Phil Gluyas

Philip (Phil) Gluyas (pronounced "Glue-us") is an Australian autistic activist. He was formally diagnosed on the Autistic spectrum initially with Asperger syndrome and later with Autism. He fights for Autistic rights and respect, and opposes incorrect information, a cure and the bullying associated with this.

Background
Gluyas was born in 1965. He was formally diagnosed with Asperger syndrome on February 4, 1997. Prior to this his diagnosis was a Chronic Personality Disorder which was seen as an overly generalised diagnosis and didn't explain his social issues, particularly at school and in the work place where he was heavily bullied - especially at work. Gluyas had no major issues at home and his parents accepted him as he was and guided him as best they could. His mother suspected that he was Autistic when he was two years old (in 1967) but the diagnostic criteria did not exist then. Gluyas' extended family was equally accepting of him.

Upon his diagnosis he learned very quickly about Asperger Syndrome and Autism and launched his website in 1998. The website has developed over the years presenting articles based on his own experience and what he has seen in social media, ranging from the forum at Wrong Planet and the former Autism Speaks Ning community to various other platforms including Facebook and (until early April 2017) Twitter. His diagnosis was updated to Autistic spectrum under the DSM-5 when it was introduced in 2013. He has never been diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder or any other condition since 1997.

On social media Gluyas has used the screen name "Timelord" as well as "TLPG".

Work History
At his first job, Gluyas suffered a stress reaction from the bullying from fellow employees and a few supervisors, and a consequent lack of positive action caused him to attempt to claim compensation in 1990. But in the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 1991 he was erroneously accused of "willful misconduct" in reference to his verbal behaviour. His work place ignored medical reports that indicated an uncontrolled and unnamed issue, and the insistence that he make changes that he could not forced Gluyas to take a retirement package for the sake of his mental health.

Circumstances repeated themselves in a different way in his second job, this time caused by his diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome in 1997. The bullying this time came from exclusively from the employer and not the staff. A medical officer working for the now defunct office of the Commonwealth Medical Officer - fed false information - ruled Gluyas unfit for employment and he was sacked. Gluyas has not worked full time since, and according to his psychiatrist he can not stating in the transcript of his evidence before the Supreme Court in 2013;

"Yes, look given that I think he was - he tried probably the type of employments that were best suited to his skills. I just see those, as other therapists have seen, those problems being just played over - played out over and over in any workplace and I just don't think he's suited to, sort of paid employment really."

Gluyas supports the position held by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network that social pleasantries should not be a deciding factor in employment. In Australia he criticises negative employment stereotypes, an attitude that goes all the way to the House of Representatives in Canberra where on November 17, 1997, Coalition party member Mal Brough said;

"As a former employer, I put it to you: if a young person came to me and did not have either the social skills, education, experience or training that I was looking for, it would not matter if they went and sat on the dole for another six months. It would not matter if they went and did some inadequate small course—to use a phrase which I was not going to use—which really was not going to lead to any benefit to them directly or to me as an employer. It would not matter how long they sat there, I would not employ them."

Gluyas maintains that until this attitude changes and a number of other factors are dealt with, he can not be gainfully employed. Any statement by anyone to the contrary is seen by him and his friends as false, and against the established facts. He contributed to the Australian Human Rights Commission's inquiry into Employment and Disability, presenting two submissions.

Conflicts, Legal issues and Defamation
In 1999, Gluyas was charged with assault over an incident that was described in 2013 by Justice Kaye of the Supreme Court of Victoria as "minor, and the plaintiff was acting under strong provocation". . No criminal conviction was recorded, and the charge was effectively reversed in an out of court settlement when Gluyas counter charged the other party with disability discrimination in 2000. So no actual assault occurred.

Gluyas has encountered several strongly anti-autism bloggers who defamed him online.

In late 2006, Gluyas first made contact with John Best Junior - a parent of a low functioning autistic son who was claiming that autism was nothing more than mercury poisoning. Gluyas examined the claims while arguing with Best and realised that the treatment Best was giving his son was actually treating a gut condition that may have been genuine heavy metal poisoning completely unrelated to the autism. However Best totally ignored this and matters escalated to the point that Best made a number of defamatory statements against Gluyas, such as "Is Phil Gluyas the next Adam Lanza?" Gluyas sued and on January 24, 2013 won his case undefended. This made up for a previous attempt to make Google remove Best's blog that failed through the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal in 2010.

