Talk:Autistic rights movement

Autistic rights or autism rights?

I propose changing the title of this article from "Autism rights movement" to "Autistic rights movement." Autism is a diagnostic term, not a person or a group of people. Autism has no rights. Autistic people do. I think this language choice is symptomatic of the unfortunately common aversion to using identity-first language to refer to Autistic people (and to disabled people more largely). DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 10:17, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. We should also consider changing "also known as the autistic acceptance movement" to "also known as the autism acceptance movement", because the movement encourages acceptance of autism [noun]. Grammatically the current "autistic [adjective] acceptance movement" implies that autistic people are the one who are accepting, whereas the movement is actually about neurotypical people accepting autism. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the change to "autistic rights movement" and also with the suggestion to write "also known as the autism acceptance movement". LogicalLens (talk) 03:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mitch Ames @LogicalLens I think we're starting to build strong consensus here toward "Autistic rights movement," although I would suggest keeping "Autistic acceptance movement" as the alternate term, both because it's increasingly common for the word "Autistic" to be used as a noun within Autistic circles (e.g., describing oneself as "an Autistic") and because I interpret the purpose of such a movement to be to promote the acceptance of Autistic people (as opposed to acceptance of what Autistic people are diagnosed with). DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 08:41, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Support change to "autistic rights movement" and also with the suggestion to write "also known as the autism acceptance movement". Lova Falk (talk) 10:22, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry I let the above discussion get stale, BTW. If someone else wants to take point on making the previously discussed changes (which we seem to have gotten general consensus on), feel free. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 06:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I made the change and tried to do some clean-up after the page move, but I am unsure whether I have done everything correctly. Also, the template "Autism rights movement" and the category with the same name would have to be renamed. However, because it has to be changed in every single article where the template or the category is used, I currently have no time to do it. LogicalLens (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for making the title change. Most appreciated. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 17:33, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Not a general-interest article on the Autistic community

It seems some people who have edited this article in the past have confused it for a general-interest article about the Autistic community. It is not. It is an article specifically about the Autistic rights movement. Below are a few examples of content that appears to have no real place here.

• The "Notable events" section mentions observances, such as World Autism Awareness Day, Autism Sunday and Autism Awareness Year. To my knowledge, none of these observances has anything to do with the Autistic rights movement. There is a stark difference between an observance (such as Autistic Pride Day) that is directly related to the movement and general awareness or acceptance observances. Even the short bit about Autistic activists wanting World Autism Awareness Day to use the word "Acceptance" instead of "Awareness" misdefines the main objection to the word "Awareness" as merely being too close to language preferred by Autism Speaks.
• I question whether the "Media portrayals" section has anything to do with the Autistic rights movement. It just seems to be a short discussion about Autistic characters in media (and not a particularly well written one; last I checked, Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Main was an adult, not a child).
• The "Notable individuals" section is just a list of openly Autistic public figures, as well as public figures that some people have speculated to be autistic. Of what relevance is any of that to this article's topic?

On a related note, the only citation for the entire "Controversies" section appears to be a website that cites two Wikipedia articles as its own sources (scroll down to the bottom of the page). We shouldn't be self-referencing Wikipedia for any reason.

While it's generally not best practice to engage in mass deletions of problematic content, I think completely deleting the "Media portrayals" and "Notable individuals" section would be appropriate here. If someone wants to recreate those sections with information actually pertinent to the Autistic rights movement, they could easily do so. I also suggest deleting the "Notable events" subsections regarding World Autism Awareness Day, Autism Sunday and Autism Awareness Year.

I'd welcome any feedback from my fellow editors monitoring this page. If no one responds within a reasonable amount of time, I'm just going to go ahead and make all of the above proposed deletions. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 06:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I generally agree, but parts of this content could be moved to Societal and cultural aspects of autism instead of removing it. LogicalLens (talk) 08:39, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll go ahead and delete topic-irrelevant parts of the article that are already well covered elsewhere on the site (such as the awareness/acceptance observances that have nothing to do with the movement). I'll consider transplanting some of the other content to more appropriate articles, although I don't think all of the discussion within the article is in-depth or well written enough to warrant such an effort.

As a general note to any other editors who might be reading this in the future, please limit any content within the article, itself, to information pertinent to the Autistic rights movement. If you just want to add content generally related to the Autistic community or the autistic neurotype, this is not the place to do that. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 17:43, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Also, just to give a more thorough explanation to any future editors reading this who may not understand why all awareness/acceptance observances aren't affiliated with the Autistic rights movement, stating that you want to raise awareness of autism or promote acceptance of autistic people does not necessarily mean you actually believe in or are promoting values core to the movement, like self-determination or equal rights. Many individuals and organizations who create, host or participate in awareness or acceptance events do so in a surface or savioristic way (and often are opposed to the values core to the movement). One common red flag is an observance not being created by or in meaningful consultation with autistic people. Another common red flag is an observance that utilizes symbols or language considered offensive by the majority of the community (such as person-first language, the puzzle piece or the color blue). This is, of course, by no means an exhaustive list of red flags nor does it definitively mean that a red flag must mean an observance is not affiliated with the movement. I hope this clears up any potential confusion. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 18:45, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Don't we normally vote for the page to be moved?

@user:LogicalLens title also move: Special:MovePage/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Autism_rights_movement/archive1 Wikipedia:Peer_review/Autism rights movement/archive2 Talk:Autism rights movement/GA1 Anthony2106 (talk) 12:17, 20 June 2025 (UTC)