I don’t like being referred to as a “person with autism”. I can’t just set it down, it’s not something I can remove. It is fundamental to the way I interact with the world, right down to how stim enters my brain. If my brain has types of inputs no allistic person can even approach, and methods of processing inherently different, it is an existence no allistic person can reach. There is no version of me that is not autistic.
A “cure” is the same as shooting me and replacing me with someone else.
The type of person I am is autistic. I am autistic.
I know it is a big trend in leftist spaces to use person first language, but in many situations that just sounds like eugenics to me. Personhood is not some distinct universal experience. There is no “ideal human mind” floating out there in the aether for them to recognize in me.
I get that person first language helps some people recognize that thoughts happen behind my eyes, but if the only way they can do that is by imagining I’m them, I don’t care.
I’m hearing chuds now casually diagnosing their “eccentric” friends as autistic in conversation, I’m guessing due to the increased presence and recognition of autism and neurodivergence in broader culture but that’s just a thought. But I guess we are getting to the “but I have an autistic friend!” stage of ableism, yay progress?
Somewhat.
Maybe it was just the particular corner of hell I was in back in CA last year, but when I taught there, “are you going to (slur term for stimming) for me, autist?” was something bullies liked to say, and when I brought them to the principal, they’d do acrobatics around the rules, say they didn’t say anything specifically hateful, and generally not much would happen there. It was one of those preppy districts where bullies basically ruled the school, especially against neurodivergent people.