To be autistic or not to be?

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I feel that Aspergers is not Autism, but something separate, so I'd prefer to be labeled as an Aspie, or not at all.

Technicaly, labeling me as autistic would be right, since autism is a spectrum of several conditions. But I prefer the term aspie, as most people automaticaly assume that a person with autism is extremely low-functioning.

I agree - I was dx'd with autism, but I would prefer to be referred to as autistic - I mean, if someone at the queer alliance referred to me as lesbian, I wouldn't correct them and say "no, no, no - it's 'person with lesbianism' these days - sorry you didn't get the memo."

So, a new twist on this question...how should we teach others to refer to us. What do we as a community feel is PC for NTs to use when referring to us in context?

I would prefer to be labeled as nothing but my name.

Come on and help me out. I go back to the autism conference next week and I would like to have some semi accurate numbers to share about how we feel as a community. Won't you help me?

I really don't care what people call me. All while growing up I was the obligatory school "fag". Trust me, after 12+ years of hearing that day in and day out a person can become pretty numb to any label, good or bad.

I'm a human being. Does it need to be more complicated than that?

since only 18% specified that they preferred not to be called autistic, as apposed to the 49% that said they preferred to be called autistic, i guess, wouldn't majority rule on this issue? i mean, the point is to offend the least amount of people possible, right?

AS is just another invisible minority. Like being gay no one really knows unless you tell them. I think AS is one of those things I will be very selective about with whom I share the information. Labels only hinder- they have never helped- at least not for me.

Honestly, I think what label is best depends on the sentence. The sentence structure in which the label is to be used matters as much as the attitude towards different labels.

"Mary is ___________."
For this, "a person with autism" is a lot more linguistically cumbersome than "autistic".

And that's different from a sentence where a noun is needed. If you don't like "an autistic" (or the plural autistics), then you wind up with person in there somewhere, either "an autistic person" or "a person with autism", or "a person who has autism".

But, my point is basically, that it's meaningless to ask the question apart from the context in which the word or phrase is used.

I have a mild preference for "autistic" but I'm not too fussed - I'm not going to get mad at someone who uses a different term. I'm most bothered by the mentality which changes terminology every three months for the same condition because certain people decide that the old term is now suddenly offensive. It gets ridiculous very quickly. In my job (which involves children) it's strongly discouraged to refer to someone as a girl or a boy - they are now "male/female young people." They're kids who are in care, except that the term is now "looked-after" which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because ALL kids are looked after by someone, or at least they should be. Who makes these decisions anyway? Is there a whole group of people going round looking for new things to be offended by?

I prefer being labeled as someone with Asperger's Syndrome or an Aspie. Even though I'm on the autism spectrum, I'm not Autistic. Saying I'm Autistic is so broad and means I sit and rock all day and I'm unattainable, that's not the same as being an Aspie. If someone referred to me as Autistic I would find that offensive, because that's not quite right. I'm a person with Asperger's Syndrome with Autistic traits but I'm not Autistic.