Well, people with epilepsy who “prefer” the autistic label are just people who are wrong. They may be both autistic
and have epilepsy. Epilepsy is diagnosable based on observed neurological events and physiology, it does not depend on behavioural observations, a person’s opinion about whether they have it, or a doctor’s interpretation of a self-evaluation (as autism diagnosis often does).
I disagree with you that it’s the discussion that’s off, it is the science.
The problem is that autism is not a clearly defined disorder. Its definition and diagnostic criteria can and have changed, and even then, those criteria are poorly specified.
One thing that I have always found troubling is the “clinically significant impairment” requirement of an autism diagnosis. It seems to me that a person’s level of “impairment” is likely to depend on individual differences and possibly environment and circumstances. To me this seems odd: surely the disorder exists regardless of a person’s ability to manage it? If a person grows up in accommodating circumstances, do they not have autism? What if someone grows up in tough circumstances but later finds more accommodating circumstances, is their autism “cured”? Questions are facetious, but the point stands.
It’s also odd that we see autism so highly implicated in comorbidities with other disorders such as epilepsy, which aren’t dependent exclusively on phenotype observations to diagnose. To me, this strongly indicates that what we call autism today (or some sub/superset of it) likely will become definitively diagnosable in future with improved understanding and brain imaging.
For now, it feels like the diagnostic criteria are actually just guidelines for guessing whether someone is autistic, rather than determining it (especially when it comes to determining what constitutes “significant clinical impairment” and its varying degrees).
To be clear: I definitely believe that “autism” exists and is a disorder that impacts people broadly as described, the challenges are around its definition and diagnosis. I have spoken to autistic people before who have found my views to be offensive, and invalidating of them. That’s not my intention, my intention is to pursue accuracy because I believe with better understanding, we will be able to make sure our public spaces/workplaces/etc. are accommodating to everyone, including folks with different needs.