Autism is not your enemy

I always knew I was different, long before I knew I was autistic. As a child, I was relentlessly curious, fascinated by patterns and drawn to mathematics with its abstract rules and perfect logic. Rules gave me structure, and I treated them as absolute. Math was predictable; people were another story. They were like a puzzle that I couldn’t solve.

I struggled to connect with so-called normal children but didn’t know why. My interests were different from theirs, as was my sarcastic sense of humor. Eventually, I made friends with the other kids who were too quirky to be cool. When my family moved twice during my childhood in small-town Colorado, these disruptions made it harder to adapt. New environments brought new challenges, and new bullies. I often felt like I was the butt of a joke but never knew the punchline. I grew disengaged from school, even as I excelled academically.

I finally learned I was autistic in my 30s. At the height of the pandemic, I discovered a first-hand account from autistic mathematician Michael Ortiz. Reading it felt like looking in a mirror. This launched me into self-discovery and, ultimately, a formal diagnosis. Understanding my autistic brain reframed everything; my childhood suddenly made sense. I only wish I’d known decades earlier.

I had already learned to navigate the world the hard way. Social cues never came naturally, and empathy for me was grounded in logic rather than instinct. Rejection taught me social expectations. Cruelty taught me kindness. Misunderstandings taught me clearer communication. I had built a family, a community of friends and a career as a mathematics professor. As a quirky kid from the middle of nowhere, raised by parents who never went to college, I was checking the societally expected boxes for success.

Despite what some people say, autism is not a tragedy. Many autistic people lead perfectly normal — even exceptionally productive — lives.

Now, autism is back in the national spotlight, reviving long-debunked myths about vaccines and Tylenol. But it isn’t the misinformation that troubles me the most. It’s hearing people talk about autistic lives without including us. It’s the subtext that the world would be better off without autistic people in it. It’s a conversation that wants to erase disabled people like me.

History warns us about walking down this path. The eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries branded disabled people, immigrants and queer folks as a “menace to the future,” and claimed that progress and prosperity demanded the elimination of these so-called burdens to society. The result was forced sterilizations, institutionalization and physical abuse. This was a playbook that was used across the world, including in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Japan and throughout Nazi Germany. We should be horrified by this chain of logic, and we should never repeat these mistakes of the past.

Unfortunately, the disability community knows this pattern far too well. Deaf people, too, have been treated as a problem to be solved, whether through eugenicist policies or medical advancements. Shallow talk about medical innovations isn’t a matter of progress; it is the erasure of a diverse group of people with their own art, culture and language. Fortunately, the community has pushed back and given us the powerful idea of “deaf gain” — insisting that difference is not only valid but valuable.

I see it in my own life. Disability comes with challenges, but it also produces strengths. My autistic traits — persistence, attention to detail and comfort with structure — also help me thrive in academia. Good science demands relentless focus and a willingness to look for meaning where others won’t.

Some of history’s greatest mathematicians showed similar traits. Isaac Newton, who gave us calculus and gravity, lived rigidly according to his routines. He famously stuck a needle in his own eye to study the effect of pressure on his vision. He had few friends, no lover, and feuded bitterly with peers. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge, and the world was forever changed because of it. While he was isolated and misunderstood during his time, his behaviors fit what many behavioral scientists now recognize as autism. He didn’t overcome his neurodivergence; it was precisely what made him one of history’s greatest thinkers.

Many brilliant mathematicians exhibited the same obsessive focus, unusual routines and social struggles. This includes Kurt Godel, one of the greatest logicians, and Alan Turing, the father of computer science. Whether they would meet today’s diagnostic criteria misses the point. The world benefits when people think differently, and difference always brings both challenges and gifts. People like them have improved the world for all of us, even if we don’t see it.

There isn’t a singular autistic life experience. And to be clear, while autistic people navigate the social world differently from others, it doesn’t mean we are incapable of forming meaningful social relationships or of being extroverted or even charming to others. Many famous entertainers — Dan Aykroyd, Anthony Hopkins and Sia — have been open about their own experiences as autistic people. The world is a better place with autistic people in it.

When people talk about eliminating autism, what they are really debating is whether people like me should exist. But difference is not a defect. We belong here.

Daniel L. Reinholz is a professor of mathematics and statistics at San Diego State University and the author of “Equity Learning Communities.”