No. The greatest interaction I had was when a kid didn’t hold a door for me and his mom said “I’m sorry he has Asperger’s and it’s a little heavy on the ass.”

Then we ended up in the same waiting room for a while and she talked about accommodating her son and how they managed it. What was really interesting is the kid looked like it was the first time he heard his mom talk to someone else about it and him and I could tell he was embarrassed but really loving her that moment.

> it's a little heavy on the ass

I hadn't heard this idiom before so I looked it up and I couldn't find anything relevant. What does this phrase mean in this context?

The first syllable of Asperger sounds like “ass”, and the mom was making a pun based on that fact (pointing out that her son’s Asperger’s made him an ass).

Saying it out loud made it click. Thank you.

You’re probably going to think I’m very presumptuous but I’m going to say this anyway in case it is helpful for you.

If people are frequently offended when you speak on a topic you’re probably being offensive somehow through content or delivery.

In my experience the thought “[they] feel threatened anytime something is expressed that differs from […]” is not accurate and it also turns off your brain on trying to figure out what is actually going on. I can recommend from personal experience a small apology and transition to more listening in that moment. If more feels appropriate, giving it some time and space and re-engaging gently to discover what went on for them in that moment can yield a lot of value for both sides.

i appreciate the response, this is something i have already considered and i agree there could have been some element to my tone or delivery that contributes to their reaction, though i also don't necessarily claim responsibility for their reaction.

i agree the wording on my post you're replying to comes across the way you're describing. i have more nuanced thoughts about this but it's a lot to type, but will end by saying thank you for the kindly worded comment

My wife and I are on the spectrum hence we read up on it regularly. Especially when we were first diagnosed. Lately we read more on it given our kids are likely on the spectrum with our oldest being in a diagnosis trajectory.

One major thing which annoys me is when autism is being used as a curse-word. Such as 'no autism please' when looking for people to play with in an online game. The irony being this is possibly (non-diagnosed) high functioning autistic who don't want to play with low(er) functioning autistic. One thing to do in such a case is join and prove them wrong (that you are good enough) and then leave saying 'btw I am on the spectrum'. But it generally isn't worth the hassle. If someone uses such language, they're likely toxic, so I just avoid them. Plus, there is the ignore list. This works reasonably well. Though I also use this to ignore people whom I find under-performing.

But one thing which comes to mind is that even though I am on the spectrum it is simply untrue you are compatible with other people who are on the spectrum. For example, when I am under stress I make certain sounds (coping) which my wife finds super annoying. I also remember a guy being hardcore Christian and on the spectrum (he gets annoyed when I curse), while we are agnostic.

> One major thing which annoys me is when autism is being used as a curse-word. Such as 'no autism please' when looking for people to play with in an online game.

I wouldn't read that as a curse word. We always have to abbreviate when we communicate. One way to read "(no autism please)" is

"I've had negative experiences playing with people exhibiting behaviors that I think others (rightly or wrongly) understand as autism and/or I've complained to players about their conduct and received autism as an excuse/justification. I'm not currently feeling up to dealing with that-- maybe due to my own pathologies--, so if you think you might behave that way please find someone else who is feeling more tolerant."

And that's something we can sympathize with, even if sometimes feeling excluded can be disappointing, or knowing that someone might stereotype you might feel reductive and objectifying. But at the same time, no one is entitled to anyone elses time, and it's usually better that someone tells you their preferences rather than feeling those things and saying nothing.

How would you feel if they'd say 'no disabilities please'? Or if you are POC and they say 'no black people please'? You'd feel excluded for something you are; something you cannot change. It is flat out discrimination.

There's an easier variant for:

"I've had negative experiences playing with people exhibiting behaviors that I think others (rightly or wrongly) understand as autism and/or I've complained to players about their conduct and received autism as an excuse/justification. I'm not currently feeling up to dealing with that-- maybe due to my own pathologies--, so if you think you might behave that way please find someone else who is feeling more tolerant."

And it is: 'no toxicity please'. Because autistic or not, toxicity has no excuse. You will not get away with it hiding behind a(ny) disability when you receive a warning and/or ban. Nor would you being a POC allow you to be toxic.

just wanted to say i understand your perspective and i think maybe the GP is maybe not fully understanding it. "no autism please" is really unkind for the reasons you laid out

Your perspective is absolutely valid too.

But I also think that 'no toxicity' would actually fail to communicate the intended message. "No toxicity" is already usually the ground rules, unless you're talking about an expressly toxic venue. It's my experience that persons who exhibit obviously autistic behavior online do not recognize their conduct as toxic-- even when it is. I think they're more likely to recognize it as autistic.

Except for the most extreme forms I don't think it would even be correct to call it toxic. But conduct doesn't have to escalate to "toxic" to make a game unfun. E.g. some games are much more fun to play with people who are comfortable with improvisation and are not acting in a rule-bound rigid thinking way that is unwilling or unable to adopt alternative perspectives.

