Why do you need a label?
Don't labels define and therefore constrict you? Isn't labelling the same thing as stereotyping someone?
Why not just reject labels and just see 'people'?
Because blank, bland, sexless, classless 'people' don't exist.
See the person, not the label, well-meaning people say, thinking they are being generous and humous. The problem is that, in seeing the person, well-meaning people don't see what it is that makes autistic people distinctive and unique. That well-meaning assertion also comes with the implication that the label comes with negative connotations, the result not of labelling but of autism as a condition. Just as the person can be detached from the label, there is an implication that the person can be detached from autism - and needs to be, given that the latter is considered a deficiency and a disability.
Underlying the assertion 'see the person, not the label' is the assumption 'see the person, not the autism,' as if the latter is a negative condition in itself. That's wrong. The negative connotations come not with autism as such but others' perceptions of autistic people.
People who persist in asserting 'see the person, not the label' need to reflect at length on this meme. Labelling is a problem when the connotations of the label applied are negative. Well-meaning people who say 'see the person' are reproducing and thereby reinforcing the idea that autism is a negative condition to be denied or sublimated. Not so. The impairment model is to be rejected in favour of seeing autism as a different way of processing information, a different way of communicating. Autistic people don't need the patronising condescencion of those who, thinking they are empathising, presume their is something wrong and shameful about autism.
Why don't you want to see autism?
Because it is a deficiency to be ashamed of?
Is it so hard for you to take people as they are?
Why do you deny and denigrate the difference and uniqueness of autistic people?
Why do you insist on dissolving autistic people into a bland and non-descript 'people'?
Why do you need a label?
There is comfort in knowing you are proper unicorn and not a deficient horse; because you can't find community with people who treat you like a failed horse; and because you can't flourish well and be happy unless you aspire to become who you are, rather than try to become what you are not.
