This is not my experience at all. Being diagnosed directly led to immense stigma over and over. You are literally giving people the language they need to stereotype you and put you into a bucket by getting diagnosed and telling people your diagnosis. Stigma is literally an iatrogenic consequence of diagnosis itself, never mind diagnosis stopping stigma! I hear "Autistic" thrown around as an insult maybe 10x more than I heard the same 20 years ago.
People feeling safe because they're not alone does not end stigma whatsoever either.
> by getting diagnosed and telling people your diagnosis
One of the things I try to emphasize with newly diagnosed young people is that they should not make their diagnosis an outward part of their personality.
There's a trend of putting your diagnoses in everything from your LinkedIn profile to your resume lately. I've been helping with resume review in a group and I've been stunned by how many times I've had to tell people that they need to remove their ADHD diagnosis from their resume.
I dont even like it on a personal level. People use these terms to describe themselves in very narrow buckets and stereotypes, and there is no logic to that at all. I saw a post on /r/ADHD for example thst went something like "Does anyone else svoid eye contact during sex" and everyones like "omg thats me too!". I mean...need I say more?
I get how it might be fulfilling to have a label to explain away all your behaviors but it makes no sense to do so and I find it extremely self-limiting
People feeling safe because they're not alone does not end stigma whatsoever either.