Of course, the very idea that certain Autistic people function more highly than others, or that functioning status is a binary quality you can catch at a glance, is problematic in its own right. That kind of thinking leads to many of us having our disabilities erased, and the private suffering that makes public “functioning” possible is ignored. It also perpetuates the idea that the only disabled lives worth living are those that can still manage to be productive or impressive in some conventional way.
