Hello liberals.

LGBT+ Lib Dems recently made a statement about the safety of its members at Spring Conference. In it, they mentioned some incidents of harassment occurring at Autumn Conference last year. I am one of the people who was harassed by a supporter of Liberal Voice for Women while on the Plus stall.

I have been informed that LVW also made a public statement in response to Plus. In it, they attempt to persuade the reader that the man who harassed me was, essentially, too pathetic to be intimidating. This is an odd choice for a group who state they care deeply about the rights of women and girls, but we don’t really need to rehash all that here (although I will say that when sitting alone, a man who leans into your personal space so far you could count his nose hairs doesn’t need to be built like a bouncer to be intimidating).

No, my biggest concern with their statement is their ableism.

As both statements are publicly available, it’s OK to tell you that the man concerned was diagnosed as autistic after harassing me. The LVW statement implies that he shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions.

Let’s unpack that.

I’m autistic and dyspraxic. Dyspraxia is a specific learning difficulty which means a person struggles with sequences. It’s associated with coordination problems. Because of my dyspraxia, I find driving lessons much more challenging than the average person. Should I, as a disability accommodation, be offered a less rigorous driving test so I have a better chance of passing? 

Hopefully, reader, your answer is an obvious “hell no”. It would make the roads less safe for everyone, including me. Someone who hadn’t learnt to drive safely could just pass the simplified test because of a diagnosis that says they’re inherently slower to learn physical skills. The correct accommodations are those that don’t compromise everyone’s safety (including mine). These include learning to drive an automatic (which several dyspraxic people I know have done) but could also just mean doing more driving lessons than the average person.

Using autism as a get out of jail free card is the same thing. If you are genuinely so inherently bad at social interaction that you harass people with zero intention of doing so (or understanding of your actions) you are not safe to be out in public unsupervised.

There might be some accommodations that would be appropriate in that case. Possibly a carer to redirect him when he’s being inappropriate, or some extra support in learning how not to terrify women. Some hints and tips about personal space…

…but it’s more than that.

Because it happens all the time. And it’s not autistic *people* who are offered this form of “benevolent” ableism. It’s autistic *men*. For autistic women? We get blamed for it. Our miscommunications with other people are consistently framed as a failing on our part.

It’s the familiar rape culture all over again. A stranger in a bar asks a young woman “do you want a drink?” and we all know his meaning is probably closer to “I fancy you” than “I wonder if you’re dehydrated”. And we also know that you can’t tell by looking how he’ll take a rejection. If he has a fragile ego and she turns him down, he’ll try to make her as insecure as he is. What? It’s just a drink. As IF he fancied someone who looks like that. If she accepts the drink, and only the drink, the same thing or worse. She led him on, what a bitch.

And if anything worse happens, society will question her every action. Why did she make that decision? If she didn’t want that outcome, she should’ve done something else. With eternally moving goal posts on what was “right” and “safe” to do, because she could never win.

And now add autism.

If he’s autistic? Well, she should’ve been more clear and explicit. Those people can’t pick up on cues, you know. But she also should’ve been more gentle. She has no idea how hard it is to be called “creepy” all the time. Why couldn’t she give him a chance?

And if she’s autistic? Well, are you sure he meant it that way? You’re bad at this, remember? Maybe he didn’t mean it how you interpreted it. Why are you so suspicious? But also, how could you be so stupid? You need to be more careful with who you trust….

Either LVW didn’t think through the implications of their statement (and will be amending that publicly very shortly) or they don’t care about women’s safety nearly as much as they’d like us to think.

* The author is known to the Lib Dem Voice team but has chosen to remain anonymous given the nature of the article.