We have and are the right and the freedom to uncover a gift in anything

Can someone really argue that autism is a gift? What ?

We have and are the right and the freedom to uncover a gift in anything - but no one has the right to usurp or pre-empt that by their own imposition.
There is both a beloved, and a heartbreak compounded by injustice - under which one either deepens a faith in life for the living, or loses it to a cover story seeking lockstep agreements to set against the pain of not only the above - but also shame of self betrayal.

This pattern is also seen in covid-mind-masking as mind capture under an escape-narrative from self-conflicted fear. It is a very hard place to be in when your sense of self and world fall apart. That's the last place we would go - and so we often try to leave it to the very last minute and never actually share the gift of a life we are effectively running away from.

Suffering CAN initiate a journey of waking compassion - but only to the willingness to both give and receive love's acceptance. Those who evangelise for what they have not truly accepted for themself are always dissociated from their own rage and terror and so it leaks out in all kinds of unintended consequences. On the other hand using our own or anyone else's victimhood as a political or identity agenda is underhand and deceitful.

While our world depends on short-cuts and labels - I see that everyone has and is their own unique version of 'whatever' and need not be defined BY it. Whatever we take definition from becomes 'god' to our choice to accept it. It tells us who we are and frames how we respond.

The danger of any litigious or grievous claim is investing in the wound as the means to vindictive vengeance instead of justice. But bitterness poisons the accuser and those around them.
The dedication to truth in the service of others  releases the personal agenda to a path of honouring truth and true witness, above the means to mask, hide, and evade it that persist the lie along with its tragic consequence.

Unless new evidence convinces otherwise the denial or attack upon the biota of our world and gut is effectively cauterising us from our life support biologically, emotionally and mentally.
Self-isolated, locked down and effectively behaving in a cancerous way. Don't blame the virus.
Unless of course coming OUT of lockdown is more fearful than all the devils we know.
In this sense I am using the term for a human consciousness that became pathologically normalised.