I, as well as many other autistic rights advocates, often talk about the fact that I am quite happy to be on the spectrum. That being said, I don't believe that anyone but extremists believes that autism is a "rosy" experience for everyone.

In fact, one of the biggest things that most autism activists advocate is greater emphasis on support services to help with issues like the ones you have mentions - support services for autistic people are hideously underfunded, as I'm sure you agree.

About the only thing I would disagree with on your list of issues is that of harmless stimming - and even that comes down to personal choice.

The fact that we campaign against false negative portrayals of autistic people does not mean that we want to dismiss real issues that autistic people have.

As far as autoimmune disease, you're correct in that I had no idea it was a common issue among autistic people - please feel free to tell us more about it.

As far as the "on" or "off" the spectrum thing goes, for myself, the label helps me to understand my own thought methodology, and how it differs from other people. Having the label does not prevent me from realising that other people have more serious issues to deal with, but the label is still relevant to me. If you'd like to talk about autistic people with autoimmune disease, why not simply talk about autistic people with autoimmune disease?

I hope we can reach a compromise on this - it sounds like you have much to offer.