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They're afraid. That's what they are. They don't want to be seen as bad but actively are choosing to use a replacement word so their words aren't ''as serious''.

They're being cowards, essentially. Don't take them seriously.

This is likely an example of the euphemistic treadmill, a phenomenon in which a word with a neutral or benign meaning takes on a negative connotation over time. A new word is coined to replace the old one, which comes to be regarded as a slur. Eventually the process repeats itself with the replacement word, and so on. We can see this in the use of words like moron, imbecile, and idiot. All of these used to have proper medical definitions before becoming general insults. These were followed by words like r\*ard* and s\*stic*, which are now considered by many to be highly inappropriate.

I work as an association football (soccer) referee in my home country. One of the rules of the sport (formally called the Laws of the Game) makes it an offense punishable by ejection and subsequent suspension to use "offensive, insulting, or abusive language or gestures." Some competition authorities provide guidelines for this, but it's otherwise at the discretion of the referee. A fellow official shared with me recently that she sent a player off under this rule for using "autistic" as an insult (in the sense of "stupid" or "idiotic") when chastising a teammate for an act that disadvantaged his team. As an ASD patient herself, I can certainly understand why she would've done this, in the same way that an LGBT person wouldn't appreciate someone referring to something that person dislikes as "gay."

aint much you can do about that. it is what it is :/

I've seen that too. When I was in 8th grade there were these two or three guys who constantly used the word, autism like that. Funny thing is, there were three autistic kids in that class

My classmates concluded I'm autistic 2 years ago and it doesn't mean I have their support for my difficulties, they just use the word to label me, make fun of the subject or sometimes insult me so I feel like you.

"With the way you're acting, you should've got the diagnosis, yet here I am, with better grades, and smarter than you!"

Just so you know, they do it in my school too. It happened so often that I got used to it though