By the time of the Supreme Court victory, another autism hater had crossed Gluyas' bows - Oliver Canby. At first, Gluyas and a number of other people thought this was Best playing some sick game but it was soon established that Canby was a new presence in the autism community online. However it was clear that he had serious issues to the point that he too started defaming Gluyas, and at one point even encouraged readers to murder Gluyas in an extremely gruesome manner. Again, Gluyas sued and on January 27, 2015 won his case undefended for a second time. This second victory, unlike the first, received some mainstream media coverage.

One of the key points in both defamation cases was an assertion by both men that Gluyas had "brutalised" another person. This was based in a statement by Gluyas about the 1999 incident mentioned above, that resulted in him taking his former employers to court around the turn of the millennium. The assumption was made that the incident occurred in the work place, a claim that Gluyas denies. There was no "brutalisation" of any description even in the 1999 incident let alone in 1990.

It has been noted that Best believes the decision against him to be fake. Canby considers that he won the case against him (although on December 30, 2015 he acknowledged the debt), and subsequently repeated one allegation that had already been ruled defamatory. The court decision allowed for the comments to be deleted. However this did not stop Canby from issuing more direct death threats to Gluyas in late 2015 on December 15,, December 17  , December 27  , December 28  , December 29  and December 30  before continuing into 2016 on January 2  and January 3. When challenged on the intent, Canby invoked the United States Fifth Amendment. However when someone rather foolishly threatened Canby with death and told him "You threatened others with death just before! Don't do it if you can't take it!" , he stated in reply "I'm not threatening, I'm simply stating what I'm going to do", demonstrating the true nature of his death threats. Gluyas informed the world on his January 2016 Phil's World podcast that action was being taken, but was not specific. However on his December 2017 podcast Gluyas advised that Google finally removed the threats in late November.

Gluyas was also successful in a previous defamation action in 2008 outside of the anti autism realm.

Gluyas has also been attacked and stalked by the members of a website forum called "The Limbo Club", who believe Autism to be a fake condition. They also believe Gluyas to be perfectly employable and have attempted to bully him and bait him into taking jobs to which he is not suited (a factor that these people refuse to take into account). They have also accused him of being responsible for the death of a man but have failed to provide genuine proof of this claim. Anonymity has prevented Gluyas from taking court action against this accusation. He has stated that the accusation is baseless as the incident to which the Limbo Club refers took place at least six months before the man passed away. After investigations were hijacked, Gluyas stepped away from the argument in order to re-focus stating that;

"You haven't defeated me. You have not won. You never will win. I will be going about my life, as an Autism Activist and friend of the Autistic community, as a football historian and other related matters thereof, as a pro wrestling referee and as a political participant. You can not stop me from running for public office. That's a human rights violation. I am not a bludger. I put more into my day than you lot ever will. And that scares you. I have more power in my pinkie than you lot have in your entire bodies. I'm a threat to your bullying and your weak minded, lawless and childish excuse for humour. You don't really understand the concept of justice. You are the ones who have no lives, so you try to interfere with others out of jealousy, including mine. Your anonymity is your weakness. It makes you as useful as a garden hose on a lava flow. You couldn't ripple the skin on a custard. You aren't a threat to me, and that means you've failed. You've lost. As far as I'm concerned, you no longer exist as of now. The only mention on my website will be your Autistic enemy status, and the reasons are now stored away for good. Goodbye and good riddance."

A claim that there is a police report about the incident is unproven. It is also unproven that the man involved suffered from PTSD as a result of the incident. Gluyas claims that the police have informed him that there was "nothing in it" from either side and it is best forgotten by both sides.

In other legal actions, Gluyas successfully applied for two intervention orders against other individuals in 2006 and 2013. He was in receipt of two legal threats in June 2016 which proved to be empty threats. He received a third legal threat in October 2016, and a fourth was noted from mid February 2017 on his podcast.

Activism
Throughout all of this, Gluyas has shown himself to be a fighter. He has been active in the fight against the false assertion that vaccines cause autism, getting himself listed on an anti vaccine troll list - a listing that Gluyas claims to be proud of. Gluyas runs several response blogs on his website, against John Best Junior and Oliver Canby as well as Jonathan Mitchell, Ginger Taylor, Billy Cresp, Matthew Joseph, Katie Kagan and Dang Pal.

