To call them autistic or people with autism

[brewer]

Of all the things there are to fix in the world, it's strange that we focus so much on words.  I mean, I get that words can hurt, and we do need to be sensitive to other's feelings to some extent.  But I feel like when people go to the extent in the OP, however, it's more about those people feeling better about themselves than making any real difference in the lives of the people supposedly being affected in any meaningful way.

And personally, I feel that if you insist that someone refer to you as a person with autism as opposed to autistic, that says more about your own insecurities than it does with how words actually affect you.  People use terminology that could be considered offensive to people with mental health issues all of the time, but you don't see me pissing and moaning about it.

Oh, what the fuck do we know. We're both just loony, brain cases, nuts, out to lunch, psycho, ..........

Oops, sorry. Persons of other minds!