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!)
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.