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Eleanor Jones

For hundreds of years, left-handedness was seen as something demonic, punishable as a crime, a problem that needed to be fixed. 

The Ancient Greeks and Romans had a preference for right-handed people, believing left-handedness to be punishment. World religions including Islam and Christianity put emphasis on the right and subjected the left. Jesus himself sits on the right hand of the Father. At the same time, the left hand is God’s hand of judgement. In the Middle Ages, Britain believed those that were left-handed were seen as demonic, but the law made it more of an intense stigma to try to correct. These punishments and beliefs continued for years and years.

These punishments left the percentage of left-handed people to remain around 3-4% of the population for hundreds of years. Even today, many items that require a design of one hand, prefer that of a right. Scissors, mugs, spiral notebooks, school desks, kitchen knives, and others are designed for the majority of the population. 

It wasn’t until the early 1900s where left-handedness began to not be seen as something that needed to be eradicated; the population went up to around 10% and it has stayed there since, only after laws and prejudices were challenged and proven false. 

While the laws may have changed, there is no guarantee that all previous beliefs changed. In American public schools, as recently as the 1960s, a display of left-handed preferences was seen as something to correct to align with their right-handed peers. Just ask your parents or grandparents.

Since that time, left-handedness has sat at around 10% of the world’s population and comfortably stayed there. 

In the changing of legislature against a group with an inherent difference out of individuals control, those individuals find safety in their existence. In the event of social change around the law, they can embrace their differences for it to be a normal part of everyday life. 

Unfortunately, change takes a long time. 

In 1938 in Germany, Austria and Poland people that were Jewish, homosexual, Romani, etc. were given patches to sew on their clothing to identify them to the public and police. In the 1930s and 40s, the same people given the patches were taken away to be subjected to the largest genocide of human history: the Holocaust. The world’s Jewish population has still not recovered from this period in history. 

In April of 2025, while the Secretary of Health, RFK Jr., a man with no medical degree, was delivering a speech, he chose to say that the government would be beginning research to understand the causes and ultimately end autism in children. Kennedy promised to find the cause of Autism by September of 2025. Gathering huge amounts of data, which are, at the moment, private information between the patient and doctor, is the first part of this declaration. The ultimate goal is to find a cure for the “illness” that “ruins families.” 

On September 22, 2025, not only did the secretary continue his previous rhetoric, calling Autism an “epidemic,” and blaming Tylenol as the cause. President Donald Trump spoke as well, saying: “Don’t take Tylenol” and “Fight like hell not to take it.” Acetaminophen, more commonly known as Tylenol, is one of the few over-the-counter medications that pregnant people are approved to take. Not only does this statement put blame on the parent, it is also completely false. While the research about the cause of Autism is currently believed to be between genetic and environmental factors, it has not been completely proven. 

The rhetoric and false information completely ignore the ethics, dignity and respect that autistic people have been trying to claim since autism was first formally introduced in 1943. 

This was not far removed from RFK Jr’s further statements on the rising diagnosis for autoimmune diseases or ‘exotic diseases’ that he phrased. Why the advancement of medicine to diagnose such illnesses is seen as a bad thing is lost on me. 

This is how it starts.  Now in a time filled with conspiracy theories and an overwhelming amount of information, it is easy to fear the events around you. Fear mongering and false information hurt real people, real experiences that should not be eradicated for a fact of their existence. Diagnosis is a sign of medical advancement, of finding an understanding for an experience and giving it a name, and ultimately safety in their identity.