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 with you on this.
If you wouldn’t say “person with gayness” or “person with womanness” or “person with blackness” because it sounds weird and dehumanising then please don’t call me a person with autism.
While we’re at it, don’t refer to me as being “on the spectrum” because that comes off as euphemising autism and it gives the false impression that autism is a scale that spans from “less autistic” to “more autistic”.
On the other hand, as much as a I find those terms uncomfortable and grating, it’s a good indicator of how neuronormative someone is going to be so I’m not about to coach an ableist person in ways that they can couch their bigotry in socially-acceptable language; I’d rather someone throw up those red flags early on so that I know what kind of person they are.