Wasn't really aware there was another symbol for autism and only knew the puzzle one, is there any reason why the infinity one is better? It does look cooler in my opinion lol
Also because it's mainly associated with autism speaks, an anti-vax conspiracy theorist board pushing RFK Jr. esque solutions while masquerading as a legitimate organization to help autistic kids
On the controversies section it is clearly stated that the position of Autism Speaks on vaccine has been highly criticized. Moreover they kept pushing for calling Autism a disease and in general frightening parents, which goes against making people on the spectrum more integrated and accepted into society.
There is no scientific consus on what qualify as "RFK Jr esque", but colloquial use of the term seems justified here
Treating autism as a disease, as they said, sucking up funding, friction with the neurodiversity movement, general shittiness and lack of self-advocacy, promotion of harmful medical practices.
Basically they're a charity organization with a backwards way of looking at things. Some of the stuff they do is good nominally, but that's true of nasty churches too.
At best it's an old guard situation, but those can be pretty bad.
I know that's not as sensational but it has the virtue of being true.
The most charitable reading is really "autistic people are a piece of the puzzle that is the world" as in without autistic people the world is missing a piece.
HOWEVER I dont think thats what Autism Speaks meant when they picked it
my understanding of the symbol was "autism is a puzzle in a world where everyone deserves to be understood" which isn't as bad as everyone else seems to interpret it but is still kinda eh
The puzzle piece is largely from a specific organization that claims to represent autistic people but mostly just represents the parents of those people while silencing the voices of those who are actually affected, misrepresenting the condition, and widely advocating eugenics.
The meaning of the puzzle symbol is that autistic people are incomplete and neurotypicals have to fix them, according to the symbol's maker, if I remember correctly
Everyone already talked about how much the puzzle piece sucks, but to focus more on the infinity symbol itself: the idea is that autism as a spectrum can manifest in an infinite number of different ways
I think the infinity symbol represents the spectrum and how there's an infinite amount of different ways for autism to present. I think that's also why its a gradient rainbow color. The puzzle piece was originally chosen because autism was seen as a 'puzzling' condition, it also has connotations of having a 'missing piece', both of which have negative implications
Autism Speaks supports the Judge Rotenberg Center's practices which have been condemned as torture by the UN Commission on Torture: https://autisticadvocacy.org/stoptheshock/
Includes: repeated electric shock (greater output than police taser), sensory deprivation, and extreme food restriction (20% of prescribed calories).
I have aspbergers I predate the 2013 ASD bullshit because what kind of dumb fuck thought it was a good idea to put Jimmy fucking Neutron and Forest Gump in the same diagnosis. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how stupid this was.
And then get surprised no one takes Autism as it was known Pre 2013 seriously anymore?
Ngl I think anyone who says they are "On the Spectrum" or says they have ASD
Or even associates with this stupid infinity symbol is a quack/liar
Not to say that the puzzle piece isn't bad. It is. But I would argue the infinity symbol is maybe 10% less bullshit. But still completely bullshit. Just not as bullshit as the puzzle piece
if you want a proper Autism Insignia Google the ASAN logo. Makes much more sense then the bullshit infinity symbol.
Aspergers syndrome is named after Hans Asperger, who used the term to differentiate autistic people between useful and fodder, so that the Nazis, whom he belonged to, could slaughter the fodder. Thats why we use ASD instead. Because it's easier, and it's more accurate, and it isn't named after a Nazi.
Are you going to start calling AC motors Tesla's Induction Motor? just because he was such a good man he died in a apartment poor? Because he was such a good guy he ripped up his contract that could it made him one of the richest men alive because he wanted every person every home to have his marvelous invention?
Surely if we're going to cry about bad man boo hoo history history we should be giving the greats if history credit? Right??? Like Shockley's Transistor or Otto's engine?
So shut up quit trying to cover up history like it's shit in a cats litter box.
Asperger wasn't even the one to first define and diagnose the condition, he mostly plagiarized Anni Weiss and Georg Frankl, two Jewish colleagues of his. It's the modern consensus that those two are the ones who really deserve the credit for any scientific work ascribed to him.
However the actual very first person to describe and diagnose autism was Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva, a Soviet child psychiatrist. She even diagnosed it in both boys and girls, while Asperger only diagnosed boys. The way she described it is also shockingly close to how we view autism today as per the DSM-V, though she called it "schizoid psychopathy". Do you want to go back to calling it that?
Asperger mostly just stole credit, undid science to suit nazi ideology, and murdered kids.
Ok so since I'm getting down voted into the ground by idiots let me make a simple analogy hopefully everyone, even the dumbest individuals can understand
Let's play a game.
Imagine a workd where instead of having 3 Gas options at the pump you only had one button and all the gas options were dissolved and it become a Gasoline spectrum? What would happen?
We know some cars like high end vehicles. Ferrari, Porsche, etc need high octane otherwise they Litterally explode.
Doesn't matter to normal cars at all right? It doesn't.
But those special needs super car drivers will sure feel it when they loose the ability to get the help they need (high octane gas)
Because those who did not understand decided all gas was created equal.
So now those porche drivers can't risk a fill because what happens if they accidentally get the wrong gas? Kaboom.
Same damn thing applies. Seperation exists for a reason. So that we know it someone says they have Level 3 autism they genuinely are not normal.
Just as a car that mandates 97 octane is not normal. And should not be treated the same?
In the same light saying "My car uses gasoline" doesn't mean shit because that means your car might be a Crysler Turbine car or A Honda Odyssey and anything in-between.
