#autism makes up a huge part of who i am and i'd be a completely different person without it

[autie-hobbit]

I don’t know, but, "I'm proud to be Autistic and wouldn’t change it for the world," and "Autism actively makes my life harder to the point where I cannot function properly or independently in my life" can and should co-exist by the way.

[kropotkins-revenge]

Lemme see if I can explain this a little more clearly than I have been.

I'm neither trans nor Jewish, nor anything else Rowling uses the Potter franchise and her wealth and influence to advocate against.

But I am autistic, and probably the easiest comparison to make would be saying Autism Speaks is to autism what JK Rowling is to trans people and Jewish people. AS (to varying degrees over the years) advocates for a "cure" for autism, on the basis that autism is a burden and a curse to the parents, and may or may not currently, but definitely originally, wanted to fund research into "early detection" of autism - "in the womb" early - with the unspoken purpose of helping parents abort children if they would be autistic (for the record, I'm 180% pri-choice, except for eugenics - that's not choice, that's pure evil). So you could say with reasonable accuracy that AS is the JKR of autism and most autistic people, myself included, feel about AS the way most trans people and Jewish people, I imagine, feel about JKR.

So with that comparison in mind, as an autistic person:

A. If Autism Speaks came out with a video game where the primary conflict is between a united group of sloppily-coded, hatefully stereotyped autistic people - say a nation of Sheldon Coopers - with a stated goal of shutting down a eugenics operation or codifying protections and accomodations for people like them, villified for that goal because it would inconvenience neurotypicals a tiny bit and/or the whole point was just that the Coopers were stupid and annoying and by the way have a secret plot to kidnap and mutilate children? I would be pretty pissed off about that, rightfully, and the very least I would expect of anyone who claimed to support me as an autistic person would be to not play or support or defend that game, and if someone decided that it wasn't worth it to avoid the game just for me, I would - again, rightfully - take that as a message that they only actually supporr me as long as it doesn't inconvenience them in any possible way, and as soon as it does, I can get fucked. And I would stop considering that person a friend.

B. Even if it turned out that AS wasn't really involved with making the game, their name was just on it because they owned the rights because it was set in a universe they created for some books they wrote, but still the game was written by someone less well-known but equally hateful to autistic people, I would still be just as pissed and still expect my friends/allies not to support it, and have the same reaction if they did.

C. Even if it turned out (which it wouldn't, and hasn't with HP, and won't) that the game was written with completely innocent intentions by someone who felt like they did support autistic people, the story itself would still be desperately fucked up and prejudicial and supportive of movements that actively seek to eradicate people like me from the universe for the crime of being people like me, so I would still have the same expectation and reaction to betrayal.

D. If someone who called themselves my friend started defending the game to me based on how much they loved the books AS wrote in the first place, so see, it's okay to play the game because they're just being nostalgic, and they don't support the bad parts, they just like reliving their youth in a new way - I'd tell them that I'm sympathetic, and it sucks that they fell in love with a universe and found out later that the author was a eugenical piece of shit, but that is what the author is, and looking back on the original works with that knowledge it's pretty obvious that that eugenical shit was in there the whole time, we just missed it because we weren't looking for it.

And I'd say that I don't expect them to pretend those stories never meant anything to them, but that continuing to defend the new material that comes out under the pretense of "separating the art from the artist" is a huge slap in the face to me and every other autistic person. I'd also point out that, as mentioned in point C above, it doesn't matter whether you can separate the art from the artist because the bigotry is central to the story itself no matter who wrote it - you could insert any potential author as the artist of this story, even someone perfect, and it would still be fucked up eugenics fantasy. If it turned out Mister Rogers co-wrote the story with Bob Ross and Steve Irwin, the story as it stands would still be some fucked up shit. It's not just about the author, it's about the story itself and what it means. And if they still insisted that it was okay to play it, I would interpret that as "this fictional story is more important to me than your life," and I would, rightfully, stop being friends with them. Probably tell them to go fuck themselves first though.

E. If any person, especially a huge group of people, insisted that I was overreacting and making a big stink over nothing and "blinded by emotion," I'd tell them to go fuck themselves too. I wouldn't be overreacting - the story is literally a fantasy about ending my existence and the existence of everyone like me, based on prejudice.

