What do we call Aspies who "Come Out"?

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YESSSSSSSSSSS!! !! !! !!

The wonderful and weird thing about people is that they can misconstrue just about anything. Jesus was misconstrued. So was Socrates. Can't let that stop us here...

And no, I don't think it reinforces a negative stereotype at all. It has a sense of humor about it, and having a sense of humor and the ability to take oneself less than TOTALLY seriously goes against the aspie stereotype for sure.

buttering the cheetah? no wait...

I think the term "coming out of the closet" came from the way children will hide in the closet when they are afraid. Once the door is closed, you are in a small room where everything is familiar and known to you. You can reach out and touch the walls to reassure yourself they are still there. The doorway shelters you from the loud noises and movement of the outside world. The child in the closet can be very afraid and yet pretend to be brave or popular or whatever else they need. Likewise, gays who pretend to be straight are afraid to face the consequences of admitting they are different. They control every aspect of their interaction with others in order to keep out the light and the noise of disclosure.

It seems reasonable to say that Aspies who are afraid to get a diagnosis or afraid to tell anyone about their diagnosis are also living in a closet, and would face the same problems as queer folk such as trying to maintain a consistent story and discourage questions. Coming out would be hard for both, in that the older you are the more lies you've told and the more people who will need to have those lies corrected. The main difference would probably be the reaction of the conservatives, as they think gays choose to be gay but don't accuse Aspies of wanting to be Aspie. With the exception of those bigots, the reaction would be similar, I guess: some would be surprised but for others it's simply confirming what they already know.

Some people on here think the term "closet" is degrading because gays are ashamed and Aspies aren't. In reality, I don't think many gays are ashamed of who they are (although they may feel shame for the lies they told) - they are simply afraid of what will happen if people find out. Will the government try to take away their kids? Will they lose their jobs? Will they lose friends?

As they say in Thailand: "same-same, only different".

Chris Rock may just be a comedian, but does him saying "books is like kryptonite to a n***a" not still promote a negative stereotype? If you think that's a false analogy, I'm all ears. I'm fully familiar with the concept of satire, but it's a bit unfair to expect everyone to share your sense of humor.

I think that there is a very important difference between comming out gay vs comming out AS. For gay people, it is possible to keep a gay relationship secret, and this is usually results in a lot of problems for both partners. Coming out gay makes a radical difference to the people coming out, as they no longer need to maintain a double life. It is usually quite a shock to other people, who very often do not suspect anything.

For AS people, I don't think that there is anything like this level of concealment almost by definition (you would need to be very aware of how other people perceive you and also be very good at acting). As such 'coming out' as AS is mostly about giving a name to behaviours that other people are probably already very aware of. Other people may be more aware of an AS difference than the person with AS, even if they have no name for it. As such, I'm not really sure what the benefit is of disclosure?

I probably don't have AS, so I can't tell people that I do. However, I do try to tell people that I behave or react to things in a certain way if I am worried that I would otherwise have problems. For me at least, this is more practically useful than trying to apply a label (which other people probably would not understand anyway!).