Coming out on the Web, 10 years on...
2005 marks an important anniversary for me. Back in 1994, I first logged onto the Internet from my own account. At the time, the Internet to me was a nice geeky solution to a problem that I hadn't yet found. Then one day it struck me to use Veronica to search Gopher for references on "autism" (yes, the web was in its infancy then). As expected, I found a LOT of useful information and started to make contact with people, but not one other gay autistic could be found...
So in 1995, I decided to tell my story to the world, mostly for the benefit of self therapy (writing about life's problems is a good relief valve), as well as in the faint hope that I would find people that understood. As it turns out, I got a LOT of positive feedback from parents, as well as autistic people, and even the occasional "please help me" question (sorry, I don't have professional qualifications, no one recognises even a Masters from the School of Hard Knocks" ;) ) .
10 years on, much has changed. I know dozens like myself, including several personally in my own city! There's a few gay autistic groups on the Internet, where we can interact at our own pace and discuss life issues. There's even adult autistic groups here (not gay specific, but I'm definitely not the "only one" there :) ). However, much ground needs to be covered. There's still a strong dominance of non autistic elements (parents/carers/professionals) in the autism community that sets most of the agendas, and there's a strong conservative bias from both the autistic and non autistic elements, which is cutting off a significant number of people from benefitting from shared knowledge.
Let's see what the next 10 years brings...
footnote: My earlier writings can be found at http://members.optusnet.com.au/tlang1/
So in 1995, I decided to tell my story to the world, mostly for the benefit of self therapy (writing about life's problems is a good relief valve), as well as in the faint hope that I would find people that understood. As it turns out, I got a LOT of positive feedback from parents, as well as autistic people, and even the occasional "please help me" question (sorry, I don't have professional qualifications, no one recognises even a Masters from the School of Hard Knocks" ;) ) .
10 years on, much has changed. I know dozens like myself, including several personally in my own city! There's a few gay autistic groups on the Internet, where we can interact at our own pace and discuss life issues. There's even adult autistic groups here (not gay specific, but I'm definitely not the "only one" there :) ). However, much ground needs to be covered. There's still a strong dominance of non autistic elements (parents/carers/professionals) in the autism community that sets most of the agendas, and there's a strong conservative bias from both the autistic and non autistic elements, which is cutting off a significant number of people from benefitting from shared knowledge.
Let's see what the next 10 years brings...
footnote: My earlier writings can be found at http://members.optusnet.com.au/tlang1/
posted by Tony at 9:21 am
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