social media flame war w/neurotypical, need advice.

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I recently had an experience on instagram that left me feeling very frustrated. I was looking through the comments of a post about autism awareness (made by an autistic person) and I saw that one of the commenters was replying to all of the autistic commenters who used identity-first-language (autistic) and she told them that they should use person-first-language (person with autism) instead because it was less offensive. I responded to that girl and told her that most autistic people prefer identity first language (autistic), and even brought up stats from studies using autistic people. Studies show that most autistic people DO prefer identity-first, look it up if you do not believe me. She replied to me and told me that she thought I don't have the right to speak for all autistics as the "autism ambassador". I told her that I was not voicing my opinion in the place of all autistics, but was using real life studies and experiences from thousands of autistic people. I then asked her if she was autistic and she told me she was neurotypical, but had autistic friends .

I then told her that since I am autistic and she is not, it does not matter how many autistic friends she has, she still does not know more about autism than real autistics, and that if one of us we're to be the "autism ambassador" (her words) that logically I would be better suited for the position than her. She did not take this well and started to bring race into it even though it had nothing to do with the topic and I had not said anything race related. She got mad and basically said that since I am white and she is black that I have no right to call her out on her BS . She continued to invalidate my points on the basis that my "mayo-ass" does not have the brain capacity to understand discrimination and such... This does not make sense to me because her being black does not excuse her from trying to speak over autistic people on this topic. My race had nothing to do with the thread but suddenly me being white 'cancelled out the autism' and her being black basically gave her more 'oppression points', so she won.

Her bringing race into it sort of reminded me of the white gay people that say they can not be racist because they are gay and already being oppressed. I think she was just using her race as a defence mechanism because she knew she was wrong in this situation, and it was her victim card so she could seem innocent and me the bad guy. I don't know what to think of it, and I want the opinions of other autistic people.

Has anyone else in the community ever had the experience where neurotypicals will defend themselves when you call them out on their ignorance around autism by bringing in the fact that they are a woman, lgbt, POC, etc.?

People like her aren't worth wasting time on. I get into similar fights with people on Reddit all the time and it's just pointless.

Just "correct" her!

Tell her "I am not a Mayo Ass".

I am a "an ass of mayonaisseness".

Because shouldn't it be "ass first" language, rather than "identity first" language?


And if she responds to that by accusing you of being a "wise ass", you can then say "shouldn't that be 'ass of wisdom'?".

Once you've said "actually there's nothing wrong with people using identity-first language to describe themselves, and here are the stats that show that most who have a preference actually prefer identity-first", then there's nothing more you can do. Let her go on her way and save yourself the stress.

This had me laughing so hard