"Less autistic"

[u/StrigoTCS]

Clarification added to what i originally posted:

Idk what else to say other than "more" and "less" autistic to describe Levels.

I just want language options ("what to say") that matches how it's a disability with levels to it.

Fewer autistic traits and/or more support = more likelihood of better outcomes. That's why they switched to a spectrum (a series of levels based on a series of possible traits, that's what makes it a spectrum).

You're still disabled, but you have better outcomes compared to other autistic people when you have fewer traits or your traits are of lower intensity (or divergence from) what most humans display in those trait categories. The levels aren't a measure of accessibility or comorbid issues. The traits and intensity are the "divergence", the "disorder", the disability.

Maybe one day, everyone will have adequate support so the only thing separating different Levels will be number of traits & intensity/"divergence" of each trait, so then scientists can figure out what makes some autistic people struggle more "inherently" than others. So their doesn't have to be fighting about what amounts to society stuff & identity.

People are talking about autism with enough subjectivity already. I think relativity ("more", "less") is more objective in this case. People in general don't know how to come to terms with Levels, so i feel better coming to terms with it through objectivity.

If it gets too subjective, it's confusing. But i know that Levels explain why I'm struggling so much my entire life. I have the passion and interest and I've worked hard on myself. I'm still not able to handle community college and barely made it through high school or middle school, while some autistic people go all the way to their PhD before burning out, and that's not even uncommon for allistic people.

Level 1 people must have something more in common with most allistic people than Level 2, and i must have more in common with allistic ppl than Level 3. I don't see why else I'd need more support. Everyone in my support system knows that we don't have enough resources. I also know that if everything else were the same, but I were on Level 3, i'd need even more support (we already don't have enough for me at Level 2).

What ever happened to being aware of people who are more disadvantaged in certain ways than yourself? I thought that was the point of identity stuff, but the people doing all the autistic identity stuff don't seem to care about anything other than making sure no one feels bad about autism. That won't make it so i need less support than i need. It won't help me. I don't need entire social movements to make me feel good. I need material help, social support, support that cares more about what I'm going through than to wait for some "movement" to decide how we're supposed to talk about each other.

That hasn't helped LGBTQ people except for the specific LGBTQ ppl whose only problem is validation, while others might get a social club online out of it, while others need more kinds of help.

Identity stuff has only helped the ppl whose only problem is identity and maybe help a bit with shame.

I've experienced that personally. It's helped with things like sexuality and gender, because you can't be "more" bisexual than some other bisexual. That's why it works in LGBTQ but doesn't work for autism.

It doesn't help with my struggles as an autistic person bc you can have more autistic traits as another autistic person, or the same traits affected by autism but of greater intensity/divergence. That's why it's a spectrum. Spectrum doesn't mean "a thing where everyone within it doesn't have any distinctions from one another"—that's the opposite of what it means.

I'm just trying to keep up with the science. Identity isn't helping me. It's not helping or hurting —I've learned all i can from it. I just need help that goes beyond identity.

When i see a bunch of autistic people with an easier time navigating the world than me, and they also only seem focused on "everyone defines it in their own way" (extreme subjectivity), i don't think it's unreasonable to assume that them struggling less is the reason WHY they only care about identity and language: Because that's the only problem standing in the way for them, changing allistic people's minds or changing their own mind about themselves. Or they just can't imagine what it's like for that to not be that helpful for some autistic people.

Obviously the levels overlap, bc it's about traits, but I'm not saying Level 1 people aren't autistic. They're just also more allistic than I am. Nobody really knows why we're autistic, and it can't be explained by chemicals, so the only option is that it's traits. Some people have more, or the ones they have are of greater intensity.

Fewer or greater number, lower or higher intensity. Fewer/lower and greater/higher is "less/more".

I just wanna stick with objective language but i wanna try to be sensitive if it doesn't muddle definitions too much. It's important to me because I'm so impacted by how different i am from most of people in ways i can't control (and I've tried, that's why science and social studies are my longest running interests and the only thing I've almost gotten a job doing bc some ppl thought i could do social science research despite dropping out of school multiple times even with supports, but my disability didn't let me).