As a part of this fight, Gluyas was active on Twitter during the process and eventual acceptance of the SB277 law in California that prevents children from attending school unless they have all their vaccines up to date, with the only exception being a valid medical reason. During this fight the subject of autism came up in relation to vaccines and Gluyas was prompt in his rebuking of this false claim. For similar reasons, Gluyas also supports Australia's "No Jab No Pay" law and Victoria's "No Jab No Play" law that has been taken up by New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

He has a list of people and organisations who he labels as "Autistic Enemies" (this list and the articles attached are not classified as "hate speech") and every year on May 23 he presents awards much like the English royal orders or university qualifications - for both the good in the autistic community and the bad. Gluyas also promotes the Autistic Spectrum as a way of being and not a disability in the true sense of the word (consistent with the definition of neurodiversity, and considers negativity of any sort to be a threat and a human rights abuse. He has stated that he is seeking to have racial hatred laws in Australia expanded to include disability hatred.

Another blog Gluyas runs is called All About Anti Vaxxers. Created in late December 2015, this is also a part of the above mentioned fight and in late March 2016 it introduced the AV Name Check which is his answer to the anti vaccine troll list - a list of people opposed to vaccinations - most of whom are believers in The Vaccine Myth.

Gluyas firmly believes in the genetic basis of autism and sees the seeking of a cure as a waste of time and money better spent on education and related assistance to achieve understanding and acceptance. He opposes parents who try to scare people into helping them by displaying the worst of autism and hiding the best in the process. As a part of this, Gluyas accepted an invitation to write an article about neurodiversity for the now defunct Autism Daily Newscast.

Politics
As a part of the his activist activities, Gluyas has been active in politics, He made a presentation to the Australia's Productivity Commission's enquiry into the establishment of a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), a contribution to the Cyber Safety Enquiry which was subsequently quoted in part in the final report, and made a submission to Victoria's Autism State Plan during it's consultation process and attended the workshop in Ballarat in late 2008. Gluyas also ran for Victoria's Legislative Council in the 2014 state election unsuccessfully as a member of People Power Victoria No Smart Meters. He ran as the first openly Autistic candidate in the state's history, but later left the party. He was previously a member of the Australian Democrats but never ran for public office. He makes political comments both on his website and on his political blog on a variety of subjects. In April 2016, Gluyas contributed to the Victorian government's inquiry into services for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In the final report of June 22, 2017, Gluyas' submission was quoted in part. In November 2017, Gluyas contributed to the Victorian government's inquiry into the Public Housing Renewal Program, bringing up issues with housing Autistics again.

He also publicly stated his remote support from Australia of Hillary Clinton.

In late October 2016, Gluyas was involved in a battle over the consequences of a video published by Victorian state health Minister, Jill Hennessy. Gluyas published his support for the Minister on his political blog. Soon he was attacked by anti vaccine proponents and he defended himself stoutly on his blog All About Anti Vaxxers, and on his podcast.

On Twitter in late November 2016, Gluyas advised of a development in his political future but would not give details. Those details came in early March 2017 when he announced on his podcast that he had joined the Australian Labor Party and would not be running at the 2018 Victorian State Election. He repeated this announcement on his political blog.

In October 2017, Gluyas co-founded Spectrum Labor. The group issued a number of press releases and made one submission to the Australian Labor Party's National Platform. The group also made a submission to the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System. Gluyas also made his own individual submission.

In January 2020, Gluyas helped produce two submissions. The first was a submission to the Senate Select Committee on Autism in Canberra that included three attachments. He also put in a personal submission that included four attachments. The second was a submission to the Victorian government's inquiry into anti-vilification protections highlighting issues of hate speech against the Autistic community.

In February 2020, backing up the submission to the anti vilification inquiry, Gluyas started an online petition titled "Inquiry into hate speech against the Autistic community" and garnered 74 signatures prior to it's closure in early March. He promoted it on Facebook and on the Spectrum Labor website. The response led to Gluyas adding information to his submission to the Senate Select Committee on Autism.

On April 22, 2021, Spectrum Labor closed.

Other Interests
Gluyas has special interests in other areas. He is an experienced umpire of Australian rules football and is also a historian of the sport - as well as an occasional commentator with a few radio appearances for various local stations. He has been involved in professional wrestling as a referee, commentator and manager as well as behind the scenes in his home country and is also a long time fan of World Wrestling Entertainment. He also plays a keyboard and has written original musical compositions, and is a fan of Doctor Who, Star Wars, M*A*S*H, The Adventures of Asterix, The Adventures of Tintin, Looney Tunes and The Goon Show.

Since May 2015, Gluyas has produced a monthly podcast.

Trivia
Gluyas has been noted as bearing a strong resemblance to Hollywood actor Zach Galifianakis