NT as a pejorative

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Having recently 'come out' in the US as a 'gentleman with exciting brain wiring' (Diagnosed at about 12 with a noncommital mild high functioning autism), my girlfriend told me that if I ever caller her an NT she would slap me.

So, I was wondering, does anyone out there consider or use NT as an insult?

This is the only place i hear the term, and often on here it is used in a very insulting fashion, "Well you know NT's are so emotional" or "NT's aren't very analytical so they don't understand logic" or "NT's just see things in very simple, one-sided fashion".

It's just a binary view of things. However, it's useful here if you can wade through the prejudice and ignorance resulting from prejudice and ignorance, because it can mean: not on the spectrum.

I guess so. But by that logic, couldn't "Autistic" also be pejorative? I think it depends on the context.

The use of NT on these forums always seems to remind me of bad sci fi dialogue, the way some mutant race would refer to 'norms' with a haughty attitude.

I use it on non-autistics I hate, or on my friends when I get sick of them.
But in the forum I just use it to describe non-autistic people, not really insulting them.

I have said, "You're such an NT!" to my husband before, when he absolutely refuses to listen to something I am telling him. He'll dismiss it by saying, "You're not making any sense!" or "You're not trying to explain your point of view, you're trying to make me think you're right!" He does tend to look at things in a very one-sided, set way. I don't exactly mean NT as an insult, but as a suggestion that he try thinking outside the box. (IMHO, living with AS is living outside the box, join me why don't you?)

We need a word for it, and "person without any cognitive, neurological, psychological, or developmental disorder or difference" is too much of a mouthful.

If we don't use it to put them down, then it will never become pejorative. In any case, I don't see the point of putting down NTs as a group. They are too diverse, and anything you could accuse them of will have so many exceptions that your accusation simply won't be true.

My boyfriend says he hates that term, because it reminds him of how the word "muggle" is used on Harry Potter forums. He also seems to find it mildly insulting.

Basically, I guess most of us just don't like human beings.
And then, we see that most autistic people are different.
So, yes, "NT" is pejorative, in the same way the "human" is pejorative - the difference is that we are part of the "human" group we don't like, and not part of the NT group. So I can see why it doesn't look good from the oustide...

Anyway - I don't like most human beings, and don't like most NTs.
However, some human beings are okay, and some NTs are okay.

You are absolutely right. I've also tried to emphasize this in many threads. NTs are so extremely diverse that it is almost pointless to give them one label - but for the sake of distinguishing them from people that are on the spectrum, or neurodiverse, the NT label works fine. As an NT I do not find the label insulting.

Often people in the majority group who hold power over a minority group dislike having labels applied to them. They're used to being 'Normal' and using that homogenous role to Other those outside of their group. If someone gets insulted by being labelled as NT, that's their problem, not yours.

For reference, see common reactions to 'heterosexual', 'cisgendered', 'abled', etc. It's the same dynamic in play in different minority group politics.

I personally do not like threads like this, and there have been too many of them in my opinion. They seem designed to create animosity between those on the spectrum and those not on the spectrum. They pit people against each other, forming sides. That stinks. There's enough of that in the "real world" and that's why members on the spectrum like to come here to get away from the "real world". It seems to me that there has been an invasion of our Wonderful Planet and we are now being heavily policed and pressured into being politically correct. Many members have suffered greatly in the real world; have been shunned, ridiculed, held back, ostracized, bullied and abused, sometimes in ways that are unimaginably cruel and inhumane. This poor treatment of them was not,, for the most part, inflicted by other autists, but by those who do not share our neurological makeup. Those people are the majority and their neurology is Typical of the majority. They are NT's. The one's we came here to escape from, periodically. Wrong Planet is our oasis. We are welcome here, we are embraced here, we can be ourselves here. To suddenly experience our population being infiltrated with the people we came here to get away from, can be very disconcerting.

When I use the term NT, I do not mean it in a hateful or pejorative way, but even if I did on occasion, speak against a society or a member of a society ruled by a majority that dis-includes me and makes my life hell at times, and if I choose to see and call that society NT, then I should be able to do so freely here, without being sited and reprimanded and disciplined and pressured to conform to the will of outsiders. The way I see it, NT's should be welcome here on WP, we live with them in the real world everyday, we love them, they are our spouses, our children, our brothers, sisters, parents. But enough is enough. NT's should be granted membership, yes, but they should be admitted as guests, with visas, with visitors' passes and if they "act up" they should be shown the door - deported. If they come here to cause trouble, keep us in line, breathe down our necks, tell us what we can say and what we can't say, what we can think and can not think, as they do consistently IRL, Wrong Planet will go under. Autists will leave slowly, as they have been doing, especially the brilliant, outspoken, freethinking movers and shakers of the spectrum. They'll find a new wrong planet.

Well, then it's not the term NT as such that is pejorative, but what you say about the NTs,

You could say something nice about them and still call them NTs. Then it wouldn't be pejorative.

Ditto; well, that and sometimes in articles on those non-emotional, overanalytical aspies.




Personally, I rarely use the term. When I do, it's to delineate between those who are AS and those who are not; quite often usually when people ask me to describe or otherwise apprise them of what AS is. Personally, I find the term very useful when trying to help someone understand that AS is a difference in brain "wiring" because of the use of the word, "typical" which allows me to further the notion that what is and is not typical is separate from what is and is not normal.




When I see the term here on this forum, it seems that most of the time it's used as a pejorative epithet.

I agree with this.

I guess it can be a little bit, how would you like to be called 'typical'... aspietypical? I know its not the same thing or grammatically correct, but you get the jist. I think 'normal' is better, for all intents and purposes.