Perhaps if we brainstorm we could come up with an alternative term for sterotype high functioning autistic behavior that the "no autism please" person was probably thinking of which would be recognized as such by people who exhibit that behavior. I'm less confident however that whatever it is wouldn't still be offensive to you, or that even discussing it wouldn't be offensive to you because you appear to have adopted the diagnosis as part of your identity.

Whomever used that phrase was almost certainly referring to a collection of widely recognizable stereotyped behaviors rather than a diagnosis, those sterotypes are no doubt uncharitable and may not apply to any specific autistic person at any specific time. But that doesn't make the phrase ineffective for communicating their desires.

And maybe a clarification: "No autism please" is not "No autists please". The former, I think, refers to a collection of behaviors which anyone could exhibit, though people born a particular way may have more difficulty avoiding. I might have charitably read the latter as a poorly phrased version of the former, but I'd also be quicker to agree that at least as phrased it was more discriminatory.

> Or if you are POC and they say 'no black people please'? You'd feel excluded for something you are; something you cannot change. It is flat out discrimination.

Your example isn't equivalent. Being a POC isn't a different kind of mental structure that causes behavior which can make online playing unfun. It's not particularly relevant relative to its discriminatory power.

Imagine I was soliciting for people to play basketball and advertised "no midgets please". It stinks for short people that they get excluded form some games due to physical properties they were born with and can't control.

But when those properties are relevant to other people's enjoyment of the game, it's not discrimination-- it's just voluntary participants setting out the criteria under which they'll choose to play so that the game is fun for everyone.

And sterotype autistic behaviors are generally more controllable by someone with autism than say being short or having a particular skin tone is.

To be clear about my own perspectives: I would never write "no autists please" or even "no autism please"-- I would simply stop playing with strangers in any environment where that sort of conduct caused me to not have fun, at least when I didn't feel up to dealing with it.

But even though it's something I wouldn't do, I can have sympathy for those who did it.

> But one thing which comes to mind is that even though I am on the spectrum it is simply untrue you are compatible with other people who are on the spectrum.

the experiences i've heard from the people around me is that someone with neurodivergence is significantly less likely to be friends with someone else who also has it. im not making a generalization that this is commonly the case, it's just frequent feedback in my specific social circle

I see this but usually only when someone who has never saught a diagnosis or have any shared experiences keeps referring to their supposed autism in a community with a lot of autistic people who will backlash.

Never seen a discussion go bad _about_ it.

Yes because the diagnostic label is over broad to the point of meaninglessness and people have their own independently valid reasons for wanting autism to be interpreted as either a mild or severe disability because the diagnostic label is over broad to the point of meaninglessness.

Autism and "severe autism" in particular need to be addressed using totally different words.

It is certainly one of several topics which really demand some caution to raise, such as religion, abortion, women's reproductive rights and the sexuality/gender debate, not to mention trigger warnings, campus DEI politics and academic freedom.

I am always abashed when I walk into this space and frequently resent it when I am led into it by others.

I like to imagine during the late 18th and early 19th century it was equally hard to have dispassionate discussions about slavery. In the 1920s alcoholism, and feminism. Since many years in many cultures homosexuality and according to Pierre telhard de Chardin almost always since we have looked back in time incest. I think he argued for a genetic component but perhaps not in as many words.

Consider the Rosenbergs, or David Irvine, or Sir Anthony Blunt, and how rancorous debate got. Or, F.R. Leavis and the academic career paths for professors of English at that time. I knew academics whose careers were ruined by being in the wrong department at the wrong time by that.

Or eugenics which until the Nazi rise to power was a tolerably normalised debate. Personally, I am glad we cast that into a different tone of voice but in context it might be indicative of like cases in times past.

The hardest part for me is understanding the difference between legitimate diagnoses and people who use it as a sort of veneer for antisocial behavior.

Your two groups aren't mutually exclusionary.

It's possible to have a legitimate diagnosis and also to abuse that diagnosis to attempt to excuse anti-social behavior.

I point this out because at the end of the day a person's diagnosis is for them-- hopefully it helps them get the support they need to have a more successful life. For the rest of us we just need to deal with behavior we will or won't accept.

We should try to afford people some tolerance, diagnosis or not. But ultimately if someone is unwilling or unable to behave in an acceptable way then we won't continue interacting with them. This can happen via a venue rejecting misbehaving participants, or it can happen by behaving participants rejecting a venue that has failed to regulate the conduct of its other participants.

i mean the point of language is to communicate, saying "i have autism" is usually done to give context to someone's behavior or how to interact with them (though obviously autism is very different person to person). i think this is a tricky conversation because someone could argue the "stolen valor" of autism might cause issues when someone says they have autism, but doesn't, and then the person interacting with them uses it as a learning experience in how to interact with autistic people in the future. however i'm not really sure this holds up as a decent argument, because as it's said all the time and i said earlier, you can't make assumptions about how to interact best with any given person who has autism. you have to ask, "is there anything i can do to make you comfortable or help?", if it's appropriate to do so, and see what they in particular need.