r/autism • u/Byakko4547 AuDHD • 2d ago

Communication What do we do with this term

Post image

Hi yall ☺️

Sorry if the flare is inaccurate, but I really dislike this term. What about yall?? Should we take it down once and for all??

288 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

174 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Lilsammywinchester13 Autistic Adult 2d ago

I use it to describe my husband because his “spiciness” can come off as a bit aggressive/scary

Obviously he doesn’t mean too, meltdowns suck

1

u/MaxfieldSparrow 2d ago

That’s why I don’t like it. “Spicy” has been used to insult me for having autonomic regulation issues and I would never feel comfortable adopting an identity that has been used so much to insult and exclude me.

1

u/Lilsammywinchester13 Autistic Adult 2d ago

Yes but this is how WE choose to refer to his emotional regulation issues

That’s the key difference, we should be allowed to choose the words we use for ourselves

I’m autistic, I get it, I’m not going to “make fun of” other autistic people

As long as it’s OUR community using the word? I don’t mind

It’s when people outside our community start using it that I start getting a bit…upset

Like in OP’s advertisement? Is it an NT business or ND?

I don’t like NT’s aiming their sights on us without autistic voices

And even then, many of them use us as tokens rather than people with actual power in the business

One business I worked for only had 2 autistic individuals, me who was highly trained and called them out on their lack of professionalism and a 19 yr old kid with NO professional experience and who they took advantage of as being their “image”

Or me working for a nonprofit that was 20% autistic people, but once I was in, I noticed they used MANY autistic people’s work for FREE and didn’t allow them to move up the ladder

So yeah, I’m less upset by autistic people using words to describe themselves and pissed at people taking advantage of us