F. If anyone told me that they feel okay playing the game because "my friend is autistic and they said it's okay by them," I'd ask them, if one of their Black friends said they were okay with them using the N-word even though they were white, would they be out in public yelling the N-word at the top of their lungs and insisting that it's okay because they were given permission? Or would they recognize that one individual Black person being okay with it doesn't mean no other Black person has any grounds to be pissed off about it ever again? I'd explain that no marginalized group is a monolith, that some people, for varying reasons, are going to be fine with things that others aren't, and that doesn't constitute a universal moral judgement or invalidate the views of any other person in that group.

I would further explain that what they've done by using that argument is put me and their other autistic friend into a competition we didn't sign up for - I'm saying it's hurtful, and they're saying it's not, and you've decided that one of us must be universally right and the other must be universally wrong, and you've chosen them as the victor. Why? Are they a better, closer friend than me? Are they smarter than me? Are they somehow "more" autistic than me? Are they somehow more in tune with the universal experience of being autistic than I am?

None of that is real. First, if they're a closer friend than me, that doesn't excuse hurting me. Second, nobody's smarter than anyone. Third, anyone autistic is autistic, we're all different but none are less valid. And fourth, there is no "universal" experience of being autistic - we all have different spectrums of symptoms, we all have different families, different environments, different life experiences. One person having an experience in life that makes them not care very much when people want to exterminate them does not invalidate my experience that leads me to be super pissed off about it. So why are you inclined to choose their opinion over mine? If you're honest with yourself you'll find it's because theirs excuses you doing something you want to do even if it hurts people, and that's not cool.

F. If I found out that AS had already recieved all the money they're going to recieve for the game, that whether it sold 10 or 10,000,000 copies made no difference to their income, I'd still say it's fucked up to play the game, because yet again, the entire point of the game would be that autistic people suck, autistic people are harmful to "regular" society, autistic people are "our" enemies, autistic people should be eliminated.

That's not an exhaustive list of all the defenses I've seen for playing the wizard game, but you get the point: ultimately, every defense of playing this hypothetical anti-autistic game boils down to "it's more important to me to play this game than to support you and have your back," and I would in no way be out of line for taking serious offense to that position in addition to the offense I take at the game itself and the offense I take at everything AS says and does and supports.

Same for real life with the Potter game: even if it wasn't made directly by JKR, even if it was made by someone good, even if she doesn't make extra money from you playing it, even if your trans/Jewish friend said it doesn't bother them, even anything - the story is still literally anti-trans and anti-Jewish, no matter what. That's the story. The story, no matter who wrote it or who gets paid, is that Jewish people are bad and should be eliminated and that trans people are, at best, a bad joke. So no matter how you slice it, defending it and consuming it are supporting those statements, because that's what the story is.

But that doesn't even matter as much as the fact that even if one trans person OR one Jewish person who has an issue with it, is hurt by it, that should be enough. It's one thing to weigh things like this when the choices are "the feelings of one hurt person" vs "the well-being of ten thousand others," that would be one thing; but when the choices are "hurt one or more people by playing the game" vs "literally zero consequences or inconvenience of any kind," one person should easily be more than enough, and if it isn't, you need to stop pretending it's "logic" or "reason" guiding your decisions and accept that it's just selfishness.

[aspd-culture]

@faithfromanewperspective asked a question on there that is a point I'd like to address but it would take too many characters for a comment reply. The question was "not something I know anything meaningful about really. but do you think that the developmental processes that are usually done by age 10 could occur later in certain conditions and could that be what anon is referring to, if it’s true?"

Firstly, I have two developmental disorders and am autistic so I would likely have noticed if it had anything to do with autism and ADHD, I would have had a good chance to have experienced it bc I very much do remember being 10.

But even outside of those, because of the extremity of the processes we're speaking about no I think the age ranges, which are normally quoted as 6-8 or 7-9, would be well documented. And I do have good reasoning for that.

So, the processes in question make up the fusing of the personality. You can read more about this by researching the theory of structural dissociation if you want, but basically what it is is the cause for that thing little-r kids do where they can be sad and inconsolable one moment, then get distracted and be completely fine, and return to being inconsolable if you remind them. That isn't them being manipulative (ew goddamn I hate when ppl say that bc the neurological development required for manipulation really requires you to be at least a teenager before you're able to actually manipulate someone with intent) or even dramatic; it's currently understood to be entirely separate states of being in a similar vein to alters. There's a reason a child is "a whole different person when they're tired" and it's because, when you boil it down, they pretty much are. There are rudimentary amnesia walls between these states as well, which is why you have to remind the child of what they were sad about and once you do they'll return to that state. If you've ever had to say "weren't you hungry?" to a child who wholly forgot they asked you for a snack but is now *starving*, you've seen this in action.

