Empathy and Oppression
It’s a well-known fact—a myth, really, a stereotype—that all autistic people lack empathy. This misconception has sunk its claws into the collective consciousness much like other ill-substantiated generalizations, born of ignorance and propagated by fear. Much like homophobes who may not know a single gay person—or don’t realize they do—many people find it easier to let stereotypes define their understanding rather than confronting the reality before them. These falsehoods serve to stigmatize and dehumanize, overshadowing the individuality of the person they supposedly describe. In doing so, society denies not only the truth of the individual but the possibility of truly understanding them.
Autism, like homosexuality, has long been stigmatized. While not illegal, it has been pathologized, medicalized, and treated as a defect to be corrected rather than a different way of being. The “treatment” is often aimed at forcing the person into some ill-conceived notion of normality, much like how women were once considered mentally incapable and wholly reliant on men for survival. In both cases, the individual is stripped of agency, reduced to a caricature of what society deems acceptable. Women were locked into the roles of passive receptacles and baby machines, while anything outside these narrowly defined roles was labeled pathological. It’s an old story—repeated with different actors, different groups, but always the same oppressive script.
The same playbook has been used against homosexuals. Society has criminalized, pathologized, and demonized them based on arbitrary standards of morality or, worse, some self-serving interpretation of divine will. Many arguments against homosexuality are no more than shields for discomfort with change, dressed up as high-minded concerns about societal degradation. But the real reason is simpler and more egocentric: people fear what they don’t understand. Instead of confronting their biases, they construct a rigid worldview where the Other is always wrong, always deviant, and always in need of correction.
A similar mechanism is at work in the misrepresentation of autism. I have often been accused of lacking empathy, but I’ve noticed that this so-called "gift of empathy" is distributed selectively. For many, empathy is only extended to those within their in-group—those who look, think, or act like them. Even within their own group, empathy can be rescinded on a whim, for reasons that have no moral or logical basis. This narrow conception of empathy allows for the dehumanization of those deemed too different, too far away, too Other. The cruelty is implicit and insidious: the less someone aligns with the arbitrary standards of the in-group, the less they are seen as fully human.
But my own sense of empathy is different. I see no reason to prioritize the suffering of someone from my in-group over someone from an out-group if the circumstances are otherwise equal. This has led to accusations of coldness or disloyalty, as if empathy must always align with tribal loyalty. To me, this mindset—where empathy is conditional and selective—is the root of much of the world’s suffering. It is a failure not only of imagination but of morality, allowing atrocities to be committed against those deemed undeserving of compassion.
This tribal thinking—the need to categorize and dominate—has fueled countless injustices. From enslaving foreign populations in ancient Greece to confining women to their homes, from criminalizing homosexuality to vilifying trans people, the pattern is always the same: a self-centered worldview that places the oppressor at the center of the moral universe. The Other is rendered invisible, their humanity erased. The same dynamic underpins the struggles of marginalized groups throughout history, yet each group is forced to fight its own battle, as if their plights are unrelated. This fragmentation of progress is as tragic as it is absurd.
Why must each group start from zero? Why must the emancipation of one group not lead to the realization that oppression is universal, that the mechanisms of subjugation are the same across time and place? Women fought for the right to vote; gay and lesbian people fought for the right to marry; trans people fight now for the right to simply exist. These struggles are not isolated—they are deeply, painfully interconnected. And yet society treats them as separate, as if it is incapable of recognizing the shared humanity at their core.
Incremental progress is a cruel illusion. The right of women to vote, the abolition of slavery, the legalization of same-sex marriage—these are all victories, yes, but they are drops in an ocean of ongoing oppression. Each step forward is hard-won, but it is also incomplete, leaving behind other groups to face the same battles anew. The slow, piecemeal nature of change is not enlightenment; it is an indictment of our inability to confront the root causes of oppression.
I lament this incrementalism, this lack of a broader awakening. If society can recognize that it is unjust to enslave one group, why does it fail to see that no group should be enslaved? If we can acknowledge the rights of one marginalized group, why do we stop short of extending those rights to others? The same arguments used to oppress one group are recycled to oppress another, as if society is incapable of learning from its own history.
What I want is not just progress but transformation—a recognition that the dignity of one group is bound to the dignity of all. Emancipation cannot be parceled out piecemeal; it must be universal. The struggles of women, of autistic people, of LGBTQ+ people, of all marginalized groups, are threads in the same fabric. To pull one thread is to unravel the whole.
Empathy, true empathy, is not selective. It is not reserved for those who look or act like us. It is a recognition of shared humanity, a refusal to dehumanize or diminish anyone. Until we learn this lesson, our progress will remain fragmented, our victories hollow, and our humanity incomplete.
