Only in the sense that the system doesn't provide extra accomondations. Not in the sense of active purposeful systemic opression (unlike say with blacks or gays).
>That doesn't mean that being gay isn't a natural variation in sexual orientation just as being autistic is a natural variation in brain structure.
I wouldn't say it's "just as". Being gay doesn'r bring any special impairement in sensory processing, social understanding, proprioception, speech, and so on. It only affects individuals because of morality / prejudice.
Whereas being autistic, especially of high support needs, means major sensitivity issues, issues with communication, problems coping with changes to routine, sometimes even inability to speak at all, meltdowns, and other issues, which impact the person, and need to be catered and attended, and even when perfectly catered, still cause issues (a school or office can accomondate for sensory issues, but we can't remove noise and light and other sensations from the world).
Saying it's a "natural variation" begs the question.
Namely ones who are content to be sedentary and work on explicitly abstract or highly derived concepts (mathematics, accounting, computing etc).
That’s a novel context even in near history, saying nothing of how far away our nearly unchanged pre-modern biology is from being comfortable in such a context
If you're asd and want to work in math or programming or something similar, it's much smoother sailing than in you want to work in many other professions that aren't abstract/sedentary. Much worse if you'd like to work in a highly social profession like advertising or journalism (or even academia in today's climate where it's mostly about how good you're at self-promotion and networking).
My perception of the word neurodivergent is that firstly the vast majority of people who use the word use it with an often first-hand awareness of the disabling aspects of conditions like adhd or autism, but with a view towards self acceptance. The people using the word are often painfully aware of the downsides of their disability, but equally can see the upshots.
If we were in a world populated by 99% autistic people, neurotypical people would be called overly emotional, lower cognitive function, inability to think abstractly, inability to focus for long periods of time.
The point is you can acknowledge the need for accommodations while simultaneously acknowledging that it's not so much something inherently "wrong" with you, rather something wrong with you existing in a neurotypical world.
These are all systemic issues though
are they not? You could make all of
these same arguments about gay people
back in the 80s.
There's nothing inherent about being gay that prevents healthy mutual interpersonal relationships.
Many people on the autism spectrum have wonderful and fulfilling interpersonal relationships (I suspect I am one of these, in fact) but autism can negatively affect many of the building blocks (empathy, etc) of interpersonal relationships.
There are lots of other issues, like losing supporting parents and family, lack of a support network of friends, lack of job opportunities and bad work careers, issues with pursuing healthcare and maintaining health and lack of access to healthcare, and so on.