Please welcome Rachel.  She is an advocate and teacher of sex and relationship education to people with disabilities.

Lupron (chemical castration) “therapy” for autistic children is back in the news. You can read here all about why this doesn't work, doesn't make sense, and puts these children at risk, from a scientific/medical point of view.  I'm not a doctor, so I'll leave them to that piece. But I am an advocate, a teacher of sex and relationship education to people with disabilities, a family member and friend of people with developmental disabilities, including several people with ASD. And from that standpoint, I have something to say about this fresh horror being visited upon autistic children, at the hands of hucksters selling the new snake oil cure to exhausted, frustrated, desperate parents who are looking for anything that even appears to improve their child's life. But these parents need to know, and we need to tell them, this is not the way!

Newsflash: autistic children hit puberty too.

But let's go back even further than that. Human beings, from birth, are sexual beings. Now, before you freak out, let me be clear: children are not and should not be the subject of adult sexuality or participate in adult sexual behavior. That said, anyone who's spent a significant amount of time with small children can probably testify to the fact that children, even babies, will seek out ways to stimulate themselves. Are they doing this because they have some freakish sexual desire or drive? Of course not. It feels good. So what do we do when this happens? Well, sadly, some people freak out and punish their children, but sensible parents redirect and explain the difference between public and private behavior. To my knowledge, when neurotypical children inappropriately express themselves sexually, doctors do not offer chemical castration as a solution. And yet, when an autistic child, hell when a teenager or dependent autistic adult, acts out sexually, you can find a doctor to effectively neuter that child.  

Are we going to start chemically castrating every child that exhibits "inappropriate" sexual expression? This is monstrous, frankly equally monstrous to out and out eugenic measures like physical castration, and is, in part, the natural conclusion of the infantilization and subjugation of people with disabilities. These are behavioral issues and need to be dealt with through behavioral programs; unfortunately too many parents refuse to acknowledge that part of dealing with inappropriate sexual expression is allowing appropriate sexual expression. "Don't touch your penis" is NEVER going to work; "find a private place and an appropriate time to touch your penis" will do wonders. Imagine being an adolescent, with all the hormonal and sexual chaos that comes with that, and additionally having sensory, communication, impulse control and/or social difficulties, maybe you even have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now imagine that any time that you try to express the sexual impulses that come with that, you're shamed, shouted at, grabbed or otherwise interfered with, without redirection or explanation. You're simply WRONG. You're going to develop some inappropriate behavior, right? This is what many children with developmental disabilities, including autism, face. A world where there is no safe, appropriate outlet for their sexuality because the people who care for them are either unwilling to acknowledge or incapable of addressing in a healthy way their natural, human needs.

We need to stop trying to deny that people with disabilities are people and start teaching them how to meet their needs in appropriate ways. But that involves a lot of work on the parts of parents, educators and caretakers, in terms of respecting privacy and agency, and honestly that's probably where a large part of the barrier is. We, as advocates, need to understand that we cannot treat people with disabilities as though they are neuter, or perpetual children, even if that is the easiest way for us to perceive their situation. One thing that has worked in bringing over parents to understanding this is pointing out that teaching their children about appropriate sexual expression actually helps protect them from sexual abuse.  Sadly, 80% of females and 60% of males with disabilities report being victims of sexual abuse. If a person understands what is appropriate and what is not, if a person does not think all sexual experience is instantly bad and/or shameful, they are much more likely to know when and what to report and why.

You can't erase sexuality, but you can frame it in a safe, appropriate and healthy way. You can offer privacy to children in a place where you know that they are safe. You can offer direction as to when and where it is appropriate to touch oneself. You can modify the same sexual education information that you would offer to a neurotypical child to convey it in more applicable ways. Because, when we get right down to it, these children are not deviants or animals or freaks. They're children, struggling with the same issues of sexual expression as any other child, but further locked in not only by their disability (i.e. impulse control issues, sensory issues, communication issues, social issues, comorbid OCD, etc), but by the unrealistic expectations they often face. Unfortunately, some folks, like Dr Geier, would rather profit on selling parents snake oil, and letting them believe that inappropriate sexual expression and aggression are simply inherent to having autism, and the only solution is to “cure” the autism, through pseudo-scientific treatments that, at best, only serve to zombify the child by shutting down their hormone production.

Now, I know that saying, “redirect and offer appropriate outlets”, isn't magic. It's hard, frustrating, sometimes heartbreaking work. It can require so much repetition, all while having to fight your own natural reactions like embarrassment or exhaustion. And simply allowing appropriate outlets isn't going to remove the need for redirection and intervention overnight. Teaching takes time, and teaching to a child whose brain functions in very different ways than your own takes even more time, it seems. I would never ever suggest that parenting is easy, and I certainly wouldn't suggest that there are any easy answers to parenting an autistic child. The demands of time and effort and dedication are enormous and there is so much that I cannot know, because I do not live it. But there are things we do know and must accept. First and foremost, those dangerous, unproven treatments that deny the humanity, and sexuality, of autistic people are simply unacceptable. That it is no more acceptable to chemically neuter your autistic child than it is to chemically neuter a neurotypical child. The appropriate, healthy, loving, ethical path of respectful and realistic behavioral programming may not be the easy one. But it is the right one. And, believing that parents of autistic children act out of love and what they see as the best interest of their children, I believe that we must appeal to these parents' love, and their dedication to understanding, and show them that these paths are not only unproven, unproven and dangerous, but also simply not what is best for the dignity and well-being of their children as human beings.


The fact that these things are generally done with the best intentions of the parents are why we need to go hard at the quacks out there who are selling parents snake oil to "cure" their children and acting out unethical treatment and straight up abuse in the process. Parents want help, seek it out even when the economic and emotional tolls seem unbearable, and in some cases are so seduced by the false promise of a “cure” to make their child “normal” that they can be brought in to treatments and philosophies that are dangerous pseudoscience; pseudoscience fed by the greed of those who profit from the “cures” and “treatments” they offer. These people need to lose their licenses and their credibility until autism research and treatment is reclaimed to the ends of respect and dignity, empiricism and sound, rational courses of action, instead of popular hysteria fomented by charlatans like Dr. Wakefield, Dr. Geier and Jenny McCarthy. Parents are desperate for understanding and help, the medical and mental health establishments should be trying harder to make sure they're getting sound advice and not being conned into participating in and/or endorsing the torture of their children, even, perhaps especially, when the torture does seem to “work.” You don't need to have all the answers to know that THIS is NOT the answer.