Ban Autism "Conversion Therapy"

LeadNow has a campaign to make gay "conversion therapy" illegal. That's great! But the original "conversion therapy" is the one that was invented to abuse autistic people, ABA.

Gay "conversion therapy" was invented by the same man who invented ABA, Ivar Lovaas. Sadly, the mainstream thinks that ABA is helpful for autistic kids. That's horrifying.

Why is ABA bad?

ABA causes PTSD and zaps autistic people of their free will and decision making abilities. See: https://blog.theautismsite.greatergood.com/aba-therapy-controversy/

ABA is bad for the same reasons that "gay conversion therapy" is bad:

"The strong and punitive aversives Lovaas suggested may not be as widely used today, but the reliance on rewards and punishment continues in other “therapies” and “interventions” that use the principles of ABA, which I’ll discuss in a future article. Some therapists argue that the more “modern” forms of ABA are more humane approaches, but they are nonetheless still based in the idea that autistic ways of being in the world are unacceptable and must be eradicated.

So what’s the connection to gay conversion therapy?

Well, Lovaas was also substantially involved in the Feminine Boy Project, which has strong connections to what is today known as gay conversion therapy. Psychologist George Rekers, a key figure in the world of conversion therapy (and co-founder of the notoriously anti-gay Family Research Council), used Lovaas’s techniques to treat so-called “deviant sex-role behaviors” in male children.

And when you think about it, even if Lovaas had no connections at all to gay conversion therapy, ABA has enough similarities to gay conversion therapy that many autistics refer to it as 'autistic conversion therapy.'"

See: https://nsadvocate.org/2018/07/11/treating-autism-as-a-problem-the-connection-between-gay-conversion-therapy-and-aba/