Published on 12, July, 2020
So I really feel that the term Asperger's, although dropped for valid reasons, served a very real function within the community.
I of course understand why the grouping exists. But from a social stigma pov, I find it limiting to consider myself, who is fortunate to be a very adept and able high-functioning person, in the same category of autism as those who sadly are much less well functioning.
I'm sure it won't be popular to say it, but I feel I would certainly benefit from being considered an Aspie instead.
I'm interested to here why other people think about this?
I don't really find it limiting to be grouped in with people whose autism looks very different to mine- I feel that all of us being called autistic together helps to show just how varied it can look. I would also like to think that if we're all using the same label, people will think twice about underestimating people with high support needs and/or dismissing the difficulties those of us with low support needs can still have, though I'm not super optimistic about that happening!
I do get that it's harder to describe exactly what being autistic is like for you without having that familiar shorthand. 'Functioning' labels don't really seem to be as helpful for us as they are for allistic people who want to categorise us from the outside, and even talking about varying support needs is tough because it's so variable and difficult to define even on an individual level. I'm not keen to go back to 'aspie' or similar though because of the historical context. Maybe we need something else- but I don't know how to define this particular way of being autistic in a way that doesn't just push more stigma onto people who experience it differently to us.