🛡️ We Will Not Comply: Our Response to RFK Jr.’s Fascist Plan to Target Autistic People
- Amy Duffy-Barnes
- Apr 23
- 3 min read
by Heartstone Guidance Center
There are moments in history when silence is complicity. This is one of them.
RFK Jr.—a presidential candidate with a documented history of ableist, conspiratorial rhetoric—has proposed creating a government database of autistic people for the purpose of identifying, tracking, and ultimately "curing" our neurotype.
Let us be absolutely clear:This is eugenics. This is fascism. And we will not comply.
🧠 Autism is not a disease. It does not need to be cured.
We are autistic. We are therapists. We are clients. We are parents. We are humans.
Autism is a neurotype—a valid and valuable way of existing in the world. The idea that we should be collected like data points, studied like lab rats, or eradicated like pathogens is not only scientifically absurd—it is ethically monstrous.
At Heartstone Guidance Center, we will never collaborate with this kind of systemic violence.
🛡️ What We’re Doing to Protect You
As a therapy practice made up of mostly autistic, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA+ clinicians, our first priority is your safety. In light of RFK Jr.’s announcement and the increasing slide into authoritarianism in the United States, we are taking the following actions:
🔐 1. Refusing to participate in any autistic registry or government database.
We will not share your diagnosis, neurotype, identity, or records—ever—unless required by court order, and even then, we will fight it to our dying breath.
🗂 2. Minimizing documentation of identity markers.
We now offer all clients a HIPAA Minimum Necessary Use Form to ensure that only essential information is documented. We won’t include your diagnosis unless absolutely necessary—and only with your consent.
📵 3. Allowing clients to opt out of EHR systems and online portals.
If you want to keep your records offline, we will make that happen.
🧾 4. Supporting private-pay clients with minimal documentation.
You don’t need to have a diagnosis on file to get care. You can choose to pay privately and keep your identity out of insurance systems altogether.
🧑⚖️ 5. Preparing for legal defense if necessary.
We are consulting with civil rights attorneys and digital privacy experts. We will fight any subpoena or order that violates your rights.
💬 To Our Community: You Are Not Alone
We know many of you are scared. Some of you have already lived through systems that tried to erase who you are—through institutionalization, abusive therapies, misdiagnosis, neglect, and family rejection.
✊ We Will Not Comply
Heartstone Guidance Center will not aid in the identification, collection, classification, or “correction” of autistic people.
We will not allow our practice to be weaponized against our own community.
We will continue to provide sanctuary, resistance, and radically affirming care—even when it becomes dangerous to do so. Because you are worth protecting. Because our neurotypes are not up for debate. Because fuck this fascist government.
📣 What You Can Do
Share this message with autistic friends, family, and community members.
Refuse to cooperate with any request for your diagnosis without legal consultation.
Connect with local mutual aid groups, autistic-led advocacy organizations, and anti-surveillance networks.
Stay informed, stay angry, and stay free.
We’re here. We see you. We are you. And we’re not going anywhere.
With love, rage, and solidarity,– Your therapists at Heartstone Guidance Center
Comments