I recently read a letter that made this autistic cringe. Like many non-autistic parents, I sensed the blatant lack of understanding that autistic adults like myself exist. Then there is the entitlement that non-autistic people including parents that they should have equal or greater say in the autistic community than actual autistic people.

It is well known throughout the autistic community that most of us prefer identity-first language. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has a page on the importance of identity first language regarding autism. Neurology like gender and sexual orientation are integral parts of our identities. Change my neurology from autistic to non-autistic and I would no longer recognize myself. Another importance for identity-first language is recognizing the rights of autistic people and the autistic community to lead and direct the narrative about the disability that impacts us 24/7.

Person-first language is patronizing. It insists that I must change how I identify myself so that others will recognize my humanity. Yet I don’t have to use person-first language to remind people when I refer to myself as a woman or a writer that I am a person first. Person-first language insists that autism is an affliction or pathological. Being autistic is a disability, not because being autistic is wrong but because neuronormative society has excluded autistic people. This is the social model of disability.