When I was growing up, playground slurs of choice often seemed to be based on disability. It got so bad in the 1990s that the UK Spastic Society had to rebrand themselves as 'Scope' due to the way the word 'spastic' was being used. /2 #autism
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It's a common element of language change we call 'perjoration' - a gradual descent into negativity and harsher meaning that occurs to many words. 'Kill', for example, once meant 'hurt'. But prejudice and nastiness speed up the process. /3
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The word 'autistic' seems to be undergoing this kind of change right now. For a long time it was, I think, too niche a term to be used pejoratively in the playground. But with a rising awareness we ironically see a rise in slur usage. /4
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The word 'autistic' as a slur seems to be primarily based on a few very particular and slightly outdated stereotypes about what
#autism is, and is wholly out of touch with our knowledge and more recent understanding of it. /5Prikaži ovu nit -
I hear it reasonably often at work, shouted as an insult, a word intended to hurt, to cut, to harm. As an
#autistic adult, it pains me in ways I struggle to describe. But to hear a grown woman, a politician, use it like this? Well, it's horrible. /6Prikaži ovu nit -
It's used as a synonym for 'weirdo', I think, mostly. It seems to carry heavy connotations of someone who is cold, awkward, strange, emotionless, flat. As it tends to be teenagers banding the term around, 'autistic' is becoming a common 'insult'. /7
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And insulting it is. But not to the recipient of the slur. No, its much, *much* more insulting to the vast population of
#autistic people who hear their life, even their identity used as a way to harm, and are devastated. /8Prikaži ovu nit -
#autistic people don't have much power. We don't get to fill boardrooms and halls of government, because we spend all our energy trying to survive the crush of living in a hostile world. If we're going to halt the perjoration of our word, we're going to need allies. /9Prikaži ovu nit -
When a politician uses 'autistic' as an insult, intended to weaken Leo Varadkar's position and question his ability, we need more than just the
#autistic community to leap to our defence. We need others to help us, throw their weight behind our pushback. /10Prikaži ovu nit -
If only we
#autistic people push back, we can be dismissed or worse, ignored. But if people in power, people with a stronger voice than me and my friends were to start shouting too, maybe the inexorable perjoration could halt, and people realise that 'autistic' is no insult. /11Prikaži ovu nit -
I was shocked today by
@senatornoone and her choice of words. I was shocked more by her apology, which was an apology only to Varadkar, not the#autistic community for using us so badly. But I was also shocked by Varadkar accepting the apology. /12Prikaži ovu nit -
That was the moment a person in power could have really made a statement, but it was missed. Maybe we ought to be used to it. But if you read this far, please share. We need to get people to understand
#autism is not an insult. /13Prikaži ovu nit -
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