In recent years, there has been a growing movement within the autistic community to retire the puzzle piece as a symbol for autism advocacy. Instead, advocates have proposed alternative symbols like the infinity symbol, which represents the infinite diversity and complexity of the autistic community.

I recently saw a TikTok video of an autistic person mocking the notion that autism is a disability, they were addressing a lot of autistic traits that allistic people and neurotypical people view as being a deficit, but that autistic people see as our strengths, and I was conflicted about the messaging of the video. I responded saying “Yes to not viewing everything autistics do differently as a deficit, no to the further stigmatization of disability in the autistic community. Autism is a disability, and that’s okay.”

A while ago on TikTok a joke popped up in the autism community. The joke was we all started referring to ourselves as “Neurospicy” or as having “spicy autism” I didn’t get it at first, until I realized it was in response to how some people refer to autistics with lower support needs as having “mild autism” and so the neuro spice meter was invented. Because, at the end of the day, saying mild or severe autism is the same as applying functional labels.