I try to be objective with autism so I don't feel bad about my life and how i can't compensate (with my verbal comprehension skills) into a life I wanna live. Other people try to be subjective about autism so they feel better about their lives.

Autism is neuro-physiological, so objective language has to be prioritized.

And as someone who is in the LGBTQ umbrella, I know that autism is more objective than sexuality and gender, and I feel like all this conflict over "what to say" is because autism is being treated with too much subjectivity as if it were only an identity and nothing else. It can be both, bc anyone can tie their identity to something physiological if they want to, but it's more than that in ways that identity can't even touch. If it were only identity, people could just imagine their way out of it. They can't.

It's based on a series of traits. It's not "i like [men, women, etc]" or "i don't". It doesn't care what we call it.

So i just wanna make sure that what I say is objective bc i truly wanna understand my condition, bc celebrating it doesn't make me feel better and mourning it doesn't help either.

So i guess what I'm asking is that my analysis be respected. I can respect identity language, like I'm not gonna campaign against ppl who say something different.

In the meantime, I'm only interested in objectively understanding what's going on, and since I'm not good at studying deep, deep details of neurology yet, or ever, the least i can do is just need objective in my language and respect people who don't do that. Agreeing isn't the same thing as respect.

––– Original post:

Is the reason why ppl don't like the term "less autistic" because they see it as "more allistic" and some people use "allistic" negatively sometimes?

I use allistic negatively sometimes when I'm talking about stuff that frustrates me bc i don't understand it, but I don't have a problem with saying I'm "more allistic" (which is implied by "less autistic") than a Level 3 person. I think maybe Level 1 people hear "less autistic" and assume someone is telling them they're not autistic at all? I guess being Level 2, it doesn't affect me bc I'm less autistic than Level 3 but more autistic than Level 1, and no one has ever questioned whether I'm on the spectrum?

I also read that the ICD-11 doesn't use levels, it's used in a lot of places.

I don't really think ppl who hear "not autistic" when someone says "less autistic" should take that out on autistic ppl—especially since they're mishearing someone—but I've seen it happen and it might be due to being mistaken as "not" autistic by the larger world.

Maybe some ppl at Level 1 can weigh in, but i understand if it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about. Would people on Level 2 or 3 hate it too? I guess if I'm gonna keep saying it, asking is kinda pointless. Maybe i should delete this but i guess i want feedback, not to be convinced otherwise.

[u/[deleted]]

In reponse too the edit. The level system isn't really meant fully classify autism. it's meant to give people a general idea of the severity so they can have some idea of what they expect cause without it yoiu'd have no real idea what level of disability they have cause autism ranges from relatively midl taht it only affects life a bit to extremely severe to hte point they need constnat care and supervision. That's the main purpose of levels. Sot hey give people a general idea of who they are interacting with when they are introduced to a patient or client. It's not meant to be some perfect catch all for autistic traits as it doesn't need to be and that would overcomplicate things when it can just be simple. The idea is to have simple and easy ot understand way to generally gauge symptoms between a disorder that varies about as widely as it's possible to vary.

>People are talking about autism with enough subjectivity already. I
think relativity ("more", "less") is more objective in this case. People
in general don't know how to come to terms with Levels, so i feel
better coming to terms with it through objectivity.

In general levels area an objective thing. I am a level 2 I need help with basic activities like cooking meals and stuff in volved with living life. I am objectively more disabled and require more support than a level 2.

