Is "autist" a slur?

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No, autist is not a slur. It's the correct term that have for some strange reason become seldom used. It's the correct word in my language and it's the word for someone with autism in my older English-Norwegian dictionary. Why a word that makes sense is less used is beyond me.
I very much prefer to it "autistic" which is an adjective to me, never a noun. Every time I see 'autistics' I shiver mentally, it looks so wrong.

But anyway, not a slur at all.

i agree 100% with you. autists became the new "stupid, idiot or ret*d" nowadays. people are so mean

I am just talking about rectitude, fairness, objective morality -- not trying to make you NT. Spergie autistes, promote your own interests and make NT's earn, earn, earn your input.

They're making us carry the entire, mental burden of some project, and get away with insulting us.

Exactly.

Words only mean what we humans make them to mean.

John Steinbeck's dust bowl refugee characters in "The Grapes of Wrath" come to a moment when they compare experiences and lament how the word "'Oakie' used to mean only that 'you came from Oklahoma' , but now it is an insult..".

A generation after Steinbeck's novel country singer Merle Haggart tried to "reclaim" the word in his song "Proud to be an Oakie From Muskogee".

If the internet trolls have latched on to "autist" then - I say let them have it because I think that the term is stupid and misleading anyway (as I explained above). Let him have that rotten bone. We can just use "autistic".

But if you like the term then maybe you can be the next Merle Haggard and record a song about being "proud to be an autist". An autist who is also an artist and a flautist.

Actually I think that "autist" is a good job title for what I do for a living for the inventory service: physically counting stuff in stores for the store's inventory. It sounds better than "inventory counter". Sometime we are referred to as "auditors". But thats misleading because the word "auditor" usually refers to salaried accountants, not to folks like us who physically count hundreds of actual widgets an hour for an hourly wage. But "autist" sounds just right (grander and briefer than "inventory counter", but not as high fallutin as "auditor").

There is a recent Kotaku editorial about the subject.
http://kotaku.com/what-people-miss-when-they-use-autistic-as-an-insult-1794491453

Autist is probably a slur to somebody else but not me.

I seem to remember it was coined by an autistic person as a replacement for terms like "autistic person"/"person with autism" and as an analogue to "aspie" for those on the spectrum in general.