At a certain point, these states fuse and become a single personality given normal development. And, in normal development, this tends to be noticed happening on the younger end of the spectrum - usually closer to 5-6 in the majority of children I worked with. This was, in fact, a milestone that you are actively looking for to spot any concerning delays at age 5-6. For those who don't know, the difference in only a year of a child's life under 9-10 is immense, so for something to be delayed for over 5 years is extreme and unexpected. Children who are still experiencing extreme emotional instability much earlier than that are usually curbed via giving them the words to describe and name their emotions. That wouldn't help if it were due to ego states with amnesia barriers.

Are there kids who are outside of this normal? Absolutely, and that's why they give the honestly huge age gap of expected development of a fused personality between 6 and 9, which is the official ages stated in the theory of structural dissociation. I said 10 at the latest because I have seen one (1) example somewhere of a semi reliable source stating it could be as late as 10. But that 6-9 accounts plenty for emotional delays, especially for something that I saw happening as early as 4 in my classrooms.

If you have children in your life, you can tell that it's not normal for a child to be in 5th grade by the time that they don't have this heavy emotional instability anymore. 8-10 is also when they start to experience complex emotions, emotions happening at the same time, and those "inbetween" emotions that can't be put into neat categories like angry or sad. Those emotions are a normal part of development that is looked for between 8 and 10 that wouldn't be possible with the emotional ego states still separate, and anything after that would be a concerning delay that would be watched and documented.

Plus the change here is something parents wait for desperately and immediately notice when it begins to happen. When these delay even anywhere near 8-10 years old, people notice. Like, a lot. It's one of those things that we would know about if it was a part of the delays developmental disorders are known to cause, because the things that get researched and documented in child psych are nearly always the disruptive behaviors. When a child has a full personality shift between emotions, one that isn't covert (which the emotional states that CDDs form from are not - CDDs themselves are nearly but not always covert but those emotional states themselves aren't and we're not talking about something that only occurs in systems), that is pretty disruptive and noticeable. That happening enough that we could directly contribute them to other disorders would be documented.

Instead, at these ages you'll see bouts of "tantrums" and other heavy emotions beginning to be diagnosed as others disorders, like such as IED or DMDD. Those wouldn't be diagnosable if it was in any expected range for things to delay like that, and both of these can be comorbid with developmental disorders meaning it's not an expected part of that developmental disorder. And again, this is starting earlier too at ages 8-10.

The evidence we currently have - and I say currently for a reason bc psychology has a short half life compared to the other sciences and especially abnormal psychology - says that 6-9 would be the latest age range for those states to be expected to fuse and, once they do, you can't develop a system anymore. However, you can *notice* a system at any age. I know ppl who had no idea until they were in their 20s even despite knowing other systems including myself. I'm very very sure there are people who found out much later. But they developed between 6-9 if not earlier, with all the current psychological understanding.

Everything I say on psych comes with the awareness that it could be proven wrong and, like any rational person would, given repeated studies proving this and the original theory being thrown out or amended, I would respect the new information. But it takes a lot of research and proof for something to become the accepted theory behind a disorder's development (especially one as psychologically and neurologically interesting as CDDs), and I trust in that until given a non-anecdotal, genuine set of reproducible studies saying different as with all science.

(None of this is with any intended tone besides "/info"! I love having these discussions but I also want to make sure I'm correcting misinfo when I have the information to back up why it's incorrect bc that's important when you're educating about a disorder)

Plain text below the cut:

@faithfromanewperspective asked a question on there that is a point I'd like to address but it would take too many characters for a comment reply. The question was "not something I know anything meaningful about really. but do you think that the developmental processes that are usually done by age 10 could occur later in certain conditions and could that be what anon is referring to, if it’s true?"

Firstly, I have two developmental disorders and am autistic so I would likely have noticed if it had anything to do with autism and ADHD, I would have had a good chance to have experienced it bc I very much do remember being 10.

But even outside of those, because of the extremity of the processes we're speaking about no I think the age ranges, which are normally quoted as 6-8 or 7-9, would be well documented. And I do have good reasoning for that.

