Nikki is someone with whom I've been discussing the use of "autistic" on Twitter, a conversation that I Storified here. She has also contributed a comment to yesterday's post.
As I noted in a comment response on that post, the difference is that autistics have themselves expressed a preference for this term and use it. When a minority community takes ownership of the term (this isn't the first time that's happened; see "queer" or the N-word, which I still can't bring myself to type), the non-minority community doesn't get to determine that it's not OK for them to use it. I'm not aware, however, of anyone's in the disability community having co-opted terms like "retarded" as their own.
Most autistics I know have expressed that their autism is who they are and that therefore, they refer to themselves as autistics, regardless of the perceived baggage it may carry on the part of people who are not autistic. It's the other people, not the autistics, who bring that baggage. The autistics who describe themselves in this way are using the term as a mark of pride. Autistic people get to make this decision because they are The First Persons.
Nikki has her own take on this issue and has blogged it here. In that post, she says, "I am not autistic, and so some may argue I don't have a voice here. I certainly applaud those people who are autistic and who are fighting to make terms such as 'autistics' acceptable, but because there is litte or no precedent in English for using plural nouns in this way except for medical or negative purposes, it concerns me that the result will be opposite to that intended. That is, its use will serve to re-medicalise autism. And that would be a shame when so many have done so much good work in advocating the strengths and community of autistic people in recent years."
Nikki has her own take on this issue and has blogged it here. In that post, she says, "I am not autistic, and so some may argue I don't have a voice here. I certainly applaud those people who are autistic and who are fighting to make terms such as 'autistics' acceptable, but because there is litte or no precedent in English for using plural nouns in this way except for medical or negative purposes, it concerns me that the result will be opposite to that intended. That is, its use will serve to re-medicalise autism. And that would be a shame when so many have done so much good work in advocating the strengths and community of autistic people in recent years."
My response to that is that autistics use the term "Autistic" positively for that very purpose. Autism has been medicalized to the point that parents of autistic children find that anything but person-first language is offensive. Autism has been medicalized to the point that autistic people can read and hear words used to describe them that include "tragic," "stolen," "monster," and "afflicted." It has been medicalized to the point that when autistic people themselves choose to use the word "Autistic" as a noun, the response from non-autistics is almost one of sheer horror.
Autistic people don't view themselves as walking tragedies. It's probably impossible to transcend "retarded," a word that intrinsically and incorrectly implies some sort of inability to even understand or be aware of how one would go about doing so and one that describes a single aspect of a person's individuality. "Retarded" isn't an identity; it's a perception based on testing, expectations, misunderstanding of potential, and a focus on a narrow range of attributes that ignores a much larger range of possibilities.
Autistic is different. Autistics transcend and up-end the typical understanding of this word every day, and one way they do so is by purposely linking themselves to its use and using it to represent themselves as individuals. And as Christine Zorn, another commenter on the post from yesterday observed, "I don't think the word "autistic" has anywhere near the amount of baggage that 'retarded' has. I can't think of even one time I've heard a person use the word 'autistic' as an insult, or to put another person down. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it can even be compared to the word 'retarded.'"
It is for these reasons that autistic people have taken ownership of autistic, using it as the noun form, sometimes even capitalizing it as "Autistic." The goal is to de-medicalize the word, to place it and themselves in a more positive light, to put themselves forth as individuals, as Autistics, who have strengths and weaknesses like everyone else and a right both for their voices and words to be heard...and to choose those words themselves.
