This kind of thing is why I’ve become very disillusioned with the autistic community. On Twitter-
I was just scrolling through her Twitter page a couple minutes ago. She claims that she’s an “aspie”, yet she uses all the ableist terms in the dictionary, like “high functioning” or “person with autism”.
Another one-
People who want to retain the “Aspergers” label will literally use any argument they can to defend the man. Regardless of the evidence.
My husband was diagnosed with autism. He was told he has “high functioning autism” also known as “Aspergers” but Aspergers in no longer a diagnosis.
I don’t see the issue?
I call myself a schizoaffective. I also say I have schizoaffective. I’m a diabetic. I also say I have diabetes.
People getting all upset about the way someone refers to themself… I don’t understand that. It’s herself. She can say whatever she wants about herself.
The control freakery /need to ultra dominate how things are expressed goes way beyond a healthy,intelligent and sensible level. It’s autistic persons acting like fanatical fundamentalists. The intolerance- scary.
Block early, block often. They’ll eventually be reduced to a circle of ten other people who can stand them.
I’m pretty sure I’m an aspie.
My daughter is 13 and also on the spectrum. She agrees with you and called Asperger a Nazi. I have three children on the spectrum and I do tell people that they fall on different places in the spectrum. This implies high functioning and lower functioning. This may offend but no one quite calls me out for it. I see it in my kids. They have different strengths and weaknesses. One will never drive a car where my two others might. That’s all I mean by it.
It’s hard to know what type of terms are best to use. I once referred to myself as a high-clarity schizophrenic, and got in trouble for that. Someone with autism told me they hated the term “high-functioning” because Hitler’s regime used the term to decide who would live or not. He said autism couldn’t be measured by binary methods, and that it was more like a wheel of colour. Fair enough, but then it gets hard to communicate to an employer just what’s going on with a person. 
In every community, especially relatively small communities, there’s always a small group of people who will claim to represent the entire community. They scream the loudest, claim to be the most oppressed, and decide the “rules” for the entire community.
I agree. I think people are obsessed about being offended especially online and especially on twitter. I’m a left winger btw, but I’ve seen/known a lot of lib’s that just love to go on and on about their triggers and how tiny unimportant things somehow are viciously offensive to them. It becomes impossible to communicate with them because they are so demanding of the langauge you use and its easier just to move on.
And when you point out their errors they get so mad. They hate being the ones in the line of fire but enjoy lighting up on other people.
Its all about a feeling of superiority I think and making other people around you feel ignorant and small.
But yeah, if someone want’s to use aspie as a term for themselves, I don’t see how they are being bigoted by using it. I’ve seen plenty of people with autism just use it as an abbreviation.
On a similar discussion point, I will never say “coloured people” due to how its perceived, but “person of colour” literally means exactly the same thing. It is the same sentence in a different order, and somehow people are happy to identify as that. It makes no sense at all. Either they both should be offensive or neither.
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