I don’t like being referred to as a “person with autism”. I can’t just set it down, it’s not something I can remove. It is fundamental to the way I interact with the world, right down to how stim enters my brain. If my brain has types of inputs no allistic person can even approach, and methods of processing inherently different, it is an existence no allistic person can reach. There is no version of me that is not autistic.
A “cure” is the same as shooting me and replacing me with someone else.
The type of person I am is autistic. I am autistic.
I know it is a big trend in anarchist spaces to use person first language, but in many situations that just sounds like eugenics to me. Personhood is not some distinct universal experience. There is no “ideal human mind” floating out there in the aether for them to recognize in me.
I get that person first language helps some people recognize that thoughts happen behind my eyes, but if the only way they can do that is by imagining I’m them, I don’t care.
As far as “labels” go, I personally avoid them. I am me, you are you. Each one of us is a complex, layered, and often changing unique individual. I definitely have characteristics which can be useful in helping someone (someone else, or myself) to have a better understanding of who I am when explored at some depth.
However, I am not just a gathering of characteristics. “Me”-ness is greater than the sum of my parts. Does autism play a substantial role in what it means to “be me”? Sure. It’s still just one thing out of so, so many that make up “me,” and it’s all too easy for someone (someone else, or myself) to put too much weight on that one aspect of me, and not enough on me.