Is it a bad thing that I hate being called an aspie?

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I just don't like the word. To me it's just like calling a person with dwarfism "a m***et"

Technically "m***et" and "dwarf" are two different things.

Midgets are abnormally short (less than 58 inches) folks with the right proportions.
Dwarves are abnormally short(same cutoff) folks who are that way due to bad body proportions (abnormally short legs, or whatever).

But "m***et" is supposedly derogatory. And even if the person IS a m***et, and not a dwarf, you're not supposed to call them a "m***et". you're supposed to call them "a little person".

Why..."m***et" is considered "derogatory" is not obvious to me.

Its just what you call 'em. And calling an adult "a little person" seems worse to me than calling even a vertically impaired adult a "m***et". Children are "little people". And besides- the pressure groups that fight for the rights of both midgets and dwarves tend to lump both dwarves and midgets together under the label of "little people". So I don't understand why the word "m***et" is taboo.

I'm late-diagnosed and so not so many years ago I was new to the whole concept of Asperger's, let alone the terminology or colloquialisms used around it.

When I first joined Wrong Planet I kind of cringed at the term "aspie" also. It was the first time I'd heard the word, and it sounded to me so cutesy and silly.

However, over the years, I've come to use it too, mostly because it's just easier "shorthand" to type or even say, than "Asperger's." And it's an easier to say or type "Many aspies experience difficulty with ____" than "Many people with Asperger's have difficulty with ___"

So nowadays the word "aspie" doesn't bother me, it just seems like a good shortened version that proves to be useful as a quick and to-the-point descriptor.

I use AS or ASD, they're even shorter.

I don't have any bad associations with the word "aspie". So its hard for me to understand anyone objecting to the term.

And, as BirdInFlight said its much handier than having to type "person with aspergers" everytime you visit WP.

"ASD" means "autism spectrum disorder" which is not quite the same thing as "aspergers" (aspergers is a subset of the "autism spectrum"). And "AS" is ambiguous. It can be taken to mean either "autism spectrum", or "aspergers".

This is gonna sound silly, but I've done quite a bit of skiing in my life (since I was 2 years old). As a result, I associate Aspie with Aspen, Colorado which is one of the best freggin places to ski in the U.S. So um, I actually have a positive association with it. In either case, I don't think it has a negative connotation, but it does kinda suck to be labeled sometimes. It feels like we're being put in a box and filed on a shelf based on our condition. People don't realize we have different personalities, that labeling us based on our condition and expecting nothing more than stereotypical Aspie behavior dehumanizes us.

I like the Aspen thing, lol! "People who like or are from Aspen."

It seems as though "Aspie," as a nickname, sounds almost too cute. Most nicknames for people with various disabilities were truly ugly: spaz, ret*d, mongoloid, and the like. "Aspie" diminishes the feelings of high functioning people who still feel like outcasts because it sounds so benign. I'm not a fan of the name. We have swung from one end of the pendulum to the other in terms of describing and labeling people.

Exactly. I believe the proper medical term is best. It better enables people to get the help they need.

I don't like the term "aspie" either... I prefer autistic.