Can I call myself a blogger if I never write my blog?

In the grand scheme, that’s not an important question. But, in its own trivial sense, it does touch on the ideas of semantics, language, identity. And those are issues of importance. 

I just read a whole series of articles on “people-first language.” An example of people-first language is “person with autism” rather than “autistic person” There are good arguments to be made for both preferences. Person-first language emphasizes the individual, rather than the diagnosis. People-first language is often advocated by disability rights organizations as a more respectful form of language. But, other groups advocate away from this style, stating that people-first language can separate the diagnosis from the individual, or even make the diagnosis seem like a less desirable condition. They argue that autism is an innate part of the individual.

In all I’ve read, I see opinions from autistic individuals, from individuals with autism, from parents of autistic individuals and from parents of individuals with autism. Which leaves me confused because I’m an outsider. I don’t want to offend, but it seems like I have no choice. Whether I use person first language, or not, I’ll be offending some individuals. 

So I’ll leave it at this. My intent in my writing is to be respectful. I’m sorry if I chose the wrong form, and I’ll keep looking for consensus. Until then, I guess I’ll just go with the clearest grammar.

Image: By Tom Murphy VII (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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