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.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
      ·
      2 months ago

      That is not what it says on that page. The first quotation Wiktionary provides of the word "autist" in use is from 8 years before 4chan was founded, and is attributed to a book by British neurologist Oliver Sacks.

      • Philosophosphorous [comrade/them, null/void]
        ·
        2 months ago

        it is a slur currently, the usage as a slur started on websites like 4chan. even the second 'non-slur' use is literally comparing autistic people to animals and children. you might as well start saying the R word because it wasn't a slur at one point in time.

        • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
          ·
          2 months ago

          I am aware of how 4chan misuses the word, I am just saying that claiming that it was "invented by" 4chan makes it seem like no-one was saying "autist" before 4chan came along, and that the word always had a derogatory connotation, when neither of these things are true.

        • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
          ·
          2 months ago

          literally comparing autistic people to animals and children.

          ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE 2011 QUOTE ON THE WIKTIONARY PAGE?!?!

          Edit: Sorry I misread and misunderstood your point, when you said "the second 'non-slur' use" I took that as meaning "the secondary 'non-slur' meaning" rather than "the second 'non-slur' quote used on the page". I mean, I still don't think you're making a particularly good point, but this is just a topic that gets me kind of tense, so I should probably refrain from arguing.