I have a friend who taught kids with autism and told me that they were taught to say “person with autism” so I’ve always gone that route since then.
“Person with autism” is something neurotypical researchers cooked up to describe our “disease” that we need to be “treated” for. Like we’re a person with the flu, or a person with asthma. It implies that we’re fundamentally broken in some way. It’s very common in clinical or educational circles. Your friend probably didn’t know any better, and the kids they were teaching didn’t, either.
“Autistic” or “Autist” is how we talk about ourselves. Autistic folks aren’t sick or broken—we’re whole people. Being autistic is who we are.
I’m fine with “autist” tbh and describe myself as such. I’ve gone so far as to call some of my behavior when I know I should mask and don’t for tactical reasons “weaponized autism”. Honestly one thing that a lot of NTs don’t understand is that some of us like that our neural patterns are autistic. I don’t want to be NT, I like myself, I like how I think. Is it annoying that I get sensory issues? Sure, but I don’t want to trade for the “benefits” of being an NT.
I’m also a Jew. People have used “Jew” as a slur before as well. Did getting hung up on saying “Jewish” or “person of Judaism” ever help prevent the Holocaust ? Did it help Jews get into a college other than Tulane before 1964? Whether someone respects you as a person isn’t going to be changed through their language. They’re just lying.
You can hate me, I can’t change that. But make it easy on me and don’t lie about it, I have a hard time with social cues. I prefer self describing as “autist” and it being a “bad word” for NTs. It makes it very clear not only who is autistic but how an NT feels about you as an autistic person. For others I typically use autistic because I know some autistic people don’t like autist and it helps create that signal that’s gonna make it easier for me to tell who to stay away from.
RFK’s bullshit is very closely tied to the ideology of orgs that pretend to be focused on the needs of autistic people but actually and actively cater to caregivers of autistic people and their inherent ideology of “I have been saddled with this annoying child and someone needs to fix it.” These orgs such as Autism (Caregivers) Speak are already genocidal in their talking points about autism, RFK is mainly catering to these people who believe we’re broken and taking their ideas to their logical conclusions that we should not exist in our current mental states.
I have talked with people, rarely are the people pushing for “Person with Autism” the same ones saying it is a disease needing cure or treatment. They tend to be the individuals who are most likely to be interacting or advocating for autistic people, however they learned “Autistic person” the person started to be ignored, they decided the best way to solve that issue was to put person first, and to their credit, it can work, however it just shuffles the issue and postpones the same issue this linguistic trick was started to avoid. It was after the retorical change that groups like Autism Speaks decided to run around saying this proves its a disease that needs cured. No one changed their mind over the reshuffle, it was just that it is clunkier than the previous it knockes some people out of automatic thinking
“Person with autism” is something neurotypical researchers cooked up to describe our “disease” that we need to be “treated” for. Like we’re a person with the flu, or a person with asthma. It implies that we’re fundamentally broken in some way. It’s very common in clinical or educational circles. Your friend probably didn’t know any better, and the kids they were teaching didn’t, either.
“Autistic” or “Autist” is how we talk about ourselves. Autistic folks aren’t sick or broken—we’re whole people. Being autistic is who we are.
I’m fine with “autist” tbh and describe myself as such. I’ve gone so far as to call some of my behavior when I know I should mask and don’t for tactical reasons “weaponized autism”. Honestly one thing that a lot of NTs don’t understand is that some of us like that our neural patterns are autistic. I don’t want to be NT, I like myself, I like how I think. Is it annoying that I get sensory issues? Sure, but I don’t want to trade for the “benefits” of being an NT.
I’m also a Jew. People have used “Jew” as a slur before as well. Did getting hung up on saying “Jewish” or “person of Judaism” ever help prevent the Holocaust ? Did it help Jews get into a college other than Tulane before 1964? Whether someone respects you as a person isn’t going to be changed through their language. They’re just lying.
You can hate me, I can’t change that. But make it easy on me and don’t lie about it, I have a hard time with social cues. I prefer self describing as “autist” and it being a “bad word” for NTs. It makes it very clear not only who is autistic but how an NT feels about you as an autistic person. For others I typically use autistic because I know some autistic people don’t like autist and it helps create that signal that’s gonna make it easier for me to tell who to stay away from.
RFK’s bullshit is very closely tied to the ideology of orgs that pretend to be focused on the needs of autistic people but actually and actively cater to caregivers of autistic people and their inherent ideology of “I have been saddled with this annoying child and someone needs to fix it.” These orgs such as Autism (Caregivers) Speak are already genocidal in their talking points about autism, RFK is mainly catering to these people who believe we’re broken and taking their ideas to their logical conclusions that we should not exist in our current mental states.
I have talked with people, rarely are the people pushing for “Person with Autism” the same ones saying it is a disease needing cure or treatment. They tend to be the individuals who are most likely to be interacting or advocating for autistic people, however they learned “Autistic person” the person started to be ignored, they decided the best way to solve that issue was to put person first, and to their credit, it can work, however it just shuffles the issue and postpones the same issue this linguistic trick was started to avoid. It was after the retorical change that groups like Autism Speaks decided to run around saying this proves its a disease that needs cured. No one changed their mind over the reshuffle, it was just that it is clunkier than the previous it knockes some people out of automatic thinking