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6 tweets,
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Thread on why this tweet is incorrect. For decades, only kids could get an autism diagnosis. They were never consulted on how they wanted to be described. Meanwhile, in the larger community of parents of disabled children, "person first" language prevailed: "person with X." [1/6]
Then something important happened in the deaf community, when deaf people rejected euphemisms like "hard of hearing" to proudly embrace the term "Deaf"; comparable to LGBT folks proudly embracing the word "queer." [2/6]
In part influenced by the Deaf community, autism-rights pioneer Jim Sinclair wrote this crucial essay, "Why I Dislike Person-First Language." It's a must-read to understand why many autistic people prefer to be called "autistic." autismmythbusters.com/general-public… [3/6]
Many parents of autistic people still prefer person-first language to describe their kids, but for large swaths of the autistic community, that's a throwback to the stigma of an earlier Dark Age, when they had no voice in how they were described. [4/6]
Now they do. Many autistic adults could've told @yashar this, but it's historically interesting he centered parents in the tweet - itself a holdover from that Dark Age. In fact, I'd suggest (as many autistic people suggest) that news orgs embrace the word "autistic." [5/6]
Just as news orgs eventually embraced terms like "gay" and "LGTBQ," rather than "homosexual." The autistic community should take the lead in defining itself and be listened to by media professionals. END. [6/6]
