Functioning Labels Quotes

“I do not subscribe to functioning labels because functioning labels are inaccurate and dehumanizing, because functioning labels fail to capture the breadth and complexity and highly contextual interrelations of one's neurology and environment, both of which are plastic and malleable and dynamic. Functioning is the corporeal gone capitalistic -- it is an assumption that one's body and being can be quantitatively measured, that one's bodily outputs and bodily actions are neither outputs nor actions unless commodifiable.”
― Melanie Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness

“What is of essential importance is the impact that being autistic has on a person at any given time. This can range from horrifically negative right through to sublimely positive -- and sometimes both can be found in the same individual. So, if this dramatic difference can be seen at different times in the same person -- what 'grade' is that person? Clearly, this is where the whole notion of 'autism severity' crumbles.”
― Luke Beardon, Autism and Asperger Syndrome in Adults

“This separation between real autistics and people who are "just quirky," "just awkward" or "almost too high-functioning to count" is a mental dance that non-autistics have to do whatever they're confronted with a 3-D autistic human being in the flesh. Otherwise everything they've ever thought, everything they've ever been told about us, starts to seem a little monstrous.”
― Sarah Kurchak, I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder: A Memoir

“You can't use a new word to replace an old one without it holding the exact same correlation, segregation and complacency that the original term was associated with. Instead of the 1930s mindset of 'People with Asperger's are worthy of survival, but those who have autism are not,' we now see a twenty-first century version of that: 'People who are high-functioning are worthy of survival, but those who are low functioning...' It's just a more modernised, accepted vocabulary. Instead of 'worthy of survival', our new language is being 'worthy' in capitalism and 'worthy' of support.”
― Chloé Hayden, Different, Not Less: A Neurodivergent's Guide to Embracing Your True Self and Finding Your Happily Ever After

“Functioning labels have never helped autistic people, and we need to call them out for what they are: Is this person capable of producing capitalistic value, or not? That's the real reason these labels are used, often hidden behind the idea of providing support, but it's false support.”
― Chloé Hayden, Different, Not Less: A Neurodivergent's Guide to Embracing Your True Self and Finding Your Happily Ever After

“One autistic person's 'level of functioning' will fluctuate throughout their day, week and life, depending upon circumstances, environment, mood and other factors. Someone who has been deemed 'high functioning' simply due to external factors (such as their home life, their support circle, or simply how well they have learned to mask themselves) may in fact need more resources and support than someone who has been deemed 'low functioning'.”
― Chloé Hayden, Different, Not Less: A Neurodivergent's Guide to Embracing Your True Self and Finding Your Happily Ever After