Why I Used the Term Aspergers in MTO

AJ in studio during the filming of his Me, The “Other” interview

Almost four years ago now, I filmed my interview for Me, The “Other.” I had been selected to be in the film earlier that year based on a couple of brief communications and meetings with the crew of the film. Our conversations had been about my life as a gay man in my mid-twenties. I had described to them my experience of feeling unbelonging in the LGBTQ community, feeling left stranded between that community and my previous Christian upbringing. I’m sure that on the day of my interview they had expected, as I did, that would be the focus of what would be explored.

That changed when Shidan Majidi, the director, started the interview by asking me to tell him about my early childhood. It was a simple prompt that I probably should have expected, however it ultimately didn’t have much to do with my experience with my sexuality. I didn’t have any real suspicion that I was anything but straight until my later years in high school. So, I decided to talk to him about the one thing that really did haunt me when I was growing up, and what ultimately became the main subject of the rest of the interview: Autism Spectrum Disorder, or what I referred to during the film as “Asperger Syndrome.”

While writing this, I had planned to expand on and clarify some of my experiences growing up with ASD; however, I have found it to be extremely difficult. It is frustrating to explain, especially as I don’t want to inadvertently hurt anyone by using inaccurate language, but one of the effects of my particular expression of ASD makes it anxiety-inducing to write at great length. I wish I could give some metaphor or analogy that could convey what the experience feels like for me but after two decades I have failed to come up with one that honestly feels adequate. So, while what I have to say might ultimately be brief, please believe me when I say that I’m trying my best.

For most of my life, including the entirety of my time in primary and early secondary school, the social workers and psychiatrists that I worked with referred to my condition by the term “Asperger Syndrome.” It is the way that I grew up with it, it is the term I’m used to thinking about it and understanding it. In my home we had multiple books that tried to explore and explain the specific condition, and I was even very briefly connected to a small community of “aspies” online, who used that term to refer to the condition with some affection. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I was at all aware of Hans Asperger’s history and reputation outside of the fact that my diagnosis was named after him.

As far as my personal feelings are concerned, my experience with my condition is completely unconnected with him and the awful things he did beyond the unfortunate circumstance of sharing a name. The term ‘Aspergers’ is no longer used in the USA for many reasons, including the need to stop using functioning labels on human beings and because Hans Asperger was a Nazi eugenicist who determined which autistic children should be gassed and which ones were sent to work camps. The autistic community understandably does not want to be associated with eugenics.

To anyone in the autistic community who is uncomfortable with the term and was made uncomfortable by my usage of it in the film: I am sorry, it was not my intention to cause any distress.

AJ Wickham

Cast member, Me, The “Other”