a word for prejudice against autism and the like?

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I was talking to a guy in one of my classes last night, we'll call him G, and there's this kid who I'm sure has undiagnosed AS or something very similar like NLVD (in fact, he's probably a perfect candidate) who is also in our class, who we will call A, and G was telling me how irritating A was, and how much he couldn't stand him, and I felt like it was prejudiced (not necessarily his fault because I'm sure he's uneducated on the topic, and why we need to spread the word of mind-worky-differences).

Do we have a word for prejudice against those of us with different brains? Not just autism, but also Tourett's and others. I kind of want to call this kid out, because well, he was being kind of a jerk. BRAINSTORM TIME.

That doesn't sound like prejudice against autism to me, that just sounds like he didn't like the guy. It happens.

Well, I don't really like A all that much either. He kind of creeps me out, but the way G was talking about him made me feel very...something, definitely because the things that he didn't like in him were the things that I recognize in myself, like accidentally interrupting people or just acting a little "off." It wasn't so much that he didn't like his personality, it was one of those "why is he so effing weird?" in a trying-not-to-be-brutal-and-not-achieving-it sort of remarks. I guess it just lit a fire in me because it was so close to home.

But, that's kind of beside the point anyway. It just made me wonder if there was or if we could come up with a word for discrimination against those under the "neurologically different" blanket.

I use "Anti-Autismism" with a distinct 'z' sound for the 's' so it sounds like "Autiz~mizz'm". Sorta like Semitism. Only a bit less Jewish.

neurocentric?

The broader term is probably "ableism", or "disablism". Obviously a smooshed-together form of "disability racism".

Specific to brain types, I've also heard it called "neurobigotry". Specific to autism, just "anti-autistic prejudice".

Simple 'dislike', or perhaps 'creeped out'.

Ignorant comes to mind.

I like.
I was just going to refer to said persons as 'jerkface'.

IMO this doesn't have anything to do with someone being prejudiced against people w/autisim. It just sounds like "A" is not very much fun to be around and then you got offended when you realized that you have some of the same characteristics.

You called him irritating and said he creeps you out. If you don't like him why should the other guy? I'm sure he has no idea he may be AS. He just comes off as creepy & irritating. What's to like?

Last edited by granatelli on 17 Apr 2010, 12:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ignorant.

Doesn't "autismism" just roll of the tongue?

But really, that wasn't very prejudiced. He dislikes the person because that person annoys him (not necessarily purposefully), which seems entirely reasonable to me. He didn't dislike the person because of any condition/disorder/disease/quality but because of actual behavior which is a very acceptable reason to not like someone.

How about neurodiversity phobia? Neurodiversityphobia?

He just doesn't like A because he finds him annoying, he's not prejudiced against autistic people

I know a woman who claims people in a SciFi society are prejudiced against people with Asperger's Syndrome, I talked to some of the people in the society and they said the woman came to one of their functions, was paralytic (very drunk) by midday and ended up frightening some of the members' grandchildren. In my experience I find her annoying as well, she's overly loud and butts in on other peoples' conversations, she gave me a headache at a meal once because she wouldn't shut up

She seems to think that people not liking her = prejudiced against people with Aspergers

Ableism/Disableism, which covers prejudice towards all kinds of disabilities.

I'm guessing that G has no idea about autism, or the possibility that A might have a disability. I've known several people in the past who, in hindsight, I realize were probably on the spectrum. One of them was an interesting guy, but very strange. Whenever he left the room, we'd look at each other and say something like, "Wow. There's no one in the world like Hooper, is there? What a character." None of us had a clue about autism (this was 1986), we just knew he was very different. He wasn't disliked, because he wasn't annoying. But he was definitely unusual.

Another guy was the type who would stand too close, pick his nose in front of people, and smile when he was being insulted. He had a lot of AS traits, and may have been on the spectrum (again, late 80's), but we all just saw him as a slightly annoying guy who seemed to try too hard. It was unpleasant being around him because there was always a risk that you'd see whatever he dug out of his nose. And when people got angry with him for being annoying, he would smile or laugh, as if he thought they were being playful. That would make people even more annoyed, because none of us (me included) could understand why he was acting like that. So, yeah, we didn't like him much. We tolerated him, because he was a co-worker. But none of us had any idea that he might have had a disability, because we had never heard of such a thing.