Editing Jim Sinclair

{{Infobox person
| picture=
| caption=
| date_birth=October 1940
| place_birth=Lamesa, Texas
| nationality=American
| pronouns=unknown
| gender=[[neuter]]
| occupation=activist
| known_for=
}}
'''Jim Sinclair''' is an autism rights activist who who, with fellow autistics Kathy Lissner Grant and Donna Williams, formed Autism Network International (ANI) in 1992.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web| url = https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5488463| title = Autism Movement Seeks Acceptance, Not Cures| last = Shapiro| first = Joseph| date = 26 June 2006| work = NPR| access-date = 29 February 2016}}</ref>

In 1993 Sinclair wrote the essay, "Don't Mourn for Us", articulating an anti-cure perspective on autism.<ref name=DontMourn>{{cite web|url=http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html|title=Don't mourn for us|publisher=Autreat|author=Sinclair, Jim|year=1993 |accessdate=2014-08-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230711013136/https://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>  The essay has been thought of as a touchstone for the fledgling autism-rights movement, and has been mentioned in ''The New York Times''<ref name="Harmon">{{cite web|last=Harmon|first=Amy|title=How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading|date=2004-12-20|work=The New York Times
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/health/20autism.html|accessdate=2007-11-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407111833/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/health/20autism.html|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> and ''New York Magazine''.<ref name=Solomon>{{cite web|last=Solomon|first=Andrew|title=The Autism Rights Movement|date=2008-05-25|work=New York Magazine |url=https://www.nymag.com/news/features/47225/ |accessdate=2008-06-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230704174810/https://nymag.com/news/features/47225/|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

Sinclair established and ran Autreat, the first independent autistic-run gathering,<ref>Ne'eman, Ari. "The Neurodiversity Movement." ''Disability'': ''A Reference Handbook'', by Michael Rembis, ABC-CLIO, 2019, pp. 99-104. Contemporary World Issues. ''Gale eBooks'', https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7901900016/GVRL?u=sain79627&sid=GVRL&xid=186bb814.</ref> for fifteen years after attending conferences that mainly included parents of autistic children and professionals. They and other autistic adults described these conferences as isolating and dehumanizing. Autreat explicitly prioritizes autistic needs, with programs like an "Ask a Neurotypical" panel.<ref>{{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|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8437-0_2|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|access-date=2020-02-04|doi-access=free|archive-date=2023-06-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608174450/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8437-0_2|url-status=bot: unknown}} on 17 July 2023</ref>

Jim is also [[intersex]] and was subjected as a child to [[conversion therapy]] in attempts to make them conform to their [[assigned gender]]. In 1997 Jim wrote that they were "proudly [[neuter]], both physically and socially."<ref>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207013228/http:/web.syr.edu:80/~jisincla/brief_bio.htm|url=http://web.syr.edu/~jisincla/brief_bio.htm|archive-date=7 February 2009|title=Self-introduction to the Intersex Society of North America|last=Sinclair|first=Jim|date=1997}}</ref>

==Links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090201090612/http://web.syr.edu/~jisincla/index.html Website] (Archived)

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category: Activists]]
[[Category: Nonbinary people]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Jim}}
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