Jim Sinclair (activist)

Sinclair is Jewish and grew up with a mother, a father, and a brother. At a very young age, Sinclair identified with other disabled people. They saw a blind man walking with a cane and imitated it with a cane found in their grandparents' basement. When Sinclair was six years old, they played with a set of Johnny West action figures with their brother. If one of the arms came loose, Sinclair would secure it by turning the lasso into an improvised sling. For another figure that broke, Sinclair fashioned a wheelchair for it. Jim explained that "from very early on, I had the concept that you don't throw people away for being broken".{{cite book |last=Silberman |first=Steve |title=NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity |publisher=Avery An Imprint of Penguin Random House |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-399-18561-8 |pages=432–434}}

Sinclair has said that they did not speak until age 12.{{cite news |last=Harmon |first=Amy |date=2004-12-20 |title=How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/health/how-about-not-curing-us-some-autistics-are-pleading.html |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029220829/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/health/20autism.html?pagewanted=2 |archive-date=2014-10-29 |accessdate=2007-11-07 |newspaper=The New York Times |pages=2}} Sinclair was raised as a girl, but describes having an intersex body,{{Cite news |last=Leith |first=Sam |date=16 February 2013 |title=Family Differences |url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/02/family-differences/ |access-date=2 March 2016 |work=The Spectator |archive-date=6 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306124745/http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/02/family-differences/ |url-status=dead }} and in a 1997 introduction to the Intersex Society of North America, Sinclair wrote, "I remain openly and proudly neuter, both physically and socially."{{cite web |author=Sinclair, Jim |year=1997 |title=Self-introduction to the Intersex Society of North America |url=http://web.syr.edu:80/~jisincla/brief_bio.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207013228/http://web.syr.edu/~jisincla/brief_bio.htm |archive-date=2009-02-07 |accessdate=2011-06-28 |publisher=Syracuse University}} Sinclair appeared on the The Sally Jessy Raphael Show as a guest with the alias "Toby" to talk about being intersex and asexual.{{cite web |title=Sally Jesse Raphael interviews Toby, a neuter, genderless person (1989) |url=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb6InlHRpvBMFIHiXGhmEdPS29DE5Q58d |access-date=2024-09-26 |website=YouTube |language=en}}

In 1998, Sinclair was a graduate student of rehabilitation counseling at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.{{cite web |year=1998 |title=Information About Presentations |url=http://www.autreat.com/aut98-presenters.html |access-date=2024-01-12 |website=Autreat |publisher=}}{{Cite news |date=16 August 1999 |title=Learning to Live With Autism |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/us/new-york/syracuse/syracuse-herald-journal/1999/08-16/page-55?tag=jim+sinclair+autism&rtserp=tags/?pep=jim-sinclair&plo=autism |url-access=subscription |access-date=2 March 2016 |work=Syracuse Herald Journal}}

Sinclair was the first person to "articulate the autism rights position".

In 1993, Sinclair wrote the essay "Don't Mourn for Us" (1993) with an anti-cure perspective on autism.{{cite web |author=Sinclair, Jim |year=1993 |title=Don't mourn for us |url=http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html |accessdate=2014-08-11 |website=Autreat |publisher=}} The essay has been mentioned in The New York Times and New York magazine.{{cite magazine |last=Solomon |first=Andrew |date=2008-05-25 |title=The Autism Rights Movement |url=https://www.nymag.com/news/features/47225/ |access-date= |magazine=New York Magazine |accessdate=2008-06-28}} In the essay, Sinclair writes,

{{blockquote|You didn't lose a child to autism. You lost a child because the child you waited for never came into existence. That isn't the fault of the autistic child who does exist, and it shouldn't be our burden. We need and deserve families who can see us and value us for ourselves, not families whose vision of us is obscured by the ghosts of children who never lived. Grieve if you must, for your own lost dreams. But don't mourn for us. We are alive. We are real.

—Jim Sinclair, "Don't Mourn for Us", Our Voice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1993}}Sinclair also expresses their frustration with the double standard autistic people face, such as being told their persistence is "pathological" when neurotypical people are praised for their dedication to something important to them. Sinclair has criticized the medical view that autistic people have deficits in social skills, arguing that autistic people can be compared to a different culture in a neurotypical-dominated society.{{Cite journal |last=Sinclair |first=Jim |date=2010-02-22 |title=Being Autistic Together |url=https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/1075 |journal=Disability Studies Quarterly |language=en |volume=30 |issue=1 |doi=10.18061/dsq.v30i1.1075 |issn=2159-8371 |doi-access=free}}

Sinclair is the first documented autistic person to reject people-first language.{{Citation|last=Pripas-Kapit|first=Sarah|title=Historicizing Jim Sinclair's "Don't Mourn for Us": A Cultural and Intellectual History of Neurodiversity's First Manifesto|date=2020|work=Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline|pages=23–39|editor-last=Kapp|editor-first=Steven K.|publisher=Springer|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-981-13-8437-0_2|isbn=978-981-13-8437-0|doi-access=free}}

Sinclair established and ran Autism Network International, also known as Autreat, the first independent autistic-run gathering,{{cite book|last=Ari|first=Ne'eman|title=Disability: A Reference Handbook|date=2019|publisher=ABC-CLIO, LLC|isbn=978-1-4408-6229-8|editor-last=Rembis|editor-first=Michael A.|series=Contemporary world issues|location=Santa Barbara, California|pages=99–104|chapter=The Neurodiversity Movement}} for fifteen years.

• Autism Network International

{{Reflist}}

{{wikiquote}}

• [http://www.autreat.com/ Website for Autreat and ANI]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090201090612/http://web.syr.edu/~jisincla/index.html Archived Website of Jim Sinclair] at Archive.org
• [https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1075/1248/ Cultural Commentary: Being Autistic Together]
• {{imdb name|17205410}}

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