So, the processes in question make up the fusing of the personality. You can read more about this by researching the theory of structural dissociation if you want, but basically what it is is the cause for that thing little-r kids do where they can be sad and inconsolable one moment, then get distracted and be completely fine, and return to being inconsolable if you remind them. That isn't them being manipulative (ew goddamn I hate when ppl say that bc the neurological development required for manipulation really requires you to be at least a teenager before you're able to actually manipulate someone with intent) or even dramatic; it's currently understood to be entirely separate states of being in a similar vein to alters. There's a reason a child is "a whole different person when they're tired" and it's because, when you boil it down, they pretty much are. There are rudimentary amnesia walls between these states as well, which is why you have to remind the child of what they were sad about and once you do they'll return to that state. If you've ever had to say "weren't you hungry?" to a child who wholly forgot they asked you for a snack but is now *starving*, you've seen this in action.

At a certain point, these states fuse and become a single personality given normal development. And, in normal development, this tends to be noticed happening on the younger end of the spectrum - usually closer to 5-6 in the majority of children I worked with. This was, in fact, a milestone that you are actively looking for to spot any concerning delays at age 5-6. For those who don't know, the difference in only a year of a child's life under 9-10 is immense, so for something to be delayed for over 5 years is extreme and unexpected. Children who are still experiencing extreme emotional instability much earlier than that are usually curbed via giving them the words to describe and name their emotions. That wouldn't help if it were due to ego states with amnesia barriers.

Are there kids who are outside of this normal? Absolutely, and that's why they give the honestly huge age gap of expected development of a fused personality between 6 and 9, which is the official ages stated in the theory of structural dissociation. I said 10 at the latest because I have seen one (1) example somewhere of a semi reliable source stating it could be as late as 10. But that 6-9 accounts plenty for emotional delays, especially for something that I saw happening as early as 4 in my classrooms.

If you have children in your life, you can tell that it's not normal for a child to be in 5th grade by the time that they don't have this heavy emotional instability anymore. 8-10 is also when they start to experience complex emotions, emotions happening at the same time, and those "inbetween" emotions that can't be put into neat categories like angry or sad. Those emotions are a normal part of development that is looked for between 8 and 10 that wouldn't be possible with the emotional ego states still separate, and anything after that would be a concerning delay that would be watched and documented.

Plus the change here is something parents wait for desperately and immediately notice when it begins to happen. When these delay even anywhere near 8-10 years old, people notice. Like, a lot. It's one of those things that we would know about if it was a part of the delays developmental disorders are known to cause, because the things that get researched and documented in child psych are nearly always the disruptive behaviors. When a child has a full personality shift between emotions, one that isn't covert (which the emotional states that CDDs form from are not - CDDs themselves are nearly but not always covert but those emotional states themselves aren't and we're not talking about something that only occurs in systems), that is pretty disruptive and noticeable. That happening enough that we could directly contribute them to other disorders would be documented.

Instead, at these ages you'll see bouts of "tantrums" and other heavy emotions beginning to be diagnosed as others disorders, like such as IED or DMDD. Those wouldn't be diagnosable if it was in any expected range for things to delay like that, and both of these can be comorbid with developmental disorders meaning it's not an expected part of that developmental disorder. And again, this is starting earlier too at ages 8-10.

The evidence we currently have - and I say currently for a reason bc psychology has a short half life compared to the other sciences and especially abnormal psychology - says that 6-9 would be the latest age range for those states to be expected to fuse and, once they do, you can't develop a system anymore. However, you can *notice* a system at any age. I know ppl who had no idea until they were in their 20s even despite knowing other systems including myself. I'm very very sure there are people who found out much later. But they developed between 6-9 if not earlier, with all the current psychological understanding.

Everything I say on psych comes with the awareness that it could be proven wrong and, like any rational person would, given repeated studies proving this and the original theory being thrown out or amended, I would respect the new information. But it takes a lot of research and proof for something to become the accepted theory behind a disorder's development (especially one as psychologically and neurologically interesting as CDDs), and I trust in that until given a non-anecdotal, genuine set of reproducible studies saying different as with all science.

