1. The debate here is one about Human Rights - "Equal Rights for Aspies."

2. When a government starts to respond to political pressure from an action group like ourselves, it does so at first in a general way, and only gets down to all the details of how these rights or benefits can be granted once it has agreed in principle that something should be done.

So we should try our best not to get too bogged down in detail if we can help it, tempting thought this may well be!!!

3. Who is an Aspie? Unsatisfactory though it may well be in some ways, I think we will have to say that an Aspie is anyone who defines themselves as an Aspie.

Gay people, for example, define themselves as gay because they know they are. They don't need doctors to tell them so.

Our case is not so simple, because some of us can only survive on DLA, where some kind of medical definition becomes necessary, or be dependendent to some extent on Social Services.

But this doesn't stop those who are able to fend for themselves - but who still identify with our struggle in the NT world - from defining themselves as ASD and helping us achieve some sort of fair and equal treatment.

Perhaps a few misguided individuals will claim to be Aspergians who are not for some purpose of their own, but very few NTs would want anyone to think they were autistic!

I suppose some people accused of criminal offences may claim to be ASD
who are not, but I'm sure that defendents sometimes
claim other disabilities or social disadvantages in the hope that the court
will go easy on them. I suggest.

As for worrying about who is Autistic, who is HFA, who is Asperger's, who PDD-NOS and so on, this is simply divisive.

Wherever we are as individuals on the Spectrum, the one thing we all have in common is Autism.



Stella, the points you make are so right, I agree entirely, I am wary of spending too much time getting bogged down in minute detail when really we have so far to go as a community to get recognition, I think if we start the process, it will take a long time, and during the process changes can be made as we proceed.
It would be good to have unity on the issues of labels, and the differences between them, I feel aspie, autistic, HFA, LFA, hyperlexic, etc, we are all on the spectrum regardless of label differences.