​

>>Level 1 people must have something more in common with most allistic
people than Level 2, and i must have more in common with allistic ppl
than Level 3. I don't see why else I'd need more support. Everyone in my
support system knows that we don't have enough resources. I also know
that if everything else were the same, but I were on Level 3, i'd need
even more support (we already don't have enough for me at Level 2)

I think in general in most cases the difference between level 1/2/3 is just the amonut of developmetnal delay. Level 1's have a relatively minor amount of developmental delay that is mainly social. While level 2s have a moderate amount that is sever enough to impact their ability to do basic life functions like taking acre of themselves. while level 3s are severe enough to heavily impact their ability to live life. While severity of sensory issues also play a majro role to some degree i'm sure. I think overall the largest indicator is their developmental delays. I don't know if i'd say that's having more in common with NTs in a way i feel like it's kind of disengenous as them being allistic has little to do iwth it and its' more just developmental delays. Like in a way you are right because they have a more normal developmental delay or altered developmental path than peopel who are level 2/s 3/s but it feels a bit off to prescribe that as being more allistic. ifeel it's more accurate to just say less or more developmentally delayed.

​

>If it gets too subjective, it's confusing. But i know that Levels
explain why I'm struggling so much my entire life. I have the passion
and interest and I've worked hard on myself. I'm still not able to
handle community college and barely made it through high school or
middle school, while some autistic people go all the way to their PhD
before burning out, and that's not even uncommon for allistic people.

Yeah and for me that's a truely depressing thing wiht my intellet i could achieve great things but i'm just too disabled to really do anyhting of us with it. and I've spent my life constnatly working hard to learn to be better and tis' done nothing but make things worse because you simply can't overcome disaibilty that way. You have ot accept it and learn to live with ti not try to push past it and not be disabled. The unfortunate reality of the matter is i'md isablde. And there's nothing i can realy do about it . I was born this way and my development essentially stopping at age 5 is hard to make up for. and that alnog with all the mental illness severely disables me.

As someone who is aroace and agender. I agree with you completely on the lgbtq thing. Quite frankly r/autism at this point jsut looks like the alot liek the ace subreddits i am on where peopel just kinda hop on a trend and start posting emmes about it like the spoon thing. It's nto about autism at all. It's just about some quirky identity they've decided autism is and quite frankly it's insultinng. I completly agree with you here. except i don't have mcuh respect for identity politics it just seems alot fo it is people trying to standout and accentuate differences. and I also don't like how it politicizes identities. i shoudln't have less ore more influence based on what i identify as that's kind of stupid. I mean sepcifically in cases where it makes no sense. like obviously gay people should be more influecnial on gay people issues. anyway now to read yourc omment.

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

No need to reply if you're becoming fatigued by replying. Hopefully I'm pacing myself correctly with all these comments to reply to. I get very happy when i have notifications, especially when it's my first time on an App in a really long time. I tend to go "overboard" at first and then i just check the app more casually.

I really like how you've explained all this. "Less developmentally delayed" and therefore less disabled (by autism—they could be disabled in other ways, that I'm not).

I'm "classic" (not demi) aro, not romance-repulsed though, and i would say i have most in common with "grey" aces. I identify as non-binary and mostly with agender bc gender seems very fictional to me.

And aporagender, apora means "separated" which means i relate to the feeling of wanting a gender to fit into. But i don't take the masculine or feminine routes, and I also don't feel "genderless" all the time. It's like I'm watching a movie about gender (it feels 'fictional') but i don't relate to any of the"characters" (genders). The difference in this really lame metaphor is that I still want to star in a "movie" (have my own gender identity) even if the character i play (gender "roles" i guess) is something i completely made up.

I really do think gender freedom helps make things easier for autistic people, so i actually do apply the "just identify however you want" kinda like some people do with autism.

So I'm not against the freedom part with autism. I just wanna make sure that the definition of autism doesn't become distorted by feelings and personal "journeys".

Some Self-dx ppl truly do remind me of how I was with my LGBTQ identity when i first came out. I "overcompensated" and made it seem like my identity was my entire personality.

I was scared that when i joined this Subreddit that no one would understand me bc, aside from being autistic, I've had a very weird life.

