I thought your comment was quite reasonable, but as soon as they jumped in to characterize it as a ‘call out’, it became something else. If they want to be defensive in a response to me, I can respond to that. If a group of people get together to ‘call something out’, that’s very different. We can move past it, but we can’t ignore the behavior, which is not typical for HN.
As for the use of the phrase “Ambassador of that culture”, I do still have strong objections to it. It comes way earlier in the document than the later qualification, and I am not of the view that the equivocation renders it moot.
The entire piece is about taking care with how one communicates about autism, and who gets to represent it. It’s not surprising that the way it does so is under scrutiny.
The word ambassador isn’t the only word in that phrase. The word ‘culture’ is also there. There is certainly an implication of two cultures in play.
The later part talks about a diversity of autistic voices of which the author is only one, but that doesn’t eliminate the ‘two cultures’ idea that has already been introduced.
The two cultures idea is definitely not universally held by autistic people. I suspect that this is at the root of a lot of the reactions.