Notices by GTMLosAngeles (gtmlosangeles@neurodifferent.me)

I like the idea of definitions. Exploring autism has, for me, involved diving deeply into several definitions of several terms. The meanings to me have changed a lot in this process and may change again in the future. I have drawn from lots of sources and also from internal reflection.

For now, I wanted to share a partial list (it started out as two words, but then autism). I would love to hear any thoughts about any of these, including community history and personal experience. TIA.

@autistic.me @actuallyautistic @allautistics
#autism #autistic #AutisticMe #ActuallyAutistic #AllAutistics

1. Allistic – not autistic.
2. Autism Spectrum Disorder – a diagnosis.
3. Autistic – a neurotype categorization referring to identification, not diagnosis, for people who rely far more heavily on building out from specific experience than adopting in from social contact than allistics.
4. Certification – a communication from a socially dominant institution that an individual has demonstrated through their behavior the likelihood of providing specific services to others in a manner likely to benefit those with power and privilege.
5. Cognition – Processing of external and internal stimuli into frameworks that may be associated with behavior and/or internal recognition.
6. Communication – behavior by one sentient being intended to alter the cognition and/or behavior of another.
7. Development – a prescribed timeline of behaviors that dominant social institutions determine to be a desirable optimal outcome.
8. Diagnosis – the categorization made by one or more individuals, all certified to practice education and/or medicine, that another individual fits into a specific framework for interaction and access to resources.
9. Education, or “Formal” Education – the institutional framework for sorting humans into categories based on the perceived likelihood that an individual will grow to benefit those with power and privilege.
10. Functional label – an institutional (diagnostic) categorization of individuals for the sole purpose of allocating different sets of resources for different categories.
11. Gifted – the subset within any neurotype of those certified as having high intelligence.
12. Identification – an internal transition that a person experiences: from not knowing the category of something or someone to being able to place it or them into a category.
13. Identity – the label a coherence of cognition chooses to describe themself or an aspect of themself, along with the meaning that individual intends to be associated with the label.
14. Intelligence – a measure of the ability of an individual to display behavior leading to the perception that the person will contribute to those with power and privilege more through cognitive than through physical labor.
15. Neurofabulous – the identity label intended to mean a person with distinctly individualized cognition who celebrates and warmly embraces that cognition.
16. Property – a mutual social convention guiding cognition about how different individuals may use something.
17. Resources – material items and/or behavior, whether or not categorized as property.
18. Self-diagnosis – an identity label that borrows reputational social credit from the term “diagnosis”, in that it is intended to convey two ideas: 1) I made the decision about my category myself, and 2) my decision is equally as valid as a decision made by individuals certified to practice education and/or medicine.
19. Support – natural and mutually beneficial interaction among people that would flow comfortably and in abundance but for the social definitions of property that direct interactions to benefit those with power and privilege.
20. Timequeer – a neurotype categorization referring to identity, not diagnosis, for people who experience the flow and perception of time and development in a manner distinct from a linear social chronology.

The term “self-diagnosed” developed wide acceptance and use prior to my realization that I am autistic. I honor and value the history of my communities of autistics by understanding the meaning being communicated by that term. I do not try to change anyone’s use of that term, but I do not use it myself. I share this here in case others have similar ideas or want to discuss.

I strongly believe that no one is entitled to know any diagnosis of another. That information can be shared freely by the person diagnosed but should never be required. This goes for autism, mental health conditions, pregnancy, HIV infection, and even COVID infection.

Diagnoses are tied to medical, psychiatric, and educational institutions that perpetuate racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, eugenics, and more. The existence of well-meaning professionals and the benefits of sharing commonly understood categorizations do not eliminate the danger that can be associated with knowledge of diagnoses. Thus, every individual should have full control over who has access to that knowledge, in order to maintain agency over their own lives.

It is my best guess that I would meet the current diagnostic criteria for ASD. If I were to say that I am self-diagnosed, that would be what I mean. But I do not say that. Now that I understand what autism is, I do not care whether I meet the criteria for ASD. I simply communicate that I am autistic. How others interpret that communication is up to them.

#AutisticMe
#ActuallyAutistic
#AllAutistics
@autistic.me
@actuallyautistic
@allautistics