Also:

[conuly]

The next jerkass to try to "correct" me on the subject of Person First Language will be told what I really think. It will be short and to the point.

Comments

[alatefeline]

thank you

[conuly]

24 hours and no response. Fingers crossed that they have learned their lesson and never do that again.

(And seriously, this person is in a position to know I'm autistic. I only say it in that place at least once a week, and we're both frequent posters.)

[konsectatrix]

My only thought about Person First language so far has been that it's pretty much automatic in Spanish?

I'm really curious about what you think now, tho, which is not the point of this post. *facepalm*

[conuly]

So there's "Person first language" and "Identity first language", and, as a middle ground, there's "switching it up so as not to be repetitive" and "using whichever seems more natural in the situation".

Person first language is promoted using a lot of smarmy talk about Putting the Person First. To which I say "If you need to speak in a funny way in order to remember I am a person, that's on you."

Identity first language is a more normal way of speaking - I'm not (in English) a person with beauty, a person with left-handedness, a person with femaleness, a person with liberal values. Because PFL is such a weird way of speaking it's inherently stigmatizing - and the whole point is insulting on so very many levels. Of course autistic people are people, and we don't all hate our autism or think it's a disease. My brain works perfectly fine, it just doesn't work like an NT brain. (And I can't exactly take away the way my brain works and stay the same person. Autism is a huge part of who I am. Always will be.)

(Note, sometimes person first language is more normal. I'm not likely to refer to anybody as "an ADHD woman" or say "She is cerebral palsied". Those situations are not the same as this situation, and should be assessed individually.)

Now, if people want to use PFL, and they're disabled, great. More power to them. And if they just want to use it because they think they're supposed to, okay, that's kinda ridiculous, but fine.

But correcting an autistic person for saying "autistics are often...." is so not cool.

(Also? Most Deaf people do not like PFL, and the National Federation of the Blind actively hates it. Like for serious. There may be some disabilities where most adult people with that disability really do prefer it, but I don't know which ones those would be.)

[konsectatrix]

Oh THIS bullshit! Yes, I agree--if someone has to make strange twisted loops out of English to remind themselves that autistic folks are people, there's a problem and it's not mine. Also, yeah, it seems more like a virtue signaling thing than a real progress thing.

If someone kept coming at me telling me that I'm being a black autistic woman wrong because of our language's sentence construction rules then yeah, I'd have to invite them to go fuck themselves. And given how much trouble I had being verbal to begin with, they'd get an extra smack upside the head for being an ablist shit that twists their sentences around into barely coherent and yet oddly self-important pretzels and then expecting me to suddenly do the same. How is that putting a person first? I mean other than their own egos?

[sabotabby]

Don't you mean Person With an Ass That Is a Jerk? /ducks and runs

Srsly I hate Person First Language with the heat of a thousand fiery suns.

[conuly]

I DO NOT MEAN THAT.

[sabotabby]

Hi, my name is Sabotabby and I am the Actual Worst.

[elainegrey]

*sniggers*

[gingicat]

I like Ari Ne'eman on the subject.

[conuly]

I keep linking to the same Jim Sinclair article.

[zhelana]

Careful, last time I ranted about this one of my LJ friends took it upon themselves to correct me in the post I said I was sick of being corrected on it!

[conuly]

Oh god. I don't believe it. I refuse to believe it. I'm not even sure if I'd believe it if I saw a link... and I'm not sure if I want to see a link or not. (Do you have the link?)

[zhelana]

lol no I don't know what I might have tagged it. It was a throwaway line in a long post in which I referred to myself as a schizophrenic..

[conuly]

Correcting people on their own labels is so gross. How can you claim you "put the person first" when you don't even let the person decide how to refer to themselves? It's the worst.

/soapbox

[zhelana]

exactly!

[archangelbeth]

You have my stabby-thing backup. My kid will bring the grenade backup. >;)

[bibliofile]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who looked at "short and to the point" and thought "stabby thing".

I don't have a kid, much less one with a grenade. Envy!

[archangelbeth]

I am not sure if the kid has a grenade yet, but I wager they could acquire one with a proper googlesearch! ^_^

*hi5s for stabbything thoughts!*

[peristaltor]

Did not know this existed. Had to look up.

Am old and fusty and full of error, apparently.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Tell us now. As a socially-awkward person who flunked American Culture 101 I really appreciate it when people are frank and explicit about thinks like this.

[conuly]

Well, I doubt you're this socially awkward.

There are two formal approaches to what to call people with disabilities - "person first" and "identity first".

Person first means saying "person with diabetes" or "person with autism" instead of "diabetic" or "autistic", using the dubious claim that otherwise you're failing to recognize that the person is more than their disability. Or something.

