Autism speaks has done nothing but harm for the people they claim to protect.

autism speaks advocates for eugenics against autistic people and aims to"cure" autistic people through harmful interventions. Only about 1% of what is donated actually goes to "helping" autistic people and their ceo makes a ridiculous amount of money through donations

Autism Speaks has expressly called for the hateful treatment of autistic people and has used genocidal language to address things. As it supports "outdated, discriminatory genetic or anthropological theories", Autism Speaks should not be a featured charity now or in the future.

Autism Speaks do not speak for autistic people and Twitch should not present them as legitimate. Their whole mission is eugenicist.

Autism Speaks has no place on Twitch. As an autistic streamer, I am disgusted with their repeated dismissal of our concerns.

100%. as an autistic person it's gross to see that autism speaks has kept the grift going for so long, but their talk of a "cure" is literally about erasing us out of existence.

Twitch has previously stated that they have not found that Autism Speaks breaks off-service policy, or their policy regarding hateful conduct. (https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/945934-charity/suggestions/45600340-remove-hate-groups)

However, Autism Speaks promotes eugenics on autistic people through the research that they do. They are actively attempting to find ways to detect autism in embryos, which would cause mass-eugenics on autistic people.

This research is openly shared on Autism Speaks' website: https://www.autismspeaks.org/press-release/autism-speaks-launches-mssng-portal-open-access-genomics-research

"The portal’s tools also allow researchers to find the variations that have been discovered in a particular autism associated gene; gauge the expected severity of a gene change; and determine how often a particular gene change is inherited from a parent versus arising spontaneously (de novo) in a person affected by autism."

This research does not help autistic people, and a good portion of their proceeds goes to this type of research. I find this to be in direct violation with Twitch's Hateful Conduct policy:
"You may not ...
... Support for or promotion of outdated, discriminatory genetic or anthropological theories, including eugenics"

I am asking Twitch to please RE-EVALUATE their decision to keep Autism Speaks as a featured charity.

You have been given the same feedback, and given the same answer over and over, not addressing anyone’s concerns directly. I do not think you are looking at our resources being provided for why Autism Speaks is a dangerous organization.

You need to LISTEN. You need to look at the sources, and you need to drop Autism Speaks.

Your behavior on this has been unacceptable.

https://youtu.be/9UgLnWJFGHQ

Do you really insist on having an organization that creates propaganda like this, listed as a charity? Do you truly believe in funding this?

If you do not drop Autism Speaks, I’m not coming back to your site, and I know several others who will also not come back. I will also never let this go, and be as vocal about it as possible on all platforms. This is an immensely unintelligent business decision, that I plea you reconsider.

Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave. I won’t stay on a site that supports an organization that treats people like me like a burden.

after doing some research myself, I think some of the controversy here might be a bit overblown. I still think twitch should remove autism speaks from the charities system here, as while they do seem to be working to improve their behavior, I don't think they are at the point where they can be supported right now. (according to their website, they spend 3% on management, 8% on fundraising, and the other 89% on research and services.

Before anyone gives me flack for what I am saying here, I want to urge you to do your own research on what the organization itself is saying and doing; they have a bad reputation because of mistakes they made in the past, but from what I could tell, they are at least trying to change for the better and move past those mistakes.

They have made significant mistakes in the past, and lost the trust of much of the autistic community as a result. As such, unless Autism Speaks is willing to stop promoting ABA treatment, and to actively shift to opposing any other things that they currently support, which the autistic community as a whole is not on-board with, they are not an organization that should be recieving charity money. (much of the controversy is based on outdated information, but until they can show us that they have changed at their core, not just by changing the wording of things on their site, but by doing enough to actively correct the perception within the autistic community that they are not speaking for our best interests, they do not deserve our money.)

Their stated position is that the genome research is to allow for earlier diagnosis, so that autistic individuals can be connected to support services as early as possible. They claim that they are opposed to eugenics. On the other hand, with autism still having the perception for a significant portion of the population as being a "bad thing" or a "disease", Their idea of giving parents the possibility of knowing that their unborn child might be autistic could indeed be dangerous and lead to the outcome people who are concerned about it being eugenics are worried about. Unless they are able to change the perception of autism to something which is good, but sometimes needs extra support to live in the society we have, and are able to work towards improving society with regard to how neurodiversity is treated as a whole, they are trying to open a dangerous can of worms.

As to the point that until 2019, their mission statement was about seeking to find a cure, I think it is worth noting that outside the neurodivergent community, Autism was still considered by most to be a disease that could be cured...

I will reiterate though, that I still do not believe autism speaks to be worthy of receiving charity money from twitch users at large, as it has not done enough to counteract the reputation they gained from their mistakes, and as a result, are not held in high regard by the very population they claim to be trying to support. No matter how much they change the wording on their website, as long as they continue to promote ABA treatment, and as long as they fail to gain the trust of the autistic community as a whole, including them in this program is a bad look for twitch and for those who give money and support to twitch.

All you had to do was remove both charities, Twitch. Their conduct is abhorrent. It's an easy choice and you somehow got it wrong. Fix it and apologise.

As an autistic twitch user, I will say my piece.

Autism Speaks promotes the Aspergers diagnosis, Aspergers is a term derived from the "research" of Hans Asperger, a Nazi Pediatrician. He experimented on autistic children resulting in the death of many of them, all of whom were in Nazi POW compounds. Hans Aspgerger's research pertained to directly eugenics, to learn who should be killed off as "undesirables" and who could be forced into working for the Nazis at the POW camps.

Supporting Autism Speaks directly results in supporting the research of a Nazi Scientist who tortured and killed children as well as supporting the eugenics both him and the Nazi regime believed in.

Do not make the mistake of keeping this "Charity" on your list, Twitch. It is a foul and corrupt organization that believes in eugenics, ask any autistic person and you will get the same answer, we oppose Autism Speaks for it's cruelty and disregard for our humanity, it subjugates a minority under it's imposed ideology and seeks to "cure" us in a misguided and ultimately very harmful manner.

Supporting Autism Speaks is almost equivalent to supporting gay conversion therapy and the failing torture camps that thought hurting children could "cure" them. This is not okay. Supporting autistic people means rejecting Autism Speaks, please remove them from your supported charity list, as there is no charity in hatred.

At this point, I recommend cancelling all your subscriptions and when asked why, write that you are uncomfortable monetarily supporting twitch due to their fundraising on behalf of hate groups and eugenicists and their advocacy for the torture and neglect of vulnerable children, both trans and autistic.

This needs to be removed.

As a gay trans woman with autism, I'm really frustrated with Twitch over this. Y'all are allowing people to donate to organizations that want to eradicate me and my kind. People who actually want to genoc!de me and my kind. I'm more than supportive of removing hate groups.

Absolutely.

It is also worth noting that Autism Speaks is working towards "mapping the autistic genome", which does not have any benefits for autistic people. (https://www.autismspeaks.org/press-release/autism-speaks-launches-mssng-portal-open-access-genomics-research)

The research they're doing will eventually allow pre-natal screening to determine whether embryos are autistic or not, which would lead to eugenics against autistic people.

According to Twitch's TOS (https://safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Community-Guidelines?language=en_US#11HatefulConduct), "Support for or promotion of outdated, discriminatory genetic or anthropological theories, including eugenics" is against their TOS. Autism Speaks is directly violating this. I do not understand how they keep defending it.

again, AS is BS. please remove

As someone who is both autistic and transgender, I vastly prefer to not give those who actively advocate for hate crimes against me to have a platform.

I did not know that Autism Speaks advocated for such horrible 'treatments'. Thank you for educating me - voted.