A lot of people don't have the opportunity, and others choose not to, join that sub, so (at the risk of starting more drama) I just thought it might be worth sharing my experience.

So, I got an invite to /r/DiagnosedAutism after commenting on a post about self-diagnosis in this sub. I'm not in favour of excluding people, and I certainly feel no animosity towards anyone who is 'self-diagnosed', but I feel there needs to be a way to be able to know whether people are diagnosed, self-diagnosed, NT, or professionals, when discussing autism, especially when people are asking for advice. Since there aren't flairs to differentiate between these on this sub, there aren't a lot of options for this on Reddit, and I feel like unless or until something like that happens, there is a place for somewhere specifically for people with an official diagnosis.

My first impression of the sub was that there was a lot more positivity than this sub. Comments on posts about depression tended to be supportive, rather than fatalistic, for example. I made a small number of posts and found people to be pleasant. There are lots of great people on this sub, and lots of great advice, but I do see more negativity than I think is healthy.

Then I saw this thread on that sub:

Message from creator: Dislike of self diagnosis is not hatred and throwing that accusation around is inflammatory and inappropriate.

which had the text

If you feel that the disapproval and even intense dislike of self diagnosed people is tantamount to hatred (a word that implies malicious intent and desire of ill will towards people) this subreddit is not for you.

And posted the fairly to-the-point reply:

Wait, is that what this sub is about? "Intense dislike" of self diagnosed people?

I googled "define hatred"...

"hatred

/ˈheɪtrɪd/

noun

intense dislike; hate."

So, yes, I think that is hatred, and if you meant what you said here (that this subreddit is not for me), you should ban me.

...and was promptly banned. It's one thing to dislike self-diagnosis. It's another entirely to "intensely dislike" (by definition, hate) self-diagnosed people.

While I realise that not all communities share the beliefs of it's creator or mods, there is no space for dissenting opinion if you are banned for having one. Unless you have a very strange definition of "hatred", that sub seems to support the hatred of people who consider themselves self-diagnosed. Even if you ignore the dictionary definition and instead use the sub's creator's definition, it still means that the sub seems to be in favour of "intense dislike of self-diagnosed people", which honestly sounds just as bad to me.

I also think it's ironic that many people on that sub say that /r/aspergers has too many rules and it's too easy to get banned, when I've been a redditor for five years---including a number of posts to this sub---and, to my knowledge, they are the first community to ever ban me.