That’s exactly why I don’t like the term. The only people who use it today were diagnosed 30 years ago (fair enough), or want to show that they’re cool quirky autists like Sherlock and Dr House, not dumb uncool disableds!!!*
*twist: they’re not autistic and are just try harder without a personality
I understand what you’re saying, but overall getting rid of the distinction between autism and Asperger’s has been a fucking disaster.
The best analogy I can make is that of a prison: first and foremost, you start at the very basics and separate men and women. Then you further separate by severity of behavior and or crime. Retconning Asperger’s has been the equivalent of mixing all inmates together, regardless of sex or security risk.
When you start blurring definitions, what happens, much like the genderisms, is that people’s interpretations vary wildly. A person diagnosed as a high functioning autist and a person diagnosed as a high functioning asperger before the change are not on the same intellectual capability, but because now both are labeled as high functioning ASD, they’re lumped together. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize they have completely different needs when it comes to support and aid, but now everyone gets to share the same resources.
Yes everyone knows it’s a “spectrum,” but people need objectivity. If someone’s sole exposure to autism is 40 IQ non-verbal tards, they’re gonna assume the same for every autist they meet and treat them like toddlers.
On the opposite end, this push to portray Asperger’s as the true image of autism gives the public a very distorted view of what autism is. Of course media would rather showcase the quirky high functioning Asperger’s weirdo who’s a bit slow socially but overall quite normal, because showcasing someone like CWC is a lot less appealing. So when people meet someone with an actual bad case of the ‘tism, it’s quite a shock.