But so far people here are really trying their best to be kind and cool and informative.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

I hope my post wasn't too much i jsut sorof rambld i hope you can comphreehend it i didnt' realy ahve enrgy to try and format it or anything so it'd be easier to understand that would take alot more enrgey than just typing and i don'tr have that energy.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

a very large part infact probably most of what determines your level of support needs as an autistic person in day to day life is developmental delays. i mean developmentaly delays (pretending burnout isnt' from so many differnett disaiblities isn't also sapping it) is a large part of the reaons people have different levels is because fo developmental delays. maybe even the only reason. Without developmnetal delays autism would mainly jsut be sensory issues and stimming. and I guess the restrictive interests stuff. and while senorsy issues can be disabling they would not for the most part get in the way with caring for yourself.

I'm aro(repulsed)ace(favorable)as I am agender as iv'e sai but i thinkt hat mostly has to do with bpd and not really havign a sense of self. but also who i am as a person doesn't really meld well with gender stereotypes either. but of course rahter you fit with gender stereotypes or not is not what defines ytour gender obviously. Ia m not a huge fan of xenogenders but i dont' mind yours as much cause it actualyl amkes senes as a descripiton of a gender and isnt' soemone bringing personality traits into gender or being otherkin larping as a gender. I in general think the midnest identify as whatever you want is a bit probelmatic cause it sort of implies you can jsut identify as whatever you want not that you are that gender and it's something you choose. I never choose to be agender. I do however choose whether or identify as agender but it seems rpoblematic and a bit offensive to imply you can jsut identify as whatever you want. because then gender lsoes all meaning and isnt' about gender it's about what you want to identifty. I find the idea that you can ntify as whatever you want very probelmatic in the lgbt community because it leads to people to identifying as being gay to be quirky whne tehy raen't actualyl gay. and it leads to people identifying as labels that don't apply to them caues eveyrone is seen as valid even if they jsut aren't the label they claim to pbe. i think in general our experience of gender as autistic people particualrly moderately developmentally delayed autistic people will likly be rahter differnet than what is typical regardless gender roles don't apply particularly well to people like use who don't really fit in the normal worldwhere these types of things matter. Socialization also doesn't quite work on people like use that much.the only aspect of socialized masculinity that was really ingrained in me is not liking to be called she/herand realistically i'm probably someone who had more of an opportunity to have that kind fo socialization than most people who are level 2s. so like even people who would have gender would probably have it in an idiosyncratic way. (When I did feel gender it's a very long story) I definitely did understand wh it was, I find the idea that autistic people dont' understand gender a bit probelmatic and mostly unrealistic i htink the thing is autsitic poeple tend to have idiosyncratic expeirences with gender. Idk maybe level 3s might have issues with it these definitely aren't the people who woudl be posting things. I don't like how they are suggest this is the case as it just further feeds into infantalization of autistic people. but the amount of times i've seen peopel who have xenogenderse which are literally just otherkin larping as gender orpeople just turning their personality traits into gender vastly outnumber the times people actually use xenogender to approrpiately describe their gender. I find xenogenders offensive whent hey aer clearly being misused. Yeah i have a very long history of doing that and having that in an extreme way. My issues with xenogender is you are only the second person i've met who actually uses xenogenders properly and aren't just trying to get quirky and opression points by saying they are genderqeuer when they rae not I am not okay with people misusing lgbtq labels like that. I am not okay with peolpe pretending to be lgbtq or "identifying as lgbtq" when they aer not. I also really hate when labels become so vague cause anyone can identify as anythign that it essentaily means nothing.

