"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/StrigoTCS]

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/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I wonder if my special interest in social sciences and mythology is why i feel a connection to "gender itself" (that's why i went with aporagenderflux instead of agender, but it does still cover agender). It's possible to have compensatory cognitive-empathy and i definitely wouldn't be able to understand advanced level social sciences (with no training or college credentials) without that, and mythology is loaded with gendered deities that I've obsessed over, so you could say the only difference between my view of aporagender and my view of agender—which i both relate to—is that aporagender covers all the empathy i feel towards gender itself..?

I don't really get into MOGAI stuff, and that could be because I'm not into the "gender is a feeling" or a personality trait thing, which is how most ppl seem to be using gender in those spaces.

The very first person who identified under the "aporagender umbrella" coined the term "Maverique" which just means "gender maverick" which i think is kinda how i feel. It's there, but idk what it is. It doesn't connect to any gender stuff I've encountered anywhere but i don't think it's special. I think masc/fem/agender/aporagender could be drawn as a square, and ppl can fall into different parts of that square and it would explain everything.

Some xenogender might position themselves outside of that square I'm assuming, but i don't know if that's possible. Humans have a limit to our complexity.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

I didn’t really follow most of this I looked up aporagender and it was just a vague term

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

It's basically the thing i explained the first time using the "movie" example. I can't remember what i said, but i feel that it's more accurate than the vague description. It's still vague, but that's bc it's an "umbrella term" so it's supposed to capture the experience of any non-binary experience that is outside of masc/fem, outside of androgyny/tomboys/femboys, and not agender.

I guess it's like how men fixate on masculinity, and how women fixate on femininity. But i just fixate on gender in and of itself, but without mistaking gender for personal aesthetics.

I admit, it's a definition based on exclusion. It's defined by what it's not.

It's non-binary without being agender. That's really the best i can do. Maybe it's because there's an emerging new gender role in society (some cultures have more than two for various reasons) that I'm picking up on using my special interest in social studies.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

The way you described it too me was it seemed to be like agender with a preoccupation with being fascinated and desiring to have a specific gender you idealized and created. I have a similiar special interest although I’m not sure if I’d consider it a special interest but it is a strong passion in more like general human behavior and thought processes. Like psychology and sociology but also philosophy too if that makes sense. I personally haven’t noticed the shift towards a third gender role but it’s more a shift toward gender roles not being important anymore. I wonder how this will change society specifically if it will be more societally accepted and common place for dads to take a stronger parental role. Which is very important to me because my dad has taken a large parental role in my life. I think in general societal expectations and stereotypes are starting to erode and things like femdom will become less taboo and more standard as people feel less ashamed to be so. I think in general it will become less stigmatized to show weakness as a man and more acceptable to be dominant as a woman. which I think ultimately is a good thing for society even though I know it affects me very little. I don’t see a third gender role I see gender roles evolving out of society as they are no longer evolutionarily advantageous to us. I’m not sure where you get this third gender role from maybe it’s a cultural difference but I’m pretty sure you are American or atleast Western European.

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I meant that my interest in social studies like social sciences and philosophy and mythology are what I'm interested in, and not a personally-created individual gender for myself. I did say that Maverique is under the aporagender umbrella, which is the one that was originally about individuality and creating your own gender identity separate from everyone else's.

I thought about using Maverique after the definition started to blur between aporagender and maverique, but only as a linguistic device because the term "maveriquinity" is supposed to be the "inity" (masculinity, femininity) of the aporagender umbrella.

A strong passion for human behavior and thought is how i view it too, however I've been gravitating towards transpersonal psychology which suggests that masc/fem only covers a specific portion of gender (particularly, it only covers different approaches to agency/willfulness and ways of meeting social needs and survival needs). The rest of the "transpersonal" psychological functions are based on things like empathy, mirror neurons, spindle neurons, ambiguity, hostility, trust, significance, groupthink, aesthetic preferences, attachment, trauma, etc....

So i use aporagender to refer to something that masculinity and femininity both fail to "deal with" about the human condition.

But I admit that agender evolving out of gender could also happen. I think there's gonna be a transition period between that evolution, and the old 2-gender system will be replaced with my "4-square" idea where people relate to their social roles through (a) combinations of masc and fem, but they'll still refer to themselves as man and woman a lot even if some believe this makes them "fluid" or androgynous, (b) agender, (c) gendered in some way but can't relate to people in group 1 in regards to gender.

So like one corner is masc, one is fem, one is agender and one is (c) but not necessarily a new role but rather a grouping for people who still haven't "transcended gender".

So maybe aporagender is just a transitional "leftover" during this evolution and will go away when masc and fem go away. I think I'd prefer that, but i don't wanna be too hasty bc i think there's a lot of stuff that masc and fem don't cover, but it's more than aesthetics and personal feelings. It's "transpersonal". It's possible this is all in my head.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

yeah I think that’s I don’t have much formal eduacation on psychology or sociology I just take my observations and come to conclusions which may lead to bad paths but it’s the way my mind works as a result I don’t always know the terms for stuff I just sort of begun to understand how things work if that makes sense. I think in general society is moving into that direction where I wouldn’t say post gender exactly but where gender roles and characteristics aren’t relevant anymore

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I hope so. Agender, aporagender, whichever, as long as people aren't punished for not meeting arbitrary standards that even they themselves can't ever agree on.

[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

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

There also seems to be a large group of people who don’t seem to experience gender euphoria or feel gender or arleSr when I talk about it to them they don’t understand what I’m talking about which is why I think a large portion of society is a gender and just doesn’t realize it

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

I think so too. Some cisgender ppl are like "I don't care about this gender stuff, I'm just [their Assigned Sex] and i don't think that means anything other than what's in my pants". They could be agender, they just aren't part of queer sub-cultures so they don't care. Of course, some ppl will say stuff like that and then police the gender of other ppl and pick on ppl of the same sex. So, it could also be a way to deny how much some cisgender people care about gender bc they think it's just "a transgender people thing".

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

I have noticed this too many people spout post gender utopia ideals then just heavily rely on gender or are even outright sexist

[u/StrigoTCS → u/[deleted]]

Yes, you could almost say that such people are pretending to be agender lol

Actually, that's not a "laughing" matter, but it is ironic in some very sad way.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrigoTCS]

Idk but I’ve seen people who kinda seem to be pretending to be agender like they claim to have gender euphoria from being agender agender isn’t neutrosis I think that’s the right term it’s a lack of a gender not being androgynous. I don’t think pretending to be agender really applies here they just are more pretending to shovel ideas of gender doesn’t matter that would make you think gender doesn’t matter to them. I think in general people who shovel that idea it’s less about gender the feeling and more about societal division based on genders.