I don't know what autistic person needs to hear this but the r-slur is not "ours" to "reclaim" and it never will be. The baggage that the r-slur carries is not something that can be reclaimed and used in a benign or exclusively self-deprecating way. Due to the fact that the r-slur has historically affected multiple groups of disabled and neurodivergent people in materially damaging ways, no singular disabled person or group(s) of disabled people can "reclaim the r-slur" because, even by using it "for yourself," you are still punching down at other disabled people; there is never an occasion for which your casual usage of the r-slur will ever not be doing that.
The r-slur is not like "crippled" — the very reason that cripple/crippled is capable of being reclaimed is the same reason the r-slur cannot be reclaimed. Those of us who can reclaim "crippled" are physically disabled with bodies that are visibly identifiable as physically disabled, whether that is because of our body features or because we are users of mobility aids. If you are not physically disabled, you are not part of the in-group capable of reclaiming "crippled," end of. The r-word does not have an in-group. It has been used to clinically and colloquially label people across many different developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, motor and physical disabilities. No matter how disabled you are, you cannot speak for all other disabled people nor can you declare that it's "okay" to "reclaim" the r-slur.
The r-slur is used to specifically denote that someone or something is "slow," therefore "stupid," therefore worthless (that's what makes it a slur). The r-slur inherently links the traits of being developmentally or intellectually disabled with lacking human worth. There is no amount of "reclaiming" the word for yourself that will ever erase that baggage or make it acceptable for one group affected by the r-slur to use over another.











