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The Aspergian is named what it is for a lot of reasons. But, primarily, it is an active rebellion. Here are some of the reasons:
1. Society has decades before the use of "Asperger's" falls out of common perception. 99% of the population still believes it means something besides autism. Some think it means quirky genius who is blunt to the point of offensive. Some believe it is an extreme male brain.
Others believe that it is "one step past the train stop for narcissism." Some fetishize it as people who are just so gifted they can't fit in. Nearly everyone has a different idea of what it means, and they are all dehumanizing and dismissive. Asperger's is autism. Full stop.
There is a major push to silence autistic advocates by implying that Asperger's is not autism at all. They say it is a personality or hormone disorder. This is why you are seeing an uptick in transphobia and other forms of bigotry against autistics who are often queer.
It is a diagnosis of white privilege and the people who want their "gods of Silicon Valley" extreme male brain theory to go on are angry that autistics are making a push for intersectional activism. They hate "identity politics" because they care about genetics (eugenics).
They do not want to share their story because they are disgusted by women and queer folk-- and I would argue also people of color and ethnic minorities-- are now being diagnosed or searching for diagnosis. They don't want to be associated with us.
2. People believe autistic people who are non-speaking are without the capacity for thought, autonomy, opinion, desire, and human connection. Society wants to sterilize, silence, and cure them. They call their existence an "epidemic." Their parents see themselves as martyrs.
Autistic people with learning disorder and intellectual disability are dehumanized as if they are somehow more "severely autistic" than what they think Asperger's is. They justify all manner of abuse by proliferating the myth that "severe autistics" are incapable of humanity.
They spend millions or billions running propaganda to keep the two separated. Autism Speaks is among the most recognized, but these people are in power all over the most privileged institutions in the world doing what they can to shut us up.
3. The autistic community is divided, and that is an emergency. Our most recognized advocates are mostly white, mostly people the world would characterize as "aspie," and mostly in agreement on things like the fact that the word "Asperger's" is an unacceptable word.
There are people who spell it like it is a profanity so disgusting it must be spelled with asterisks (As******s) and those who retain it are treated like they are pushing hate language. Internalized ableism is a trauma reaction. It is not autistic people’s fault, but society’s.
They are shouted out, shunned, & banned from safe spaces that are NOT safe for autistics. Let’s fix that by not penalizing autistic people for being autistic with communication difficulties or for not knowing better. They need room to self-accept because of trauma. Let them grow.
Who cannot survive in those environments? Who isn’t given a voice or room to speak? The answer is most autistics. Sometimes autistics who could score the highest on an IQ test are the least capable of understanding social nuance. No more victim shaming. IQ is an ableist construct
Sometimes they are the ones who have zero people in the world who aren’t abusive to them. Sometimes they are the most disadvantaged. Having a lot of words but not the nuanced understanding of how to use them is a different type of disability for some autistics.
I got an unpaid writing gig for PsychCentral. I got it because I was thoroughly pissed at the shit published there by literal leaders of anti-autistic hate group leaders with PhDs. I am the token autistic. I was getting contacts from universities and orgs all over the world.
I wanted to funnel the attention off of me, a white woman with a graduate education and academic writing skills, to those people who are least represented. I am new to autistic advocacy, but have been a hardcore human rights activist for 20 years. I have no wisdom of my own.
If autistics want to gain parity and be humanized, if we really want to make a difference, then we need to give our privilege up to people who don’t have it for whatever reasons. We need to look at the history of human rights movements and pay homage and learn from them.
Because no movement that cherrypicks its representatives by who can be the most obedient is ever going to make the strides it needs to make. So, the title of the site is very purposeful. It is irreverent of social conventions and status quo.
It is a purposeful choice of saying that these words associated with us were not ours to choose or define, but we are going to dismantle the cage those words have made and turn it into a platform. It is a strategy used by other civil rights movements called “disidentification.”
When marginalized people abandon the language used by oppressors, it gives oppressors control without our input. Disidentification seeks to use the language others recognize and redefine it. It moves goalposts in the direction of progress. It forges change.
A lot of people diagnosed with Asperger’s—millions— have no clue what the autistic insider community consensus is. A lot of those people were given that diagnosis because it was less stigmatizing. Some professionals wanted to save clients from abuses, domestic and institutional,
that might be worse with the label of autism. That diagnosis was given to every autistic person who received it because of the misinformation and biases of their physicians. But they formed a robust community and they aren’t ready to let it go.
That name became a source of pride and community as much as autistic is for others. We are all autistic, though, and none of us had a role in naming ourselves. But we are not going to let anyone use the distinctions anymore and remain unchecked. There is ONE autism.
If you won’t share an article from a queer, blind autistic woman of color about autistic pride or a nonspeaking teen about how he types with a communication facilitator because of the site name— who is exclusionary, really?
Maybe our name will change, but for now it is a challenge to force people see our scars and ask them to stop telling lies about us. It is a refusal to surrender our narratives to their propaganda. It is a revolt against supremacy, and it is working.
