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6:01pm August 15, 2014
Anonymous asked: I've noticed from your tags etc. that you're autistic, & I need to ask you a question. A blog I follow used the word retarded as an insult, so I sent her a message saying she shouldn't do that. She justified it by saying that 'retarded' is sometimes used to describe an autistic person, so she apparently is allowed to use it as an insult and she doesn't find it offensive at all. I find this hard to believe. I'm wondering, would you find it offensive? You don't have to reply if you don't want to.

originofsorry:

Hello :) The short answer is “yep, please don’t use it”. As far as I understand it, the term has historically been used as a catch-all label to describe people with a variety of developmental/intellectual/cognitive/etc disabilities (including autism, but not just autism) but these days is generally deemed to be a slur.

Using it as an insult is not something anyone should be doing.  Anyone.  Whether they’re autistic, intellectually disabled, or anything.  It’s one thing to say retarded as a diagnostic term because you have language issues and you can’t get rid of it from your vocabulary.  It’s one thing to in some very specific circumstances use the terms retard or retarded if you’re someone normally targeted by them.  But using it as an insult is just the same as using it as a slur, which is like… not okay for anyone, anywhere to do.  I’m kind of pissed off about this because I’m usually someone who argues that some autistic people do have the right to use these words, but sure as hell not in that way.

Notes:
  1. humainsvolants reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
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  4. originofsorry reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  5. withasmoothroundstone reblogged this from originofsorry and added:
    Using it as an insult is not something anyone should be doing. Anyone. Whether they’re autistic, intellectually...
  6. forgottenthoughts said: General rule of thumb from my experience talking to people of various marginalized groups: not everyone is comfortable with the use of slurs used to refer to their group. One person from the group not having an issue doesn’t represent everyone