Should autistic people campaign for recognition as a distinct part of humanity rather than be labelled as disabled?

I have stories previously of other groups of people such as Irish gypsies successfully campaigning to be recognised as a distinct subgroup of humanity. Irish gypsies do have a distinct culture (they are wonderful people if you knew them) but they are quite a bit closer to most other people than autistic people are. So rather than be classified as a disability (excluding comorbidity like learning disability, depression etc) should autistic people, who generally have a unique way of approaching life (that is common across most autistic people) campaign for the same thing? In my opinion I don't consider us to have a disability, I think we are really just a very different type of human being with a common identity among all of us who share the so called disability. What are your thoughts?

Parents
  • No, I think that it should be classed as life long disability but saying that i also believe that more needs to be done to separate both mental health services and neurodevelopmental services into two completely separate services on the basis that current mental health services in the UK doesn't accommodate mental health intervention or treatment for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism and ADHD.Autism is disabling because the majority of humanity have created society, infrastructure, employment model design specifically for neurotypical people.

    From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    From an autistic individuals standpoint the term "it a different way of thinking" doesn't help the majority of us and enables non autistics to not take any disabling situations from autistic individuals non serious manner that leads to mental and physical health issues with autistic individuals.   

    The world's population is majority filled with neurotypicals, Individuals with autism is very few and among the individual with autism less than a 1/3 of them have autism with no comorbidities and there is a very small proportion of those who are able to successful integrate in to society with very little to no help and support. Among those individuals who have autism and are able to successfully integrated and succeed into society less than one in hundred understands and recognise that compounding factors including access to opportunities and among other environmental and economic avantages.  

    it benefits everyone with neurodevelopmental disorder such as Autism, ADHD and other learning disabilities to band under one banner because more people means power to promote change the majority of the neurodiverse population needs to succeed in neurotypical world.      

  • From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    I don't think it segregates autistic people (like myself) I think it would actually make life on planet earth much more inclusive and accommodating to different types of human beings and would show that everyone has a place here. Denying that recognition and labelling us as disabled is just mild oppression in my opinion and is actually the toxic route to take. Recognition that we are a distinct part of the human family and not just a dsyfunctional version of an NT is the superior route to take. 

Reply
  • From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    I don't think it segregates autistic people (like myself) I think it would actually make life on planet earth much more inclusive and accommodating to different types of human beings and would show that everyone has a place here. Denying that recognition and labelling us as disabled is just mild oppression in my opinion and is actually the toxic route to take. Recognition that we are a distinct part of the human family and not just a dsyfunctional version of an NT is the superior route to take. 

Children
  • So its toxic for individual with autism to seek support and help after trying to do something themselves  that they cannot achieve or maintained that subsequently puts themselves in crisis or in harm because they way the society has been created. Disability is not a negative thing, it's a label that helps other individuals understand that their is difference that may need extra support or explaining non typical behaviour that a typical person may find inappropriate or negative to think twice before interpreting in negatively typical manor the meaning of a behaviour.     

    we are a distinct part of the human adaptation and development of cross species variants, it has a biological element to it and eventually if the rest of world population let us exist and we will get to a larger population mass of autistic individuals that term disability will eventually fades because large portion of society will be designed for autistic by autistic individuals.

    Currently we autistic are not thriving, many homeless people on the streets have undiagnosed or diagnosed autism or ADHD. Many autistic individuals are not procreating because they understand the world not designed for us and going to lead tho their possible autistic children from suffering incredible hardships.Many of the autistic diagnosed and undiagnosed population across the world are committing suicide because it is disables them from living the way they wish to live.       

  • I agree - also people tend to group with people similar to themselves.     I suspect all of my long-term friends are undiagnosed aspies..