(None of this is with any intended tone besides "/info"! I love having these discussions but I also want to make sure I'm correcting misinfo when I have the information to back up why it's incorrect bc that's important when you're educating about a disorder)

Ive heard of systems developing at later childhood ages due to autism, developmental disorders, developmental delays, trauma impacting the child at later ages due to still having an incohesive self due to developmental delays, etc. I dont have a source tho bc im in the car omw to a doctor appt

Systems as of current understanding have an age range usually limited at the upper end as 9 or 10 by the Theory of Structural Dissociation - which is our only current way that systems are believed to be able to form. Also, they can only form from trauma so the additional disorders wouldn't be relevant except in the way that being autistic in today's society is inherently traumatic.

Plain text below the cut:

Systems as of current understanding have an age range usually limited at the upper end as 9 or 10 by the Theory of Structural Dissociation - which is our only current way that systems are believed to be able to form. Also, they can only form from trauma so the additional disorders wouldn't be relevant except in the way that being autistic in today's society is inherently traumatic.

[i-arch-my-backula]

Slashers with an s/o who is taller than them

I saw someone else do this awhile back so I thought I too would do this for the shorter slashers. I myself am a very short man and I am often thinking about how tall slashers are compared to me and I started to wonder if the roles were reversed. I'm also doing this because I feel comfortable enough to break away from the sterotypical reader. But I chose some shorter slashers for this just because I feel like it's more realistic that someone reading this is like 6'2 than them being over 6'9. But you never know. So to make a base for how tall I'm saying the reader is I'd put it at 6'0 minimum.

Includes: Herbert West, Lester Sinclair, Billy Lenz, Corey Cunningham, and Og Michael Myers

Warnings: Slashers being a little mean, disscusions of insecureties, mentions of other people being rude, some mentions of an afab reader but for the most part reader is completely gn, brief murder mention in Michael's section

Herbert West

He's below average height for a cis man by two inches but he honestly doesn't mind that too much. He's been teased about his height before but if he's being honest he's never taken it to heart.

He is trans and he did used to feel very dysphoric about not being as tall as cis men but he quickly realized that cis men can be short too and that he doesn't have to be super tall to be a valid man.

As for you being five or more inches taller than him he doesn't care too much but might get annoyed if he has to call you in so you can grab something off a high shelf or for you to do something for him that he can't do.

If you're afab than he'll talk about how cool he thinks it is that you're so much taller than average for American afab people. He'll go on about how in nature it's typically the larger sex that holds more power because of sexual dimorphism.

He's just trying to say that he sees you as a strong person who can do great things in his weird Herbert autistic way.

Lester Sinclair

Compared to his brothers and most other cis men he's short. He's 5'6 and a little ashamed of it. I feel like he thinks that he can't live up to his brothers in his parents eyes so he's just internalized a lot of hatred for his height.

He doesn't let it effect him too much now because he makes up for it in his strength. I know he looks skinny but he has to be secretly buff to be able to throw a deer a decent distance.

Now he like Herbert won't super mind the difference in height but he won't appreciate you making jokes about it or him having to admit that he's a lot shorter than you.

After a few months of dating he'll open up about how he doesn't feel super masculine and how you being so much taller than him makes him feel weaker in a way. I'm sure with comforting he'll work on unpacking a lot of those feelings and hopefully will move on from it.

But if you're insecure about your height he'll be surprised about it. He understands if it makes you feel less feminine but he'll talk about how a lot of beautiful feminine people and women are tall too. He'll mostly talk about models and athletes but he's still trying.

If his brothers ever poke fun at you for being tall he'll be quick to defend you. But if you're taller than all of them I'm sure them being mean won't be a huge problem.

Billy Lenz

Billy really first noticed your height when he first saw you. He'd probably mention how tall you are and call you a "Big piggy" or something to go along with your height.

Billy is also 5'6 so he's below the average height of a cis man. But he doesn't super care because like with Lester he's probably secretly buff. He has that random autism strength thing that some people get.

But when you finally meet face to face you might be a little surprised to find that Billy is shorter than you. I feel like he can handle a little ribbing about how short he is compared to you. But if you go too far with it he'll probably call you mean.

Will steal your clothes and wear them. Especially if you force him to shower and wash his clothes. How the girls in the sorority didn't smell Billy from miles away I'll never know.

Corey Cunningham

Corey is at the average height for cis men. He's pretty secure in his height but I feel like he's insecure about other parts of himself. I know for sure his mother (rest in piss) has drilled so many insecurities into his head.

