Autistic Person v Person With Autism

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I felt the word, "person" is completely nondescript, without the adjective.

I identify with the symptoms of autism as my approach to life.

The name of the condition seemed like less of a handicap and more of a worldview to me.

"Person with Autism" makes it sound like an affliction or illness.

I'm autistic. It's a trait of me, not all of me, but solidly part of me.

Calling me autistic is saying I'm autistic.

Saying I'm a "person with autism" to be PC is saying that there's something wrong with autism, because you're not allowed to use "autistic". That means you're saying there's something wrong with me.

People argue that "person with autism" is somehow more correct and less offensive than saying I'm autistic. But that argument means that there's something wrong with autism, which is meaning they're saying autism is wrong, and thus part of me is wrong.

I solidly prefer autistic person, though when people use "person with autism" without saying that "autistic" is wrong, doesn't bother me.

I don't normally tell people that I have AS. Most of the time they don't notice anything different about me anyway, unless they spend a lot of time around me or catch me in a mood or ask the wrong question. The people I have told, I tell them I have Asperger's and that it's a form of high functioning autism. Usually though, if I have to explain a difference I just say "Eh, I'm wierd like that, that's all" and let it go.

If I'm talking about somebody else with AS, and for some reason I need to say they have it, I say "has Aspergers". For someone with classic Autism I say "is autistic".

I don't know why, maybe because of the image that "autistic" or "autism" calls to mind for me and for most people. I just never refer to myself as "autistic". I never even think of myself as autistic either. When I think about it, I think "Aspergers" because that's how it was presented to me. I rarely change what I call things, or people, or places, etc. I still refer to my high school girl friends by their maiden names, although that's common down here, if I'm telling someone who I used to know who I am I say my maiden name.

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I am really not sure how to answer the autistic part of this but I am Deaf and refer to myself as a Deaf person because the Capital "D" indicates culturally Deaf. I am leaning towards Autistic (assuming this would include being an Aspire too) reason for this is that its a central part of my personality and being that makes me what I am rather than a disease which can be cured. If you cured my AS (and there is a recent similar thread asking if we would want to be NT) then I would not be me. As opposed to having cancer which if cured would not change my personality or who i am and my core morals, values, motivations, interests etc.....

I am well aware of the trend of PC to put the person before the disability.. but it also depends on what that disability is specifically. For the general public I don't think it makes a huge difference as they would never put this much thought into it.

I prefer "autistic person" when talking to somebody or in front of an audience that isn't particularly familiar with the topic of autism, although I am not bothered with "person with autism" - there are occasions when I think it suits the context much better such as when including other disabilities/disorders (especially those that only work in phrases such as "person with" or "diagnosis of") to point out that autism isn't completely different from them.

In German, I tend to talk about "Autisten" when referring to autistic people or, when talking about myself (or whatever other single person with a diagnosis of an ASD), "Autist". Awesome thing about the German language, I guess, that makes this possible. English "autistic person" come closest to that.

I really don't mind. "Person" always seems such a cold, politically-correct, bureaucratic term anyway, though I sometimes have little choice but to use it. I'd be happy with "autist" as a noun.