Bigots commonly insist that trans people use “I identify as” rather than “I am” when the transgender people are giving their gender, because the intention is to deny those people the ability to be seen as their preferred gender and instead give the impression that those people are impostors, implying that “identifying” is more akin to “relating” instead of categorization.
Insisting that an ostensibly autistic person use “self-identified” instead of “self-diagnosed” would have the same effect.
If you want to use a proper word that’s not “diagnosed”, “self-assessed” would be more accurate.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. Does the distinction between “identify” and “self-identify” make a difference to you?
I don’t know about the other people involved in this discussion, as I know that obsessive interests are part of different communities, but I am someone who studies languages and word meanings.
The information that I am sharing is not my perspective. Those words do have that context in common spoken English in the year 2023.
That would not have been the case many decades ago, but the word “identify” tends to be used ironically and sarcastically and with derision. It doesn’t matter if the word is used by itself or paired with the word “self”.
I’ll point out the definitions on Urban Dictionary, to point this out(and not just on the first page, but on pages beyond that):
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=identify
Insisting that people who have not been professionally diagnosed use “self-identified” will lead to even more bullying and social abuse from neurotypical people who already use that context when trying to justify their bullying and social abuse.
“Self-assessed” would be a phrase which is more exact and does not have that additional context of being tied to groups that have been targeted for bullying and social abuse.
Most of us here don’t seem to hear it that way so I don’t think it’s so cut and dry. I know, you study word meanings, but I’m a descriptivist, and if enough people take a certain meaning from it then that’s what it means to me.