The trouble is that we don't talk like this. We don't talk about "a person with Asianness" or "a person with heterosexuality" or "a person with intelligence". So right off the bat, PFL is stigmatizing and weird... and also insulting from its very premises. If you can't remember that people are people, don't put that on us.

(There are other approaches to what to do about terminology, like "use whatever seems most natural" or "do what the person prefers" or "switch it up so you don't sound repetitive", but those are not relevant to what I'm saying here.)

If you just use PFL, that's one thing. Or if you prefer it for yourself and are asking somebody to use it about you, that's just dandy.

But it's really sucky when a person with whatever-disability uses Identity First Language and you, a person without that disability, feel free to make a smarmy "correction". How can you claim to put the person first when you ignore what disabled people actually say?

And for the record, most autistic adults dislike PFL. We're not (usually) going to jump down your throat for saying it, but it'd be nice if self-appointed "advocates" would show us the same damn courtesy. (And they think they're the ones with the superior social skills! Well, maybe, but they don't have any blasted manners.)

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

You'd be amazed. I got better since I figured out that people come with instructions and started reading these, but still - the more instructions the better, so thank you!!!!!!

Fwiw, I just caught a diabetic and ordered him to give a shit about the issue. He said "diabetic" is shorter, so go with that and please don't hurt him, so definite trend here ;)

However, since we are on the subject, is "he's got autism" ok by you? That's my most natural default, and "he's autistic" feels almost as stilted as "he is a person with autism".

[conuly]

So long as you aren't going around telling other people to use "he's got" or "he has", then that's fine by me - though if somebody explicitly says "don't say that, say this when talking about me" then you have to do that. (I mean, duh.)

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course :)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Just saying here: "she's got autism" would not be okay with me. I would probably let it pass in casual conversation because it's not worth getting in a fight over, but it is very definitely a micro-aggression, and I would resent it. Imagine saying of someone, "she's got lesbianism" - can you imagine ANY lesbians being okay with that?

Autism is not something I 'have'. Autistic is something I am. It's not the only thing I am - just as a lesbian is not only a lesbian; a Latina is not only a Latina, etcetera - but it is a fundamental and permanent part of my identity. If some people are uncomfortable with that fact, that's too bad, but their discomfort does not give them the right to erase me.

Thank you

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

I can't :) But we went into this with an autism/diabetes equivalency given by Conuly, and I definitely see a difference between diabetes (an illness that is a not-good thing) and lesbianism (an orientation that is a neutral thing, or even, since it's a way to get orgasms, a good thing). However, I will keep your view in mind and go with "autistic" next time - after all, that's why I asked :) Between "using convenient phrasing" and "not hurting people without reason" I'm going with the latter every time.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't like "he's got autism" because it's like if you were talking about your cat, "he's got fleas".

Thank you :)

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Elenbarathi just gave a clear explanation below of why :) I get the point and will go with "autistic" henceforth :)

[conuly]

Buuuuuuuut the way I'll say it next time I'm confronted is gonna be more like this: FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ABLIST ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR BULLSHIT AND FUCK THE FUCKING HORSE YOU RODE IN ON! DO NOT PRESUME TO TELL ME HOW TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT MYSELF!

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Surely you'd say "fuck you you fucking asshole with ableism"?

[conuly]

LOL.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, right on.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Maybe they just can't help being a person with ignorance!

I brought this up at work and my colleagues were quite surprised, because it's a bit trendy in healthcare to encourage people to use person first language. (This might be a reaction to the fact that we sometimes do go too far the other way and say things like "have you seen the jaundice in room 6?")

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

As an autistic with both perseveration and bloody-mindedness, if someone person-firsts at me, I am both able and willing to phrase every adjective in a 'with' form until the person with PFL wants to scream. Then when they do scream, I will Explain until I am sure they understand, which could take a while.

I suppose person-first is okay for conditions that really are 'with' - like diabetes, for instance. If there was a pill to turn persons with diabetes into persons without diabetes, I don't think many would refuse it, because being without diabetes would not change who they are. This is not the case with autistics. Autism is not a detachable feature. Calling us persons-with-autism is actually erasing us by implying that it would be better if we were persons-without-autism, i.e. completely different persons than the people we actually are.

Autistics have been writing online about why person-first language is disrespectful for at least a quarter-century, so there is really no excuse for health-care and special ed professionals continuing to be persons with ignorance about this issue. As an autistic with rage, I am not willing to cut them any slack for it: I say PFL is an ableist slur, and they need to cut it the fuck out.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this is a very clear and helpful explanation.