barbara-pit for Cringetopia users

Also I hope people in here are decent about plurals. r/fakedisordercringe is another one of the "be normal debatebro-l" instances

  • VHS [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    constantly using person-first language when talking about autistic people

    can you explain what you mean by this? i'm autistic but i don't really know the controversy about it

    • ReadFanon [any, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Of course.

      It's generally accepted that autistic people prefer to be referred to using language that uses the term "autistic person" rather than "person with autism" because the latter is considered to be externalising autism and denying it as being central to the identity and experience of the autistic person.

      Just as we wouldn't say "a person with blackness" or "a person with womanhood" or "a person with homosexuality" because that is seen as separating out the core experience of being a black person, a woman, or a gay person so too does the autistic community feel that phrasing it as "person with autism" has the same effect. (Also in the case of a gay person, the way of phrasing it above has implications of pathologising and medicalising the experience, which is what happens a lot for autistic people too and that has historically been to serious detriment to autistic people.)

      For me, being autistic, there is no "outside" of autism; it colours who I am, it shapes my relationship to and understanding of the world (and this extends to how I experience myself) so to put autism as external to me is to imply that it's sort of additional somehow and it gives the impression that there's a "real" me beneath the autism, which I personally reject the notion of.

      Note that this is just the general consensus here; some people don't care, some people prefer to refer to themselves as "a person with autism" and that's valid. But as a rule I'd say that it's best to refer to autistic people this way around as it's the preferred term.

      That being said, I will sometimes say things like "excuse my autism", "this might be my autism acting up", "today the autism won", and "this is just my autism speaking but...", although I do this ironically.

      • JamesConeZone [they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        This is so helpful, thank you. There has been a movement to change language in academia from things like "a leper" or to "a person who has leprosy" or "a depressed woman" to "a woman who has depression" etc in order to emphasize humanity of the person first and other characteristics second. I appreciate your perspective on that type of wording.

      • CatoPosting [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        You put that so clearly. Person with womanhood really does sound so alienating, so I'll try to modulate my language towards autistic people in the future :)

      • JuneFall [none/use name]
        ·
        1 year ago

        While I agree with what you write, ESL speakers often vary in meaning. The discourse and concept you mentioned is one that is part of learning a language. I do prefer for my diagnosis a person with specific diagnosis instead of diagnosis person, too. But that varies by person. Since the diagnosis is something that is an assigned thing, what is constitutional to me is not quite described by it. Though at the same time I am a queer person more than I am a person with queerness.

    • berrytopylus [she/her,they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      The word autism to me isn't like "something I have" but rather just a descriptive term about me and my traits. It's like

      "That person is nice" = nice person "that person is mean" = mean person "That person is into art" = artistic person

      Autism is just a label, an observation made that "hey people with X and Y trait also seem to have A, B, C trait in common". I would be who I am with or without the word existing so putting it as something I "have" rather than am feels odd.

      But you're free to use and prefer what you want for yourself.