@moi
You should be prepared for the future. Autism will sooner or later disappear of the DSM. The research is going on the way of the difference switching the paradigm to the social model of disability, abandoning the deficit model.

I'm not here to say it's a good or a bad shift. It's what our actual knowledge on autism shows. It's the direction we took on the subject with recognizing the identity and the culture. Furthermore, we acknowledge that autist doesn't lack of empathy, communication, emotions... Autists show them differently, what is entirely valid. This and others like the neurodiversity paradigm don't make autism a deficit anymore. The human is more diverse than we thought. The bias have deep roots in the 19th century and how they wanted to define the human at this time.

I can understand that people don't a shift in the definition and the paradigm. It allows us to receive accommodations, support, and even money in some countries. And these are often linked to the DSM. Losing all of them will cause issues for the people receiving them. The issue isn't autism nor the DSM. The state need to acknowledge the social model of disability what isn't the case. The support doesn't have to be linked to the medical model but to disability in general.

This isn't the end of the story. Yes! We have more people saying they are autists. This is actually good as the minority is growing. The number of autists doesn't explode. We have better knowledge to spot autists and people can recognize themselves better. This would not be the case in a different economic and political system. Autists didn't have to know it when they could live their life. The actual world put huge pressure on the individual. It closes many doors that were used by autists to cope and have a good life. Here, the environment is against us, what ends many of us to ask themselves what wrong and find they are autists. Here sdx is important for the health of these people. Diagnosis aren't accessible for everyone.

@actuallyautistic @alice

@moi
As an autistic person, the benefits of legitimate clarity about oneself seem more important to me than the exclusion of mis(self-)diagnosed NTs.
This, and the fact that over 80% of self-diagnoses seem to be accurate, makes the legitimacy of self-diagnoses seem logical to me.
Whereby legitimacy probably exists on a spectrum.
I was diagnosed by a specialist and this gave me a good deal of
subjective certainty over and above of the tests I carried out myself

@actuallyautistic @alice

@moi @actuallyautistic @alice Gatekeeping is far more harmful than the occasional self-misdiagnosis. Eventually, those folks will figure it out and move on, after getting to know autistic people and developing a better understanding of what autism is, or seeing a professional and learning of their mistake. I lived for 13 years as a self-diagnosed autistic person before having the $$ to get a formal dx. Those years would have been way more difficult had I not been welcomed into the community as someone who belonged, considering that I did, in fact, belong.

Nothing is getting watered down or becoming meaningless here.

@moi I am diagnosed, but I find the claim that my existence has to be confirmed by a (usually neurotypical) professional problematic. It's okay if you agree with living in the neurotypical world according to its rules, but please don't impose that on your fellow members of the spectrum. I don’t care about NTs, thinking they are Autistic. Fuck them. Their Problem. I care about my people on the Spectrum who think, they may be autistic, because that is totally valid.

@actuallyautistic @alice