Neurodivergent self dx is and always has been incredibly valid for a lot of people. I think we also need to talk about what "lived experience" actually means, though.
When parents are trying to figure out if they should get their kid tested for autism, and autistic white women in or above their late 20s with degrees and full time jobs, who are late professional or self dx, start spitting off answers about how they wish they'd gotten tested or diagnosed as a child, that's no longer lived experience. That's not your experience, that's something that looking back you wish you could've changed about your life.
I experienced psychiatric trauma as a result of my early dx autism, I was in therapy before I was in kindergarten. I was isolated in school to the point of depression, then hospitalized, then put in a special program where I was being illegally restrained daily, then sent to a therapeutic school. I have been being conditioned like a dog longer than I've been able to count to 20. That's lived experience.
Just because you use a word to describe yourself doesn't mean we have the same lived experience qualifications.
