as small as a world and as large as alone

1:41pm June 23, 2014

karalianne:

madeofpatterns:

autiecommie:

chavisory:

madeofpatterns:

another reason “allistic” bothers me

it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the concept “cousin”

Yup.  There’s a starkness of binarism implied that I just think has the potential to lose sight of a lot of human complexity.

I use it, but only as an alternative to “neurotypical”, since I know a lot of folks who are not NT but also not Autistic.  It just seems more accurate.

I suppose we could use “people lacking autism” or something lulzy like that.  Or just “non-autistic”, but I don’t think that there is distinct harm in pointing out that neurodivergent folks who are not autistics might have different needs from autistics.

Now using “neurotypical” to mean “non-autistic” is super gross because it implies that folks with shit like schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, and friends are typical just because they are not autistic, which is just inaccurate.

I think it depends on context. I don’t think saying NT when you are mostly talking about people who aren’t autistic or cousins is necessarily gross.

Sometimes it’s just imprecise. And there’s a difference between imprecise and exclusionary.

I know that I am allistic, but I identified as a cousin for so long (and technically still do, even if the term isn’t used much anymore) and am still accepted/treated by the people I knew then as a cousin that it feels weird to use the word in reference to myself. I’m developing a preference for “non-autistic” for myself (if I can’t use “cousin”) just as I use “non-ADHDer” for people who don’t have ADHD. But I do feel that “AC ADHDer” is a better (i.e., more accurate) description of who I am.

You’re a cousin. That’s what you are, that’s what you’ll always be.  No matter what other words people come up with.  Allistic makes it sound like you’re not a cousin, somehow.  It puts you outside a hard line, instead of inside a big fuzzy line.  I like cousin.  Nonautistic is much less hard than allistic.  You’re a nonautistic person, and a cousin, and that somehow has very different connotations than you’re an allistic person, and a cousin, and I can’t explain it.

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