Okay, fuck it, let's get into a thing.

There are a LOT of very valid critiques to have of Elon Musk on SNL, but let's dig into the idea that Musk was being a nazi sympathising eugenicist for saying he has Asperger's Syndrome.

So, a quick history lesson, super condensed.

Asperger's Syndrome is a diagnosis that was cooked up by a Nazi, and has its roots in some shitty ideas about the "high functioning vs low functioning" autism divide.

It has a shitty history, but is an official diagnosis people get.

In the UK and US, Asperger's Syndrome is being phased out as a diagnosis in favour of Autism Spectrum Disorder, basically in recognition that Asperger's and Autism were never different conditions, just different areas of a complex spectrum.

But it is still diagnosed sometimes.

People self IDing as having Aspergers if that's what they were diagnosed with has a tricky history. I should know, I was diagnosed with Aspergers in the years leading up to the community pushing for the diagnostic changes.

When I was first diagnosed with Aspergers, that term was super helpful for understanding what diagnostic criteria I met, what help might be available for me, and finding other people like myself.

Back then if I tried to say I was autistic I got pretty heavily gatekept by people whose official on paper diagnosis was Autism. They used to basically say that I had "aspergers", I wasn't "actually autistic", and that to use the term autistic was actively misrepresenting myself.

So for many years, during the switch over towards Autism Spectrum Disorder, I was actively worried that I wasn't allowed to say I was autistic, for fear of accusations I was overblowing my condition.

I was diagnosed with Aspergers, so that's what I told people I had.

Now, I have eventually moved to using Autistic, or autism spectrum disorder, but that came with unpacking a lot of beliefs that I wasn't allowed to do so. It wasn't easy. Asperger's was a term that I associated with my coming to understand what made me different from my peers.

So yeah, let's be critical of Musk for a lot of things, but also, can we not do this whole "anyone who says they have aspergers is a nazi eugenicist sympathiser" routine.

There's a lot of people for whom that's their diagnosis. There are people today who are getting that as an official diagnosis, and we need to have some understanding for the complexities of what it's like to be bombarded with demands to distance from your on paper diagnosis.