Published on 12, July, 2020
How do y'all feel about an autistic person identifying as an "aut*st" or calling their autistic friends they have close relationships with the same word? My autistic friend prefers it because he says it is "taking the word back", but only autistic people can use it. He likens it to the n-word or h*llbilly.
Personally, I agree with him. In fact, I designed a shirt that says "All my friends are aut*sts" (but actually spelled out without the astrix). It's from a running personal joke where I was completely unaware I was autistic and just thought I liked autistic people, which is why I would say, "All my friends are autistic." Using the word "aut*sts" in the shirt would be an indirect way of disclosing my autism flavor since only autistic people can use it. Would this shirt be offensive?
I personally don't mind it so long as it's used and expressed in a nice way.
My little brother does online gaming and he said people now call you autistic as an insult.
I think it's so sad. We can often be seen in such a bad way, a lot of people get the wrong impression of us. I wish they could see us the way we all do.
Maybe then they wouldn't use it as an insult.
To be fair I've always used "normal" as a bit of an insult...