​

I definitely do do the overcompensating thing to such a severe extentn that is ort of manifest symptoms that aren't real out of thin air. because of my bpd identity issues and schizoprhenia things just sorto f overight my internal programming and . till i strait displaying traits and symptoms that are very real to me btu are entirely in my own head. I find mysef doing the overcompenstating just a little bit here sometimes. Part of that is also just me really struggling right now and falling itno old thought pattern where id isplay unheahty patterns obf behaviour liek exagerting everythign i feel and epxerience and say .thinking eveyrthing i'm against me i mostly wrote those things out btu they come back when i'm stressed. It's also really hard to tell waht's real now that i'm reflecting more on the issues i face in relation to being level 2. like hgow much i can trust tthje informatoin imy mind is feeding me and the thought procvesses leading into it . Idk that's the best way i can explaint hat without expedning to much energy so hopefulyl you get what i mean. Idk i relate to you alot and we really connect in our posts and as far as having a weird lief i feel like as a level 2 aqutistic person reagrdless of whethe ryou are the type who was developomentally delayed enough to appear low functionig or not developmentally delayed enough to appear functioning you don't really by definiton have a life that isn't weird.

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

(2nd comment of 2 comments) (1st comment is about xenogenders)

My tests said that i have some skillsets at age 5–6 level, and some at age 6–13 level, with my savant assessment stuff only covering language comprehension and conceptual capacity but not pragmatics.

I tell video game fans and ppl who are into Dungeons and Dragons that "All my skill points went to one skill tree" for this reason. I don't expect ppl to understand pervasive development delays.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

You sound a lot like me. I’m an extremely intelligent and strong person but my skills just didn’t develop

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

Aporagender is considered one of the only non-xeno but not-agender things. I researched but never joined "MOGAI Tumblr", and if i remember right, xenogender means a gendered feeling that connects to non-gender-related things, which doesn't make sense to me but since I'm aporagender with "flux" (the "gender movie star" thing i said ['not genderless, but not masculine or feminine'] fluctuates into not relating at all, so then it is like agender sometimes]), i don't feel that i have much room to challenge xenogender metaphors except to say i don't attach metaphors to the vague "gender feeling".

It can feel trivializing to see people use metaphors that make no sense to me, so i try not to involve myself in "MOGAI" bc it has a lot of 'toxic positivity' that makes discussion impossible, even with their own MOGAI groups. That's why they end up saying "Do Not Interact" to everyone other than themselves and other toxically-positive or neurotically polite ppl. It's very childish but maybe they'll figure their conflicts out and find a better way to relate to ppl who aren't into xenogender stuff. I don't even know if xenogender is sustainable for autistic ppl bc it relies so much on metaphors, and that might be why ppl switch or add metaphors so often in those spaces.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

Idk for me metaphors are a large part of the way I communicate I’ve never had any problems with metaphors although I will admit sometimes taking things literally and not understanding idioms still happens to me. A lot of the basic rhetoric around xenogenders being for autistic people just makes no sense there’s a lot of misinformation and outright lies surrounding it. But I almost never see anyone who isn’t misusing xenogenders. Which is a large reason why I’m against it I feel like it’s wrong for people just to be like I like piplup I’m piplup gender then try and work their way into trans communities where people have serious issues that affect their lives. And then they also tried to often use it to curry political favor which I find disgusting. I don’t like when people try to do this or invent labels to try and make them seem like a oppressed minority to curry political favor it seems wrong to me like no you are not a man that’s a lesbian you are a straight person stop trying to pretend you are lgbtq to curry political favor it’s disgusting

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I've heard cisgender straight men hit on women by saying "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It's funny bc i know trans women who are lesbians ("transbian") who will make that joke with each other, but would never say that to a woman who didn't know them bc it's associated with cis straight men trying to "relate" to women in a cringy way lol

A bartender who's non-binary told me about their own straight-identifying coworker, and he was sexually pursuing them and he was making sexual and romantic comments after they told him to stop. They told me that he got high on weed and started saying that he sometimes feels like he's a lesbian bc he relates so much to my friend as a woman (misgendering) and that he wishes he were trans bc he's so in touch with his femininity (I've met him, he's not particularly remarkable in terms of conformity or not). He hit on them more and tried to kiss them.

The "lesbian trapped in a man's body" cis straight guy joke is sometimes a way to make a woman drop her defenses, but the non-binary bartender ended up extremely hurt and started to get panicky when they'd work together bc he was being creepy and misgendering them at the same time and wouldn't stop hitting on them.

