"Autistic" or "Aspergery" used as insults?

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When people use the terms "autistic" or "Aspergery" in a derogatory way (as President Obama did when describing the arrogant, lying, bullying, warmongering Nutandyahoo of Israel), what do they mean? Do people think we're a bunch of arrogant jerks and psychopaths?

Well people associate things as minor as bronies, furries and people with fetishes with autism. Basically, anything different that they don't like. "This fanbase is too full of kids and autistic people." "That hobby is so autistic." It seems to me that if someone doesn't understand a particular interest or behaviour, they automatically assume it's autism.

Even genius can be used as an insult. Someone does something stupid, "way to go genius!".

Most people have little idea about Aspergers/autism. If they do, they don't think of us as jerks. They think we isolate ourselves in basements, playing video games. Or they might think we're nerdy, geeky, etc.

The president and his administration have been a little slack now that they're on their way out.

Using the autism spectrum as a reference point to insult someone is basically hate speech. It's building up ways to abuse people on the autism spectrum in the same way that other minorities are abused.

There IS, in fact, an appropriate way to use the word "autistic," not "aspergery," in reference to people who are not on the autism spectrum. The word autistic originally referred to a self-absorbed state. So technically speaking, the word autistic refers to a class of people AND is a way to describe a self-absorbed state. Just like "black" is a reference to a class of people and a color.

So yeah, super insensitive.

I'd take it as a compliment if I was insulted that way.

Using ret*d or spas(spastic) became unacceptable to use so people have moved on to using other words as insults. Autistic is the insult of the momement. The cliche "you can run but you can not hide" applies here. ret*d descibed a legitimate diagnosis, as did imbecility a century ago as does Autism now. So now it is considered unacceptable to use ret*d because it is considered offensive. With autistic already there are people who will scold you if you describe yourself as autistic and insist you use "person with Autism" . In 10 years time Autistic will probably be completly unacceptable to use replaced by a muddled expresssion like "theory of mind, sensory, repetive behaviorly challenged". When are we going to stop letting the bullies decide what words we use?

I don't find it insulting at all.

Haha... yeah, but that's different.

Haha - totally agree. So silly!

l'll have to sit in on a class, then, or hang out amongst young people.

I never hear autistic used as an insult.

I was called ret*d, spaz, etc. when I was a kid.

Once in a while, I'll hear younger generations use the term 'autistic' to mean 'mentally challenged'.

Here it is used as an insult to describe a political world view the author does not like.

The Fight for the Alt-Right: The Rising Tide of Ideological Autism Against Big-Tent Supremacy

Autism is not mentioned in body of the article.

You know, I did a talk about my work a couple weeks ago. I was talking about the general outlook for autistic adults. I ended with saying that autistic people are not a problem and if you're looking at their entire life course they seem to do as well or better than non-autistic people. I said "if you're wishing for something to happen with the autism spectrum, you might want to wish to be ON it."

Silence. Crickets.

I'm NT and the audience was also mostly NT.

If someone acts the least bit out of the ordinary NTs will naturally hate them and try to make their lives miserable. It is a sad but all too real genetic human trait, which is why I'm getting closer to being a complete misanthropist a bit more every day.

Younger generations use autistic they same way they use ret*d or gay for someone or something they think is stupid. When I was in junior high one boy's favorite phrase was "don't be gay", which he would say about ten times in one minute. What a genius.

Actually, that last insult, which I used because the person deserved it, is sarcasm. You can call someone a genius and either mean it or mean the complete opposite, depending on your tone of voice which I now some autistic people don't understand.

When people stop using euphemisms and such to hide bigotry.

When we stop letting well meaning people tell others what will be better for them.

When we stop letting people use it wrong and take it back for what it really is.

When we teach our kids to stop letting labels define them negatively instead of a guidepost for things to work on and things to plan around.