@autistics #ActuallyAutistic recently made the mistake of commenting on an IG post and i took issue with someone calling autism a disorder…

[adelinej@piaille.fr]

@filmfreak75 No, not alone.

[manon@metalhead.club]

@filmfreak75 No, you’re not alone. A flu is a disorder bit not a disability.
I don’t like people who claim they speak for „the whole community“.

[filmfreak75@mastodon.social]

@manon pretty sure OP didn’t realize i was part of the community

[bardmoss@autistics.life]

@filmfreak75 @autistics
Well you are partly right, and leaning in the right direction. Autism is neither a disorder nor a disability. It just simply is.

[filmfreak75@mastodon.social]

@bardmoss as long as there are legal implications re services and rights, it needs a
classification and that should not be disorder

@autistics

[bardmoss@autistics.life]

@filmfreak75 @autistics
Does "diagnosis" work for you?

[filmfreak75@mastodon.social]

@bardmoss from a medical and legal perspective that doesn’t mean anything since everything is a diagnosis

not debating it should be considered just basic human variance but that’s not the world we live in

@autistics

[berniedoesit@mstdn.social]

@filmfreak75 @autistics They're clearly not the same.

[ziriuz84@mastodon.uno]

@bardmoss

@filmfreak75 @autistics

My diagnosis certificate here in Italy says "Autistic neurodivergent functioning level 1"

[filmfreak75@mastodon.social]

@ziriuz84 that’s interesting — the US doesn’t use the World Health Organization manual so we have irksome variances

@bardmoss @autistics

[gal_they@c.im]

@bardmoss @filmfreak75 @autistics being autistic is a disability under the social model of disability. This means that there is nothing inherently wrong with someone who's disabled, but that they are being disabled by a society not built for them. The way walkers would be disabled by a hypothetical society of wheelchair users who would build all ceilings to fit sitting people, or the way hearing folks not fluent in Sign Language might be in a Deaf event where all communication is done by signing.

So autism is definitely a disability, because we are being disabled by the allistic majority.

Re: disorder, I also think this kind of language is unhelpful and offensive, probably for all the conditions or ways of being described as "disorder". Like you can also be borderline or bipolar without calling it a disorder. And of course this goes for just being part of a neurological minority, such as being autistic, and I'm still waiting for ADHD folks to tell me what to call them without the deficit and disorder language.