Since diagnosis, I now have some ownership of the club; refreshing and inclusive (albeit in a typically loner collective). Coming into a pre-existing community, I immediately noticed the word Aspies. Does anyone know who first coined it and whether that person was an AS person?

I'm amused by the parallel to the old Star Trek (how aspie of me) argument of whether fans should be called Trekkies or Trekkers. The first is passive and the second is active and the "real" fans redefined themselves as -ers. Hippie is another outside imposed term for a community that never called themselves that..they preferred the word "Freaks".

I thought about the term "Aspers" even before making this link. Also the word Asper fits Dr Asperger's name netter as the R is part of it.

Lastly Asper is much like ESPer. Before diagnosis as AS, I already knew I was Myers-Briggs INTP, as many of us correlate between INTP and AS.

In my INTPness, I'm almost pure intution, and trust my subconscious problem solving abilities implicitly. People outside my head don't understand the synthesis of information that can occur this way and I haven't read alot about AS and intuition.

Anyone else have this type of intuitive thought process going? It actually lets me read NT people's motives very clearly, so I'm curious about the notion that we aren't able to do that. In reality I am very able to read others, I just don't have the same sympathy if there are rules in place that substantiate my behaviour to these peoples motives or their behaviours. I just don't like to cow-tow to the manipulations of NTs.

Anyway, I aspgress (I borrowed that from someone here). What I'm saying is ESP and this deep intuition are similar so, for me, a link between Asper and ESPer is nicely poetic.  So all in all, here is a radical rally-cry to change our identity from the cute Aspies (sounds like a flower or a club) to the proactive and empowered Aspers. I'm surprised no Aspie Trekker has raised this already. Any takers?

i made a good living out of my intuition for 21 years - improved productivity remarkably - was able to 'guess' appropriate answers in under 2 days compared with my predecessor's 8 week average - and was proven right in 68 out of 69 cases when examined - better than he ever achieved

'asp' is not a noun referring to an action as 'trek' is - so to me 'asper' does not have the grammatical legitimacy that 'trekker' has

It would ex-asper-ate me if we changed our name.
I like the sound of "aspie" and always did from the first time I heard it. And I'm pretty sure one of us named us.
It goes well with "for Freedom," too.
So - no.

We gotta club ?

Aspie is the word that's generally used, and it does the job perfectly fine.  I personally think that it sounds better.  If it sounds too informal for the context in which one is speaking, there's also Aspergian, which is sometimes used as well.

From all my reading so far, it appears so. A big sense of WE. Maybe it's a really good support system. Being a comics geek (Is this my 'special interest'?) I see strong parallels between the X-men and Aspies. Feared and hated by those they are trying to protect (well we aren't trying to protect anyone, but I'm a dramatist). But loose membership in a club is something I've always liked..a safe way to socially interact. I do now feel an affinity for other Aspies and wider autistics.

I like aspies. It sounds cutesy.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And Adriant, is right, 'asp' isn't an adjective, it is a venomous snake of the cobra pursuasion.

And it's one they let me into... gee

Cute FTW

ASPers for the win.  Cutesy isn't my taste.

I found the reference to the originator of the term Aspie. Her website is http://www.aspie.com/ and she is Liane Holliday Willey. Coined the term in 1996. Many of you may already know of Liane's successes as author and speaker. The website is a bit commercial (good on her) and to sign up you seem to have to be a corporate entity. Thanks all for your responses. I was just testing out the polling mechanism and how these threads work. Fun.

I'm more used to the term Aspies than Aspers.  As I'm used to the ''Aspie'' term, I prefer to keep it with that.  
Aspers makes us all sound like snakes...

Snakes can be badass creatures.  I believe that we should adopt a more badass tone to avoid looking weak.

Well, maybe that's what prompted me to suggest a PR solution to the mission of this group. If you guys and girls are seeking political, legal, social and cultural changes with respect to AS, then a brand is needed. I've always felt odd about being branded after a 1940s German (I'm Polish, what can I say), although it's interesting to read that Dr Asperger had the foresight to suggest to the Nazi's that his patients had alot to contribute and used PR words like "little professors" to save those people from the genocide. I also read that a female psychologist also realised AS as a condition around the same time as Asperger did. I'll have tolook up her name. Fun to imagine what we would be called if she had published first. I'll get back on that.

But, yeah, I almost feel that if the condition is to be perceived as a difference and not a disability, then the words need to change. "Syndrome" itself has negative connotations. Funny too how some parents are happy to call their children 'gifted', when often this is the gifts that come with AS. I would rather see the AS and the gifted person seen as normal. NT is a mean average, not a range.