Person-first language has been around since 1960, when Beatrice Wright argued that a person is a total person regardless of disability. The idea really took hold in the late 1980s as advocacy groups started speaking out more and more about the unfair treatment of people with disabilities. Parent groups especially embraced the convention of “person before diagnosis” to avoid dehumanizing language that implied that disability is the most important part of a person.

The idea has really taken hold in professional circles. You’ll note that I wrote “people with disabilities” at the beginning of this article; that’s because of my professional training. In the field, it is considered very much offensive to not use Person First Language. Person First Language is also still popular with parents. For many people who’ve had to fight for basic human rights for their children, the idea of going back to an older way of talking about disability is anathema. It was not long ago that people with disabilities were often treated badly. In fact, it’s naïve to say that mistreatment is entirely in the past. It’s no wonder that many family members and advocates don’t relish the idea of letting go of this hard-won change. Some young people with disabilities, though, have started to see things a different way.

In a recent article for Autistic Self Advocacy Network (Read it here), Lydia Brown presents the case for saying “autistic person.” She points out that most self-advocates prefer that terminology, and that their lived experiences should outweigh the good intentions of well-meaning people who don’t have disabilities. People like Brown feel that autism is an essential part of who they are. While the argument has long been that the person is more important than the diagnosis (“you say person with cancer, not cancerous person”), Brown points out that this argument only holds water when the diagnosis is a completely negative disease. She believes that she should have the right to embrace the way she experiences the world, even if it isn’t neurotypical. Autism is not a disease, after all. It is a condition that, though disabling in many cases, has positive aspects. She sees cancer as something to be cured, but she sees autism as an intrinsic part of her identity, like race or sexuality. Just as you wouldn’t say “cancerous person” instead of “person with cancer,” you wouldn’t say “person with gayness” instead of “gay person.”

Language is always evolving, as are our values. One positive aspect of this debate is that the people on both sides of it truly do have good intentions. Perhaps the best we can do for now is to communicate openly and ask people how they would like to be addressed. It’s definitely food for thought. In the meantime, tell us what you think!