World Autism Awareness Day/Week/Month

I'm not sure which it is. I mean, 2 April it was Autism Awareness Day, then on 4 April I hear it's week, then supposedly it's month? Whichever.

Considering it's then the Month for Autism Awareness, I thought it might be nice to remind people that "you're autistic" is a pretty mean-spirited insult on the level of certain homophobic hate speech. While it's not currently punished to that degree (and, indeed, even on the boards people use those kind of insults), it might be high-time to brush up on autism and be aware of what you're actually saying.

To you it may be a pejorative you use with great glee, but to some people it's a lifelong diagnosis they'll never escape from, and which inhibits them in their every day life.

Now, typically when someone talks about "autistic", they refer to children who are so severely afflicted that they have no ability to function "as a normal person." The insult seems pretty clear-cut: "You behave at the level of someone who lacks all ability to function like the rest of us."

Leaving aside whether that's even appropriate to begin with, these statements also harm autistic individuals who aren't quite at that level, but still hampered in their every day life. Think about the high unemployment rates for autistic adults. Think about the inborn emotional deficiency that disallows many from creating meaningful bonds with other people. Think about the difficulty of thinking in a different way from other people.

Using a subset of a diagnosis to make sweeping generalising statements about autistic people isn't much better than using a subset of a racial minority to make sweeping generalising statements about them. And frankly it's hurtful to be told "you're autistic, so you MUST be clinically retarded."

Often, autistic people are quite good at decision-making, even if on-the-fly decision-making can be hard. I think it's fair to say that it's less likely that an autistic person would enact a disadvantageous strategy because the numbers aren't in their advantage, and an autistic person generally lends more weight to reason and logic than they do to emotion and intuition.

Then there's the guy who goes 1v5, expecting to land a Pentakill while the rest of the team just gets massive Vaynespotting points. And as much as it might be tempting to call that guy autistic, that's just plain stupidity and nothing to do with autism.

So please, next time you see someone behaving in a dumb manner, considering substituting "autistic" for "idiotic", "stupid" or "dumb."

Or continue using it. I certainly can't stop you. But I am asking nicely.