I’ve been thinking about this all day and I wanted to add one more piece: person-first language is derived from the understanding of autism as a pathological disorder. Most, if not all, of us look at autism from the neurodiversity standpoint. When you purposefully say “person with autism” it’s like you’re saying “I believe autism is a big, bad problem” and that short-changes all the beauty and gifts and fascination autism brings. We don’t believe autism is bad. We believe autism is another piece of the fabric of human experience: just as valid as any other human experience. It is real and it envelops every part of the life of the autistic person. You can’t take that away, you can’t change it. You can manage co-occurring conditions, like IBS or self-injury, but you can’t ever take autism away from the person any more than you can take your own thought processes away without critically damaging who you are. You aren’t you.

I use the flow of the sentence to determine what phrasing I use, but I’ll tell you specifically why I am okay with using both. I’ve met a few autistic adults who feel like their autism is a real disability. They were raised wearing blue puzzle pieces, going to hundreds or thousands of hours of therapy, and have serious deficits, and they know it. They resent what autism has brought to their lives, and they want to hear “person with autism” because they want to feel separate from what has brought them so much pain. However, a diagnosis in late childhood or adulthood has brought peace and understanding to many people with autism, and still more knew the whole time and are just plain accepting of themselves. Isn’t that a ray of hope?

It is my sign of respect to all autistic people to shift away from PC understanding on either side and instead use language that is beautiful in its own context.