularly and am fully capable of doing as someone on the autism spectrum.
The show trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is now halfway through its third week. Any number of infuriating moments have taken place. I really thought the worst point would be Day 10, when the prosecution decided to just flat out admit that they’re aiming to imprison Assange for journalism, a mask that’s been kept on for a while and was only dropped recently.
For me, the most infuriating day of the trial was Day 12, a deep dive into quite a few familiar and grotesque assumptions about what individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are assumed to be. As I learned only yesterday, Julian Assange is a member of the autism community, of which I also belong. This point came up since week 3 of the trial is exploring medical evidence which suggests that an extradition would likely be the death of Assange. Today, Wednesday September 23, Assange’s ASD diagnoses was explored, and the prosecution has reached a new low, as they seem to do regularly.
Before I can explain what it was like to follow the prosecution’s attempts to discredit Assange’s disability, I should explain what it was like to learn only a day earlier that Assange has a disability I can all too well relate to. It was a mindfuck. I’ve often had trouble putting into words what Aspergers (the original term for ASD) is like. My best two descriptions are:
- Every interaction I have at any given point feels like I’m applying for a job that I know I’m not at all qualified for, but I have to pretend that it’s not a strenuous task at all, or risk being ostracized.
- When I’m unable to accommodate my needs and experience the nightmarish sensation of overstimulation, it feels like my head is imploding while reality breaks down around me as if I’m a Sim in a computer being taking over by a slow-acting virus.
It’s easy to type these out, but I don’t believe it’s truly possible for people who don’t have Aspergers or a similar disability to truly grasp how these struggles feel and how they impact my life constantly. If I even don’t get enough sleep in a night I can expect to spend the entire next day feeling like my body is going haywire.
It’s mind-blowing to know that Julian Assange has probably had these experiences as well. It’s mind-blowing to know he has possibly had them while enduring some of the most unimaginable, mentally strenuous conditions a person could be subjected to. I don’t know how to put into words how impressive and heartbreaking that is. I would’ve been broken 50 times over by now if I were in his position.
This makes it all the more vile that the prosecution’s attempt to discredit Assange’s disability relied on common ableist tropes that harm the autism community.
As shown in Kevin Gosztola’s reporting on Day 12 of the trial, the prosecution’s understanding of an autistic person is someone who cannot possibly function in any setting that requires them to communicate to an audience. Prosecutor James Lewis would go on to suggest that Assange cannot possibly have Aspergers because he has: fathered children, had relationships with women, written books, given speeches, and hosted a chat show.
The idea that these achievements Assange has made in his life are signs that he can’t possibly have a social development disability is all too familiar to anyone on the spectrum. Rather than acknowledge that the autism spectrum is broad and full of countless individuals who have had great success, many people continue to think of individuals with ASD as incompetent, undeveloped, and incapable of basic self-autonomy.
I myself have found that I excel at professional communications, despite having a disability which gets in the way of being able to easily and comfortably communicate in social settings. I’ve gone on to give speeches and host a (news) chat show. I haven’t written a book (it’s on my bucket list), but I’ve written plenty of articles ranging topics such as news features, history, press ethics, and foreign policy. I’m not interested in romantic relationships or fathering children, but I value my friendships more than almost anything else in my life, and despite how much my social circle has grown in recent years, I like to think I have no trouble maintaining my relationships.
When I reveal to people who know me for my work or my social nature that I have Aspergers, the reaction I’m usually met with is “You don’t seem it.” This is because to those not on the spectrum, what seems like Aspergers is not based on any genuine understanding of the disability, but instead on some assumption I imagine pre-conceives those with ASD to be drooling, braindead bodies. It’s annoying to put up with in average circumstances. Seeing it used in a sloppy attempt to discredit one of the most impressive members of the autism community is intolerable.
The focus of the Assange trial should remain on the greatest threat it poses, which is the dangerous precedent it would set for journalists around the world. But the recent ableist attacks on Assange cannot be scrutinized enough.
Fortunately, autism and ADHD specialist with the National Health Service, Dr. Quinton Deeley was brought in to defend Assange, and like with all the other witnesses who’ve defended Assange this trial, he absolutely tore apart the prosecution. His expertise was based on a genuine understanding of ASD and what individuals with the disability are capable of. His testimony is absolutely worth looking into not just for its relevance to the trial, but for its excellent correction of many false assumptions about the autism community.
Still, as a member of the community who has been greatly inspired by Assange’s work and hopes to one day follow in his footsteps of exposing war crimes (or better yet, keeping them from happening in the first place), I would be remiss to not voice my own solidarity with Assange, now not just as a journalist concerned with the future of press freedom, but as someone with Aspergers who has been on the receiving end of some of the exact same dismissive arguments made by Lewis. Shame on the ableist prosecution. Fuck them. Aspies for Assange!
