This is a bit of a departure from what I usually do with this blog, but I was contacted recently by an autistic person who was forbidden from pursuing an interest in aviation because of an autism diagnosis. I find this to be an outrageous case of discrimination.

Now, obviously not everyone is going to be suited to flying planes. I certainly don’t think it would be my cup of tea. But a blanket ban on anyone from a particular group of people doing something is fundamentally oppressive. An equivalent case I can think of, for example, would be banning all Muslim airplane pilots on the grounds that some Muslim airplane pilots might be Islamist fundamentalist terrorists. I hope you agree that would be completely unacceptable, and it seems to me like banning Muslim pilots in this way would be more or less the same as a blanket ban on all autistic/neurodivergent pilots. Instead of evaluating individual pilots based on their own individual merits, which is fine and sensible, we would be instead evaluating them on the basis of group membership.

Sadly, it seems like others do not share my opinion, as you can see in the account below. And this is only one example of blatant discrimination on the basis of disability that would never be tolerated in the case of many other identities; I know there are others.

Now, without further ado, here is the account I was given and asked if I could post anonymously here:

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I was diagnosed when I was a little kid with ppd nos. It was pretty minor then, and even more minor now. I developed an interest in aviation as a kid. I wanted to be a pilot. It was tough but I was able to get a medical from transport canada. You can’t normally get a medical with any type of ASD, but given how minor my case was, they made an exception for me. It should be noted that while the CARS (this is the “bible” for aviation in canada) doesn’t specify asd as a disqualifying condition, there is a line that refers to “or other mental abnormality”; overt discrimination.

 This was in 2014. The flight school I went to first discriminated against me. Their position was that I must have not disclosed my diagnosis to transport canada because they never would have issued a medical to someone with autism. I said that normally that’s the case, but my case is very very minor. This fell on deaf ears. They kicked me out but kept my tuition. I transferred to another school and completed my training in a more tolerant environment. I also sued the old school that discriminated against me. In retaliation they told transport canada that I’d threaten to murder their families. By now its 2015 and the German wings crash has already occurred, and transport canada clearly isn’t comfortable with me flying a plane. I’m grounded. We appealed the decision, but lost, as I have a “mental abnormality”. The ruling was that someone with autism can’t safely fly a plane and that issuing a medical in the first place was in error. The administrative judge who made the rulings medical background was in plastic surgery, and didn’t know Jack about either autism or aviation; he just assumed that someone with such a terrible disorder couldn’t safely fly a plane. 

Its a good example of overt discrimination. You wouldn’t get away with treating woman or a gay person that way, but where my situation is viewed my most as medical and not political, it seems they can get away with it. 

It should be noted that my case is so mild that clinicians can’t even agree on if I even have autism or not. I’ve seen a few doctors in my time and I’d say about half say I’m autistic and half don’t, so its a good example of a border line case, but even in such a borderline case its not hard to get the feeling that people in positions of power over me view me as less than human, or at least, of having considerably reduced capacity and agency when compared to a normal human. I won’t get into all the discrimination I got in the school system because I’m sure you’ve heard that story many times already. I feel as though I left autism behind, only to be chased down by it later. 

The question of autism as a medical problem vs as a social problem is complex, and I’ve seen both sides of the issue. I have an uncle with autism who can’t be trusted with his own body. He’ll eat small objects and sometimes need surgery to have them taken out of his digestive system. That’s only the most serious problem he has that I can think of. I think its safe to say he has a medical problem. For me though, almost 100 percent of the problems I face are social discrimination problems, not organic medical symptoms. I suspect for most people with autism its a combination of both factors, but i don’t really know. I’m just basing that on the fact that my uncle and I are both at opposite extremes of the spectrum.

How did my lawsuit against the flight school go? Its still going. They’ve managed to stall the case for 6 years and counting. 6 years of gaslighting and being told I’m not as good as a normal person. My mental heath hasn’t gotten better; it’s gotten worse. Worse to the point where I probably actually shouldn’t be flying. But there was no need of this to happen. This could have been completely avoided if I’d been given the same tolerance that we’ve given women, lgtb folks, black people etc, but those aren’t “medical”, they’re “political”, and thus I’m not included in this brave new inclusive world.