Loading AI tools
Autism rights activist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jim Sinclair is an American autistic activist and writer who is widely considered the founder of the autism rights movement.[1] Sinclair, along with Kathy Lissner Grant and Donna Williams, formed Autism Network International (ANI).[2] Sinclair became the original coordinator of ANI.[3] Sinclair is an advocate for the anti-cure position on autism, arguing that autism is an integral part of a person's identity and should not be cured.[4]
Jim Sinclair is the subject of the biography titled Don't Mourn for Us: The Autistic Life of Jim Sinclair and an Extraordinary Story of Neurodiversity.[5]
Sinclair was born in December 1961, in an American Jewish family.[5] His father was autistic and described as "loving, instructive, and playful."[5] His mother was a preschool teacher.[5] His hero is Frederick Douglass.[5]
Sinclair has said that he did not speak until age 12.[4] Sinclair was raised as a girl, but describes having an intersex body,[6] and in a 1997 introduction to the Intersex Society of North America, Sinclair wrote, "I remain openly and proudly neuter, both physically and socially."[7]
Due to the absence of commonly accepted neuter pronouns in English, Sinclair is most comfortable with the pronouns He/Him/His, which are not associated with gender coercion and make it clear that he isn’t and was never female.[5]
In 1998, Sinclair was a graduate student of rehabilitation counseling at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.[3][8]
Sinclair was the first person to "articulate the autism rights position".[1]
In 1993, Sinclair wrote the essay "Don't Mourn for Us" (1993) with an anti-cure perspective on autism.[9] The essay has been thought of by some[who?] to be a touchstone for the fledgling autism-rights movement and has been mentioned in The New York Times[4] and New York Magazine.[1] In the essay, Sinclair writes,
You didn't lose a child to autism. You lost a child because the child you waited for never came into existence. That isn't the fault of the autistic child who does exist, and it shouldn't be our burden. We need and deserve families who can see us and value us for ourselves, not families whose vision of us is obscured by the ghosts of children who never lived. Grieve if you must, for your own lost dreams. But don't mourn for us. We are alive. We are real.[9]
—Jim Sinclair, "Don't Mourn for Us", Our Voice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1993
Sinclair also expresses their frustration with the double standard autistic people face, such as being told their persistence is "pathological" when neurotypical people are praised for their dedication to something important to him.[8] Sinclair has criticized the medical view that autistic people have deficits in social skills, arguing that autistic people can be compared to a different culture in a neurotypical-dominated society.[10]
Sinclair is the first documented autistic person to reject people-first language.[11]
Sinclair established and ran Autreat, the first independent autistic-run gathering,[12] for fifteen years after attending conferences that mainly included parents of autistic children and professionals. He and other autistic adults described these conferences as isolating and dehumanizing. Autreat explicitly prioritizes autistic needs, with programs like an "Ask a Neurotypical" panel.[11]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.