Functioning labels are a common way autistic people are denied support.

High functioning? You’re fine without support. Low functioning? You’re not high functioning enough to determine whether you need support or not.

30 Days of Autism Acceptance 2022: Day 20

April 20th: What are your thoughts on terminology? (ie, high functioning and low functioning vs high support needs and low support needs, nonspeaking vs nonverbal, person first vs identity first, etc)

Personally I don’t use functioning labels for myself because I know the issues with how they’re used, and I know not every autistic person fits into these categories neatly. But I’ve also seen people who use the term low functioning for themselves because they find that it describes them well, and I have nothing against that. We all get to decide what terminology we use for ourselves and what terminology others should use for us.

As for high/low support needs, I think that terminology can be helpful, because it gives an idea of how much help the person needs with everyday things and it emphasizes the importance of support in our lives. Although I’d personally use these terms in the context of describing my needs to others so they know how to handle me (like, I consider myself to have low support needs so I’ll manage a lot of things). But I could be wrong. Again, everyone decides for themselves what terms to use for themselves.

I personally use identity first language for myself because I feel that person-first language is usually used for us by those who see being autistic as a disease, but if others prefer to use person-first for themselves and want it used for them, I’m okay with that, as long as they decide for themselves.

This is pretty much all I can type right now (I’m tired and have a headache) but TL;DR I think every autistic person has the right to decide what terms fit them and what they want to be called.

Sometimes, NTs are so infuriating. Like there’s really someone who wrote a play about (I’m quoting) “a high-functioning autistic person and a normal autistic person". 

It’s the end of the world and they have to decide society’s fate, which means they will make decisions “neither Leftist or Rightist” and test them on a Schizophrenic person who “wants everything and nothing at the same time”.

I shit you not. That’s really the premise of this whole play. Also, of course, no neurodivergent/mentally ill person is either involved in the project or has a part in the play because, according to the theatre company, “autistic actors are tired playing only autistic parts”. 

Dude, do you even know how many autistic characters are played by NTs? You’re really gonna pretend you’re being inclusive by notincluding us? They’re being like “Oh, autistic people always have to pretend to be NTs, NTs should pretend to be autistic sometimes in return!”. That’s not how you’re supposed to achieve acceptance, dude!

They only have a behavioral therapist onboard (and the writer/director used to work in the socio-medical field). And they’re really pretending that it’s accurate representation. 

Also, they added that they used staging to accentuate the inherent childishness that autistic people can display, and that “we have so much to learn from autistic people, they’re soooo enlightening”. Fuck off.

I don’t want to weigh in on the schizophrenic representation, since I’m not, but given the facial expressions and everything, I’m guessing it’s just as bad…

Here’s the trailer. It’s in French and, despite pretending that they’re uber inclusive, they didn’t put any subtitles. But I think you can already see how fake and unappropriate it seems to be.

Also, what a shock, comments are disabled. I guess they didn’t want autistic people or schizophrenic people to weigh on the subject…