i do not believe these words should be abandoned!
my intent is to point out and critique society’s weaponization of words, not the words themselves.
also! this is a descriptive post, not perscriptive
what that means is just that i want ppl to be aware that this pattern has happened in the past and of course the forces behind those happenings haven’t just disappeared. i think pride in being ND and the fact that “neurodiverse” is a word that is created by its own community are powerful reasons to doubt that the word will have the same fate. perhaps i would call this a “call to awareness” post rather than a call to action.
(making this disclaimer because a couple people are violently adamant that i am just trying to make an argument saying all these words are the same and predicting the future, which, sorry you got that impression it’s not true. but now you know!)
Idk im Autistic and I use “regarded”, neurotypicals can fuck off if they feel offended
So brave
The r-slur is targeted at intellectually disabled people. It’s not something for you to reclaim. When people call non-intellectually disabled autistic people that, the insult is that they’re comparing them to intellectually disabed people.
And why is it an insult? Because nobody wants to be seen as intellectually disabled. No matter what new words we make up, mean people will always use them to make other people feel bad. It’s not the words, it’s the ideas behind them.
You’re on the right track, but there’s more to it. It’s not just that people “don’t want” to be disabled—though that’s true for many. The deeper issue is how society devalues disabled lives, shaped by capitalism and white supremacist systems that teach us disabled people are less worthy, less productive, and less human.
Consider the insult “you are a woman” a few decades ago. Sure, it worked because the man didn’t want to be a woman, aligning with your point. But it was also powerful because women were treated as inferior, denied rights, and subjected to violence. The insult carried misogyny—it didn’t just say “you’re not a man,” it implied “you’re part of a group society actively devalues and mistreats.”
The same applies to ableist insults. It’s not just about not wanting to be disabled; the insult works because it taps into the belief that disabled people are lesser. That’s the real harm—society’s systemic dehumanization of disability, which gives these insults their weight.
excellent and fair analysis.
Why “regarded”? I don’t get it tbh. To me it just says that you want to call someone “retarded” but you’re just too much of a coward to commit. Like, it communicates the exact same contempt for someone’s cognitive abilities but also an aversion to using a proper No-No Word™ because you don’t wanna transgress some sorta social taboo against them while doing so. Cuck behaviour, ngl chief.
Or, it might be because some communities silence those who use certain words, regardless of context, and this person is trying to avoid that…
Yes, and I still think that shitlordy behaviour of “teehee I didn’t technically break the rules-as-written despite it being blatantly obvious to everyone around that my intent was to do exactly that because I’m scared of getting a comment removed on the internet” is a pathetic display of weakness.
Idk, I find all three alternatives preferable: either say the slur we all know you mean and just cop the consequences, be more creative with your insult game, or idk, maybe just don’t use cognitive impairments as a punching bag???
honestly i support more shaming of this kind of behavior. i can even identify areas where this would have been more rhetorically effective in my own experiences.
instead of getting defensive: “what do you mean by that?” “no no i don’t understand please explain what ‘acoustic’ means?” “what is restarted?”
unserious ableists deserve unserious conversations
i’m not against you reclaiming slurs!, if that language is accepted in your communities and you aren’t using it to do value judgments or insult, this is totally slay and acceptable 🙂
Of course I wouldnt say it if it made a neurodivergant person uncomfortable. Also I say it in a ironic sence to describe how people often treat me and other Autistic people as disabled.
based! and pretty much what i was assuming given the rest of your comment. :) i just had to put all those qualifications there because otherwise some other user would come in screaming “hypocrisy” 😆 cheers!