Which is why, nearly eight years later, hearing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — now the secretary of Health and Human Services — stand at a podium and describe children like my son as part of an “autism epidemic,” allegedly caused by unnamed “environmental toxins,” feels like whiplash.

My son is on the autism spectrum. It's what makes him who he is, and he's damn special. I wouldn’t want him any other way. Neither would he. “It’s a part of me, but I don’t find it’s a big deal that I need to talk about it every five seconds,

This is my son we're talking about. And millions of others like him. They are not statistics. They are not burdens. They are not broken.