2nd place — 2025 grad student essay contest: Kyria Santa
FFRF awarded Kyria $3,000.
By Kyria Santa
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands in public discourse, both in person and online, and repeatedly states the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, the public erupts — not in outrage, but in applause. These moments aren’t just pseudoscience in action, they’re dog whistles to a Christian nationalist movement that has long viewed autism not as a neurological difference, but as a moral or spiritual failing.
Under the Trump administration, this ideology has found fertile ground. Christian nationalism doesn’t whisper conspiracies; it shouts them into policy. The result: A renewed societal hostility toward autistic people, a dismantling of legal protections and a culture that views neurodivergence as something to fix, not accommodate.
This threat is rooted in centuries of religious cruelty. In the Dark Ages, people showing what we now recognize as autistic traits were labeled “possessed,” were exorcised or burned at the stake. Even in the 20th century, Christian institutions ran schools where autistic children were abused under the guise of salvation. These atrocities weren’t anomalies; they stemmed from a theology that equated atypical minds with corruption. Today’s Christian nationalist rhetoric — calling autism a punishment, a disease or demonic — is simply rebranded historical violence.
Under Trump, these beliefs became policy. RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric gained traction because Trump had already laid the groundwork by publicly linking vaccines to autism in multiple statements and tweets. The administration slashed public school funding, including programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), while funneling money to private religious schools that are often exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and IDEA. This wasn’t budgeting; it was a declaration that schools excluding disabled children are more deserving of public funds than those that serve all.
“Religious liberty” also became a pretext to deny autistic people health care and community support. Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services has dismantled the Administration for Community Living, gutting programs like Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and Centers for Independent Living. At the same time, the administration began dismantling the Department of Education and instructed the secretary to withhold funds from schools promoting diversity, equity, or inclusion — further undermining protections for autistic students. These aren’t abstract policy shifts. They are acts of calculated collapse.
This fight is personal. My younger brother is autistic. He was fortunate to finish school before these attacks escalated, but I can’t stop thinking about students coming after him. Autistic children are pushed out of classrooms, denied services or told they are broken in the eyes of a god. I’ve seen my brother struggle to be understood in a world that won’t listen. I’ve also seen how deeply he feels joy, curiosity and love. Watching a movement use religion to label people like him as lesser is enraging. If we remain silent, we are complicit in letting theocratic cruelty erase our neurodivergent loved ones — who are a beautiful, irreplaceable part of humanity.
What’s at stake is the dignity and safety of autistic people. This Christian nationalist assault doesn’t happen in isolation — it intersects with broader attacks on education, health care and science. If we let religious dogma define who is worthy of care and rights, we dismantle the foundation of secular society.
We must respond with clarity and courage. Laws such as IDEA and the ADA must be protected and enforced without religious exemptions. Any institution receiving public funds — religious or not — must be held to the same nondiscrimination standards. We need to invest in inclusive public education and expand access to evidence-based mental health services, free from coercive theology. Organizations like the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are leading this fight, but they need support — through advocacy, donations, and grassroots organizing.
Christian nationalism says autism is something to fear, cure or erase. Secular society must answer with a louder truth: Autistic people are not projects for salvation, they are people who deserve autonomy, respect and full protection under the law.
Kyria, 24, attends Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, where she is seeking an MPH degree in epidemiology.
Kyria writes: “I was raised in a Black Pentecostal/Apostolic Christian household and never imagined leaving religion, until I did in early 2023, proudly embracing atheism and anti-theism. Since then, I’ve founded Emory’s chapter of the Secular Student Alliance, partnered with Black Nonbelievers, appeared on their show “In the Cut,” and spoke at their 2025 Revival of Reason event. I was deeply honored to receive the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Percy B. Shelley Student Activist Award.”