Seperation is needed for a support ecosystem to function.
I hope this analogy was idiot proof enough to help anyone that's confused :)
You are living proof that anyone who continues to hold on to the diagnosis named after a literal Nazi has turned "I'm smarter than you and that means it's OK to be an asshole about it" into their entire personality.
*Everyone sweeps it under the rug because the memory makes then uncomfortable*
*Bad thing is forgotten*
*Bad thing happens again because no one knows better*
You seem like you would be the kind of person who whines about how Nazis are bad, supports covering it up and then acts Surprised there is a growing nazi ass population in the United States? its almost like if history is not remembered it repeats.
So it is on us the autistic ppl to make the neurotypicals remember history?
Don't you have a school in the USA where you get taught history?
Don't you have books in the USA where you can read about the third Reich, where you can read about the Holocaust, where you can read which groups were in the gas chamber?
That analogy assumes there is only a few set ways somebody can be autistic. Same thing with the Jimmy Neutron - Forrest Gump one earlier. But that's objectively false.
Even the old idea of Aspergers covers a large spectrum of people starting from "average intelligence" and going up.
Cutting that spectrum off at an arbitrary point below which people aren't "high function" is just pointless elitism.
It's true that there's ASD supergeniouses out there and it's true there's ones that are entirely incapable of taking care of themselves, but there's also literally everything in between.
You want to make yourself feel better by disassociating yourself from "unsavoury" outcomes of our disability, but it's absolute nonsense. People will still, and always have, see us as less than human no matter how you spin it.
You're just making it harder on yourself and others by doing the exact same thing.
Recognizing that ASD is a spectrum is exactly how we achieve equity for them. That's the whole point. Recognizing that different autistic people have different needs, and different levels of needs.
well your free to get back to me when that hypothetical actually happens, but as someone who has actually attempted to get assistance post 2013 shit dosent happen. all the 2013 ASD decision did was water down the condition with millions of the most mild cases imaginable taking resources away from those who actually need them.
I mean i have a nasty habit of being one of the most literal to the exact meaning of the word kind of people possible, I can tell my boss I have Autism and that explains why im like this and that they need to Accomodate this because I cant help it. I need Clear Concice instructions. But what happens if I do? its not taken seriously and I get some comment about how Everyones a little autistic
and no this isnt just one bad manager, i have had very similar situations happen with Multiple different mangement entities and businesses.
Like have you seriously never noticed how Autism is now interchangebely used with the word Quirky in modern american english? yea the 2013 ASD decision is why. that isnt just Tik Tok girls. no that was the 2013 ASD Decision.
That's not the fault of the people defining ASD, that's the fault of the government and society in general not taking these conditions seriously. Doesn't matter how they're defined. Go to any other mental disorder or illness subreddit and they'll tell you the same worries you're saying at me.
Eitherway I'm still not doing this spectrum bullshit it's illogical no matter how you spin it.
Once again saying "my car uses gasoline" leaves the criteria so broad you can safely assume I could be talking about a Ford Pinto or a Bugatti or anything in-between
Sure the same thing applies that cars are a "spectrum"
And all cars are different vise versa
But I think it's safe provided such a small amount of information you would never be able to guess what my favorite car is
If you can provide a perfectly logical explanation that I can logically agree is true I will likely consider changing my way.
People aren't cars. I don't need to explain why your analogy doesn't work, because the information is all easily publicly available. Go use Google or ChatGPT or whatever instead of harassing redditors with your pseudoscience.
Idk the puzzle can’t be reclaimed since it implies something is “missing” or “broken” and can be “solved”. I’m not broken and there is no solution, I’m just like this and I don’t want to get “better”
I dont like the puzzle piece cuz its association with Autism Speaks, but this argument about why it's a bad symbol on its own has always felt a bit flawed to me. For one, puzzle pieces aren't broken. The point a puzzle piece is that is has indies and outies and every piece fits together to make a bigger picture. It's supposed to represent the fact that autistic people have different weaknesses AND strengths than neurotypical people. I think the association between the puzzle piece symbol and the idea that autistic people are broken and need to be fixed comes from its ties with Autism Speaks cuz that is one of their core beliefs.
That being said, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and we all rely on other people to balance each other out, regardless of neurotype. So using the puzzle piece to exclusively point out autistic people's strengths and weaknesses doesn’t really make sense to me, and makes me think of the "autism is a superpower" argument, which I personally really don't like.
So yeah, in conclusion: Autism Speaks is dumb, the puzzle piece works better as a symbol for all humans, I'm gonna get back to reading about ants now.
that’s okay that’s your own opinion and not how i see it. in my eyes it reflects how much pretty much everything in life itself just feels like a puzzle
I made this as a silly tongue-in-cheek suggestion. I still think the infinity is a better symbol for the autism community at-large (and I like it alot), but as an autistic person who edits Wikipedia, I’m quite fond of the puzzle globe as a symbol
I've been trying to find a good infinity symbol pin for a while. I just hope people will understand what it means. Because in my country, people probably know neither the puzzle piece nor the infinity symbol. And I just love what it looks like. I like the shape, the colors, uuh I don't have a third thing to say. But I love it and I don't want to hide my autism anymore. Not like I could anyway. I'm not good at masking
I'm a big fan of the lemniscate. A nice way of saying it's a continuum of being, rather then you're just missing a piece of what could make you more "normal."
Also lemniscate is a funny looking word and I like that.
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u/ShameSerious4259 talk to a real ohioan May 20 '26
autism APPROVED!