But when he meets you he's no noticing how "short" he really is. He's close in height to Michael but having someone who's well above average height around him all the time will kinda make him feel bad. If you're a fem presenting person too he'll feel even worse about it because he has issues with his masculinity (totally not self projecting here at all)

He'll keep this to himself but will eventually open up about it to you and this is probably a moment you'll really see how bad his mental health is. Him talking about this with you will lead to lots of physical affection and maybe some crying on his part.

Please tell him that his height is perfectly fine and that he's not less of a man for being "short". Because 5'9 isn't actually short.

Over time, with your help he'll feel a lot better about his height. Just don't really tease him too much about you being taller than him.

Michael Myers

Even if you are just 6'0 and only two inches taller than him he'll be salty about it. He feels less like menacing or scary because he can't tower over you and intimidate you.

He'll probably soak up being taller than you when you're sitting or on your knees doing something while he's standing.

If you tease him at all he's going to get violent. Not to you but you'll probably hear about a 5 person massacre on the news later that night, so don't tease him about his height at all.

Eventually will learn to deal with the fact that you're just taller than him but will still be a little salty and will want you to be sitting down or lower yourself when he's in a bad mood.

[imeverywoman420]

while the social model is undeniably neglected in conversations about the etiology of mental illness/disability, I think adhd's got a Huge biological component to it. there are several dopamine receptor genes in particular that show up pretty consistently in people diagnosed & more genetic/epigenetic markers are showing up with time & research.

I feel like adhd is simultaneously underdiagnosed & overdiagnosed? if you couldn't tell by my e.e. cummings Compulsory Lowercase, I am, in fact, a girl. so it took years of second-guessing & reading on my part to actually get diagnosed & properly medicated..... I'd been addicted to coffee since the age of 12 & literally couldn't do anything without it until that also stopped working.

but yeah. Purely anecdotal here but by the ages of 19-21 I literally couldn't do anything. dropped out of school, fired from a job, disconnected from several friends because of an inability to reach out/lack of object permanence(?). obviously I had some agency in all these things happening, but I was trying extremely hard & still failing in basically every aspect of life until I got prescribed wellbutrin & adderall.... it's insane. night & day. I always had moments of cleverness & episodes of manic creativity but following directions was basically impossible for me & I would routinely forget extremely basic things & doing anything remotely unpleasant felt like a death sentence to me. inattentive type here, too, so I would like habitually sleep 12-16 hrs at night (even if I'd had 6+ cups of coffee that day). was always extremely slow in speech & mannerisms too, which people always pointed out (teasingly or not).

this is weird & way too long, so I'm sorry for that. and while I think social factors played a substantial role in my developing adhd, 95% of my symptoms are nearly completely gone or manageable with meds. with garden variety depression & anxiety I take umbrage w the idea that it has more to do w genetics than environment/circumstance, but I think I'll always be adamant that adhd (& autism too) would exist without strong genetic predisposition. obviously everyone's experience with it is different, but I'd 100% consider adhd a disability

idk, I'm happy for anyone who doesn't see it that way? I think hyperactive people more see it as a Way of Being since there are more ostensible benefits to ADHD-H than combined or inattentive.... realizing that hypoactivity was also a valid manifestation was a game changer though

Yea im hypoactive i agree tbh… if you cant tell im very pro stimulant.

A lot of ppl who are hyperactive hate meds bc they hear adderall and think overly medicated zombie 5 year old ipad kid. But you know who takes adderall the most out of every group of people ive met? 40+ year old women that work in hospitality or nursing.

I simultaneously believe that adderall is a gift from god and that adhd isnt really what we’re told it is.

In my non psychiatrist POV using adderall to treat hypoactivity, lethargy, and even some forms of depression makes more sense than prescribing it to healthy hyperactive people.

I feel like im talking word salad i havent had a good nights sleep in forever and the words on my screen are tilting back and forth. But essentially hypoactivity and executive dysfunction = disorder. Hyperactivity = not really.

[vaccinationattitudesaustral-blog]

Australia's 'No Jab, No Pay' policy requires scrutiny

Vaccine Hesitant: After viewing the above video, I have concerns over the policy and the unintended consequences it might have. For one, the policy only targets those who receive welfare and not wealthier families, who are actually far more likely to reject vaccinations according to Julia Senier, assistant professor in sociology and anthropology and health sciences at Northeastern University in the U.S. (I can link you if you'd like to see her article)

Pro-Vaccinator: It is a great initiative, and I am all for the policy. Vaccination is a public health issue and everyone should be vaccinated as a child unless there are legitimate medical reasons not to be. You anti-vaxxers need to stop being so selfish and take off your tin foil hats.

