I'm Brian and so's my wife

I find the remark "we are all on the soectrum" offensive. I am not formally diagnosed yet. We are not all on the spectrum, because we are not all born with a neurodevelopment delay. The assessment looks at very specific " challenges" and "differences" from childhood. 

My opinion is that this remark minimises the very real difficulties that we are presented with. It is not a choice. Please correct me if i have got this wrong, i am still learning. 

I wouldn't call it a delay, because that implies the neurotypical pace and direction is normal, but I know that normal (as a sense of the usual and "acceptable") doesn't really exist so using a neurotypical as a benchmark is inherently flawed as a practice. Also we do all have traits and tick certain criteria it's only an arbitrary number of them on a tick sheet that makes a diagnosis, they aren't really looking at our neurochemistry or DNA on the individual levels to tell what is what when they diagnose us, and some diagnosis are only as reliable as the assessor to carry them out on their tick list, the difference between a so called autistic and so called non autistic person could be a single question... and we know this because we get people come to this forum all the time feeling like they have been misdiagnosed or dismissed incorrectly.

That's why I don't get offended at "everyone is a little bit autistic" because of no nationwide testing there are people who are autistic many more than we know who are diagnosed who are running around having the autistic experience but under the impression they are neurotypical or just different/struggling because of something else other than autism.
In fact anyone who says "everyone is a little autistic" probably IS AUTISTIC and feels like that is "normal" because actually it is normal to be autistic, they just think that everyone is having the same experience they are (I know I did back when I was an autistic in denial, it was always "everyone else must feel like this but gets on with it regardless so why don't I?") And it would do no good to get offended at or shout at another autistic person who struggles with properly identifying their experiences and probably needs acceptance as much as the rest of us.

Now I am NOT saying everyone is on the autism spectrum, but we are all on the human spectrum of which autism makes up a part and I think it is really vile to exclude and berate people or  include or identiy-jack people regardless of their own feelings about themselves based on whether a doctor (quality of which is not guaranteed) would or did sign off on a peice of paper or not, or the rest of the community decides to arbitrarily gatekeep the Official Tm label (which speaking as a diagnosed person is all a diagnosis really is) based on criteria that not all of us who are actually diagnosed meet anyway. Because I don't even have to ask, I already know I do not meet some criteria you met and vice versa, and one of us will have met more criteria than the other, and yet here we are both autistic. So what I am saying is arbitraily drawing a line between autistic and not autistic doesn't really work when it cuts off people who actually still are autistic they just aren't deemed "autisic enough" to recognise it themselves or be recognised as such by others which is where we get into the same problematic territory with services using "autism levels" to ignore the support needs of so-called "high functioning" (usually high masking) autistic people (despite "HFA" having the highest s****de rate among autistics), and why more and more people are getting diagnosed later in life... many of whom will have previously thought they were NT and said words to the effect of "everyone is a little bit autistic" (because the person saying it in fact is).

So I think I understand why it may upset some people, but that anger is rather misplaced when it is being directed at the person saying it (they are only going by what they feel themselves and any knowleged they have picked up, which may be flawed, or their language use clunky (very likely if they are also autistic), and the anger should I feel be directed more towards the imperfect system that likes things that are not clear cut to be clear cut, even when they cannot be, that system we have to navigate under and the ableism inherent in it that makes even a lot of us ourselves also very prone to internalise that ableism.

I wouldn't call it a delay, because that implies the neurotypical pace and direction is normal, but I know that normal (as a sense of the usual and "acceptable") doesn't really exist so using a neurotypical as a benchmark is inherently flawed as a practice. Also we do all have traits and tick certain criteria it's only an arbitrary number of them on a tick sheet that makes a diagnosis, they aren't really looking at our neurochemistry or DNA on the individual levels to tell what is what when they diagnose us, and some diagnosis are only as reliable as the assessor to carry them out on their tick list, the difference between a so called autistic and so called non autistic person could be a single question... and we know this because we get people come to this forum all the time feeling like they have been misdiagnosed or dismissed incorrectly.

That's why I don't get offended at "everyone is a little bit autistic" because of no nationwide testing there are people who are autistic many more than we know who are diagnosed who are running around having the autistic experience but under the impression they are neurotypical or just different/struggling because of something else other than autism.
In fact anyone who says "everyone is a little autistic" probably IS AUTISTIC and feels like that is "normal" because actually it is normal to be autistic, they just think that everyone is having the same experience they are (I know I did back when I was an autistic in denial, it was always "everyone else must feel like this but gets on with it regardless so why don't I?") And it would do no good to get offended at or shout at another autistic person who struggles with properly identifying their experiences and probably needs acceptance as much as the rest of us.

Now I am NOT saying everyone is on the autism spectrum, but we are all on the human spectrum of which autism makes up a part and I think it is really vile to exclude and berate people or  include or identiy-jack people regardless of their own feelings about themselves based on whether a doctor (quality of which is not guaranteed) would or did sign off on a peice of paper or not, or the rest of the community decides to arbitrarily gatekeep the Official Tm label (which speaking as a diagnosed person is all a diagnosis really is) based on criteria that not all of us who are actually diagnosed meet anyway. Because I don't even have to ask, I already know I do not meet some criteria you met and vice versa, and one of us will have met more criteria than the other, and yet here we are both autistic. So what I am saying is arbitraily drawing a line between autistic and not autistic doesn't really work when it cuts off people who actually still are autistic they just aren't deemed "autisic enough" to recognise it themselves or be recognised as such by others which is where we get into the same problematic territory with services using "autism levels" to ignore the support needs of so-called "high functioning" (usually high masking) autistic people (despite "HFA" having the highest s****de rate among autistics), and why more and more people are getting diagnosed later in life... many of whom will have previously thought they were NT and said words to the effect of "everyone is a little bit autistic" (because the person saying it in fact is).

So I think I understand why it may upset some people, but that anger is rather misplaced when it is being directed at the person saying it (they are only going by what they feel themselves and any knowleged they have picked up, which may be flawed, or their language use clunky (very likely if they are also autistic), and the anger should I feel be directed more towards the imperfect system that likes things that are not clear cut to be clear cut, even when they cannot be, that system we have to navigate under and the ableism inherent in it that makes even a lot of us ourselves also very prone to internalise that ableism.

TL;DR version:
Our feelings are valid but lets strive more for compassion than judgement whenever we can.