I understand where they are coming from, but their battle against ableism is forever going to be an uphill one. It is not saying ‘retard’ and ‘retarded’ that they are arguing against: it is already unacceptable in polite society to disparage people for anything other than their moral qualities. Arguing against words only results in the well-known euphemism treadmill; it is not long until ‘Are you neurodivergent?’ becomes the new ‘Are you retarded?’ And so, they are arguing against neurodivergency itself being considered bad or undesirable.
A tough idea to sell. Having some kind of mental disability is a genuine debuff to a person having it and a genuine inconvenience to those interacting. There are a few such traits, and they are easy to determine by considering what people would never wish onto their children. The list is rather short: to be crippled, to be slow, and to be ugly. If we ever have designer babies, this is going to become blindingly obvious.
I do not think it is possible to prevent people from using the opposites of desirable traits as insults. They will always insinuate somebody is inept, stupid, or repulsive to berate because they genuinely believe those are bad things to be — not morally but practically. And the best argument against doing so — ‘Well, people have no control over this!’ — may only elicit pity, not endear.