VH: Hi, PV. I don't actually have children yet, but I am pregnant with my first so I have been trying to do as much research as I can regarding vaccinations. I don't think the world is flat though, so I'm not sure if I deserve the 'foil hat' label. I understand your concerns, and I always thought I would vaccinate my children but the more I talk to people and the more de-traditionalised society becomes, I think anti-vaccination arguments are actually becoming more rational, in a sense.

PV: I'm not sure what you mean about it being more rational, could you explain that a little more? I have three kids and all of them have been vaccinated, and all of them are fine. I'd rather them alive and with autism than dead because of a vaccine-preventable disease.

VH: I, of course, would rather my child alive as well, but obviously at their happiest and healthiest is the goal and autism isn't always the only worry. In terms of rationality, I just think our society has been moving towards a different narrative in terms of public health. Health is now promoted by focusing on lifestyle and individual actions and we are taking more personal responsibilities. I cannot talk for everyone, but I definitely feel like visits to my GP now involve shared decision-making, when it didn't before. It is becoming more and more common to actively contribute in your own care, and I think that can be empowering.

PV: Will it also be empowering when your unvaccinated child gives a baby whooping cough? Vaccination is for the greater good, and is absolutely necessary to keep babies and the immunocompromised safe. There is a reason governments focus on vaccination programs, and it is to keep us all safe. Have you ever had small pox? No. You can thank science for that.

VH: Well to be honest that notion of 'social obligation' certainly does worry me, and I think it worries a lot of others as well. A huge number of Australian's are vaccine hesitant, they just don't question it and it's probably because they are afraid it will backfire. Obviously I haven't had small pox, but I have had the chicken pox and the flu and I survived. Can you tell me it is absolutely necessary to make children have these vaccines too?

PV: A huge number of Australian's vaccinate anyway because not doing so is neglectful and should be classed as child abuse. Science has proven vaccinations are safe and effective, and they have eradicated or drastically reduced a number of diseases, how do people conveniently forget that fact?

VH: I don't think labelling parents as neglectful is useful in this context. People who are vaccine hesitant love their children just as much as you do, and genuinely believe they are doing what is best for their child. Why do you get to say what I should and shouldn't do for MY child? Doctors might be able to say 'most vaccines are safe for most children' but are they safe for MY child? It cannot be guaranteed.

PV: So you're happy to be a free rider who gets the benefits of herd immunity without taking the risk?

VH: I think the fact that you are acknowledging a risk is important in itself... If there is a risk, there should definitely be a choice. I agree vaccines have been an important health initiative all around the world, but I also think we need to consider just how much other advances in our society might have had an impact. I would think our improving hygiene practices have made some kind of difference?

PV: That probably has made a difference, but I don't think that could have ever achieved the complete eradication of a disease. Why are there so many people that are so distrusting of science these days?

VH: Because science is not finite like everyone thinks it is, it is ever-evolving. I also think it goes deeper than just science or distrust in doctors. I think that distrust in our own government plays a huge part, which is why the 'No Jab, No Pay' and the 'No Jab, No Play' policies are so concerning. They further segregate the working class families who are on welfare, and people are not seeing the bigger picture here. Our government has made a habit out of discriminating against minority groups, hence the current plebiscite on gay marriage, the proposal to drug test before paying Centrelink benefits, the slashing of penalty rates or the never-ending issues with our indigenous population.

PV: Now you are just slinging your leftist views on things that have nothing to do with vaccination.

VH: Not at all, I'm sorry if you feel like I got side-tracked but I think criticising the vaccination policy is very important. If people receive less welfare, then isn't that going to be to the detriment of their children? And if they are not allowed in to schools, it's just going to cut off early learning and won't that have other long term societal consequences? Like I said, there is a bigger picture. If the government are looking to make budget cuts, maybe more commitment to nutrition and other lifestyle improvements should be looked at considering the amount of money that is spent on things like diabetes or cardiovascular disease every year.

PV: I suppose I agree there, we should be starting from the ground up when it comes to our health. I still think that vaccinating your child is the right thing to do, and quite frankly I do think it should be compulsory because children dying of preventable disease outweighs any societal impacts. The government should also be looking at making the correct information more readily available because I don't see anyone from either side backing down from what they believe in.