From the article, just below the fold:

> You might have noticed several unusual things about how I discuss Autism. I’ve capitalized Autism, and I have not once used the word “disorder” or “syndrome” in tandem with it. I also say Autistic, rather than “person with autism” -- the term Autism Speaks, an organization despised by most Autistics and many of their parents, would prefer you to use.

Yeah, this guy doesn't speak for persons with Autism. He's trying to make an 'autistic culture' thing, acting like his disorder is just a choice, a valid social model. Unfortunately autism is not a social model, it is a disorder that ruins lives.

The author of this article seems to be a woman, not a man.

Also, it's a lot easier to just use 'they' instead of he/she most of the time anyways, food for thought.

As I understand it, the controversy around Autism Speaks is that they focus on parents of children with severe autism rather than the entire spectrum. In any case I don't know if I'd rather be called "ADHDic" rather than "a person with ADHD". Same with most other conditions. But if that's what they prefer.

I actually was pretty fond of the term "Aspie" until "Asperger Disorder" was deprecated in the DSM V.

The author appears to prefer the term Autistic, and has specific reasons for disliking Autism Speaks (and the term "people with autism", with the author claims is promoted by Autism Speaks), as described in [0] and [1].

[0] http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/05/27/autism-allyship-and-... [1] http://apoststructuralautistic.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/my-a...

Aspie only ever applied to a subset of autistics though. It does roll off the tongue better, I'll admit.

Some people prefer to be called "Black" Some people prefer to be called "African-American" Some people prefer to be called a "Person of color".

A parallel issue is expressly the case here -- as is mentioned in the article here.

(Even if you are in the group to which the alternative labels would apply, its not a great idea to pretend that your preferred label is the preferred label of everyone in the group.)

Perhaps everybody can rank these 3 from least offensive to most offensive: "Shit happens", "It happens", "Sin happens". They all mean the same but they each say vastly different things about the speaker.