So I just looked up the source of this meme and apparently the main character who's having a meltdown in that scene is autistic. I saw a tweet saying people are siding with Dr Han because the autistic surgeon is transphobic in a scene but, apparently the transphobic surgeon gets better after being educated but people still condemn him even though Dr Han is an ableist. But people only care about one side of this odd intersection problem and worship this Dr Han character. I saw a reply to a tweet saying people are siding with Dr Han because the autistic main character is transphobic by saying "Actually I'm siding with Dr Han because the surgeon is acting like a freakazoid" and noone in the replies said "you just called an autistic character a freakazoid".
As someone who's dealt with an ableist boss at work before and ended up partially hospitalized over it it bothers me that noone cares about that angle of it. Of course in my case I wasnt being a bigot to people or anything so I guess thats different. And the idea that an autistic person would naturally react to trans people with transphobia is bad ableist writing in its own right so the writers should be condemned for that. But still the whole situation just bothers me.
I haven't really watched the source material of the meme but from what I hear it's just a horrendously bad portrayal of autistic people to the point that it approaches hate speech
And the idea that an autistic person would naturally react to trans people with transphobia is bad ableist writing in its own right so the writers should be condemned for that.
It's terrible because it completely obscures the reality that autistic people are more likely to be trans than NTs. The show falsely paints the two identities as something in opposition when people with autism are at least 7 times more like to be trans than NTs. It's just yet another example of hegemonic culture trying to pit marginalized identities against each other.
Thats very true bit I've also definitly encountered people like Shaun, white cishet autistic men who initially struggle to wrap their heads around transness.
But yeah, its still a choice to write him that way and it sucks. I'm more worried right now about the reaction to the meme though.
The meme starting as making fun of the show (because it's an objectively terrible sjow, in many ways).
But yeah, the rapid spread of the meme kinda loses that context, and even seeing it early on with context, it's still toes the line on outright making fun of autistic people. I'm not autistic, so I don't have the strongest opinion either way, but I do just, not really find it funny regardless.
"ironically" laughing at the offensively terrible depiction of an autistic person is worryingly close to laughing at autistic people. Not saying the meme is definitively ableist, just that it is going to be used in ableist ways, cause the internet cannot be trusted to be ironic
