Semantics matter. Semantics can be exceptionally important.

It seems no matter how much I try to leave this subject alone, the issue of word choice and how it can impact in ways that the politically correct clearly never gave a stuff about keeps coming back to haunt me. Being so linguistically inclined that one can read at what you jokers call an adult level at age three has that sad effect, I suppose. But lately, the proclamations by defenders of so-called person-first language that it is merely a matter of semantics have me shaking my head.

Militant autistic manifesto: If we are in this together, why am I so afraid you are going to sell me out?

One of the worst, most deceitful gambits that the curebie movement has come up with to date is the whole “theory of mind” or “lack of empathy” gambit. Seriously, if you are going to try to blur the line between autistic and psychopath, you need to work a lot harder these days than you did in the 1980s, people. But having said all of that, it is worth talking about a few things before I get to my main point.

Okay, time to say something unpleasant. Whose view means more?

It seems no matter where one goes or where one looks, you can always find some jackass who thinks that what they think overrides the view of the autistic, even when they are not remotely autistic themselves. Call me narrow-minded, but I am struggling to even understand how such a belief works.

Writing is hard. Especially when…

If you have been reading my most recent posts, you may, very likely have developed an impression that I am not physically, emotionally, or just generally, well. You would be correct in this impression. Yet day in and day out, I persist in writing like I have never written before in this journal and elsewhere.

A new first time post…

Allow us to get the introductory stuff out of the way. My name is Dean McIntosh (more on this anon), I was born in the late 1970s, and I am autistic.