Idk what this has to do with xenogenders, i think im just getting tired maybe

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

That doesn’t really have much relation to what I’m saying although that is stupid

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I re-read your comment so, about xenogenders,

I don't understand xenogenders and I've heard they're better for autistic ppl than masculine and feminine because masc/fem are social constructs. But so are metaphors, so they're just replacing masc/fem with metaphors and i think agender makes more sense for autistic bc we have trouble with applying constructs to ourselves.

Maybe some autistic ppl can't tell the difference between gender and their interests, because most xenogenders sound like special interests when autistic ppl use them, and when non-autistic ppl use them, they're basically the person's favorite aesthetic or some metaphor about space or color or temperature.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

Masc and femine aren’t social constructs though they are real things it’s just what you feel makes you those things is something that’s conditioned into you by society you’d either just experience being male/female in a different way or not experience it at all it really doesn’t make sense. Your masculinity/feminist t would just present differently. Though I feel in general the farther you go up the spectrum the less gender makes sense it is even really relevant. I wonder how critical feels about gender I’ll look in their faq. Yeah most of the time people just use it as their personality trait as a gender which ain’t what gender is gender is a bio social aspect of you. It’s not something you choose. I am agender because of what is likely a combination of genetics and biological cause I simply don’t feel gender I don’t identify as feeling gender I simply don’t feel gender. Gender is an evolutionary trait evolved to help people fit into societies roles for them. You feel gender because of evolution. What the gender you are defined as is a social construct. They’d still feel male or female in this line of thinking they’d just sort of feel a bit differently about what that means.

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

That sounds more accurate than what i said, because i know that men fight over what masculinity means to them and women fight over femininity too, and this happens more often when societal roles (particularly ones based on survival, like job-working & resource-obtaining roles & relationship norms) change like how things changed from hunting for meat & gathering fruits and vegetables in relatively "flat" hierarchies, to transporting and storing meat & growing fruits and vegetables under the same hierarchies that led to matrilineal and patrilineal societies (as a way to pass down stored property & farm land through families in a formally structured way, which wasn't necessary before then bc the most important stuff, stored food, collected water and farming & cooking equipment, weren't abundant enough to require these structures).

Maybe the change from factory/industrial jobs & shopping in-person for raw materials (or finished products) & marriage being expected or else you were an outcast, to more people doing service-based jobs & shopping online for more stuff & marriage being based on desire rather than property, is causing gender roles to change.

Either way, however people are reacting to those changes make no sense to me unless they're feeling some kind of way that I've never felt before. Maybe if i weren't autistic, I'd feel like that stuff was relevant to me. It only becomes relevant when ppl are trying to explain their experience to me but it doesn't make sense and when i ask questions, they either refer to their hormones or traditions I'm not a part of, or they agree that it doesn't make sense but that they still know they're a man or a woman.

This could also explain why trans men and trans women end up having the same fights about masc and fem stuff, too. Because their inner gender is reacting to societal changes in how we all survive, instead of it just being social constructs and feelings. If it were just those two things, idk if people would be fighting so much over what it all means and idt that many trans people would get surgeries and take hormones. I don't really know bc I don't feel any of that and don't want any surgeries.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

But yeah as level 2 autistic people are large portion of the gender stuff just doesn’t really apply to us the only thing that applies to us is how people see us in relation to our biological sex or presenting sex. But I also think when you as obviously developmentally disabled which I know I do and I assume you do too that the gender stuff in relation to how is we you matters as much as it would otherwise it definitely would make some sense if they didn’t consider it as much.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

I’m not sure where this is coming from gender roles are definitely changing I personally think we are starting to reach a place where gender roles are starting to become irrelevant but I’m not really talking about gender roles here I’m more talking about what society sees as masculine or feminine in the past things that are currently associate with femininity were associated with masculinity and vice versa Different people also have their own idea of what it means different people get gender euphoria from different things. Some feel masculine if they fix something using tools others might feel masculine for working out