Ghost Whistler
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2018
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The only reason I bought up "on the spectrum" as I did was for the sake of clarity. I wasn't accusing anyone of anything. In my experience it is merely a flippant term not an outright insult in the way "autistic" has become. I don't really want to entertain a hierarchy of unpleasantness however.To be clear up front, I say this with no insult or offense intended.
I'm the parent of an autistic child. Involved with a group that works with families of special needs kids. Been in two support groups. Literally never heard "on the spectrum" used as an insult. Now, I have heard some of the rest, like the "autistic screeching" stuff used as an insult, or people just straight out saying in an online argument that someone must be autistic as a way of diminishing their argument...but have experienced zero negative connotations to "on the spectrum". Unless the context made it clear from a post that someone was intentionally using it in a derogatory manner, it would never occur to me that they were intentionally being insulting (and I'm fairly fluent in subtext, even online).
Given that the autistic individuals I have been around, my daughter and some friends included, run a full range of behaviors, functionalities and interactivity, "on the spectrum" has been used in my daily life to literally describe the full spectrum of how autism and related conditions affect their lives.
In respect of the fundamental point, ignoring behaviour. I would say one ought not expect more from the subject than the perpetrator of said behaviour. If you have, for example, a bullied kid in school expecting him to change, which could even be exceptionally difficult to the point of adding to his trauma, while expecting nothing from the bully, then that is an example of reinforcing oppression. That, imo, is unacceptable.