Autism infinity symbol
The gold infinity symbol is a sign autistic people use for autism: gold because its chemical symbol, Au, is the first two letters of “autism”. With the rainbow infinity of the wider neurodiversity movement, it is the symbol many autistic advocates choose in place of the older puzzle piece.
Meaning
Aimee Grant, a public-health researcher at Swansea University, writes in The Conversation (2025) that the rainbow infinity symbol, first developed by autistic advocates in 2005, stands for the diversity of the neurodivergent community, autistic people included, and that the gold infinity symbol is used specifically for autism. AutismBC, a Canadian autism organisation, says gold is taken from Au (Latin aurum) and stands for value, acceptance and pride. Both belong to the autistic self-advocacy movement, which uses them on flags, banners and badges and at Autistic Pride events. Grant sets them against the puzzle piece, created in the 1960s by non-autistic people for a condition they saw as tragic and mysterious.
Origin and history
The puzzle piece came first. The National Autistic Society in Britain began in January 1962, founded by parents of autistic children, and its first logo was designed by Gerald Gasson, a board member: a puzzle piece with a crying child. Grant dates it to 1963 and says it was meant to show autism as a puzzling condition that caused suffering. The Autism Society of America introduced a ribbon of coloured puzzle pieces in 1999, and Autism Speaks, founded in 2005, took a blue puzzle piece as its logo.
The infinity symbol came from autistic people themselves. Autistic Pride Day was first held in 2005 by Aspies for Freedom, an online group of autistic people, modelled on gay pride, and the American Autism Association says the day is marked by the rainbow infinity symbol. The Autistic Empire, an autistic group, publishes an Autistic Pride flag that joins the two: a rainbow infinity on a gold field, where the infinity stands for neurodiversity, the rainbow for the pride movement and the gold for Au.
The older organisations have since moved away from the puzzle piece. Grant says the National Autistic Society dropped it in the early 2000s, the journal Autism took it off its cover in 2018, and the Autism Society of America followed in 2023. The National Autistic Society now calls its first logo offensive and inaccurate, for suggesting “something is missing” and for showing all autistic children as miserable. The Autism Society of America replaced its puzzle piece with interconnected threads, saying “words and representation matters, and we must evolve alongside our community”.
Why many autistic people reject the puzzle piece
Grant writes that for many autistic adults the puzzle piece is offensive, suggesting that autistic people are incomplete, a mystery or a problem to be fixed; one autistic advocate she quotes calls it a “red flag” about whoever uses it. She adds that research has found puzzle pieces call up incompleteness and imperfection whether or not they are tied to autism. The Autistic Empire puts its own case plainly: Autistic Pride is there to show “that we are proud of being autistic and that we are not diseased, defective or in need of a cure.” The puzzle piece is still in wide use, Grant notes, in search engines and image libraries.
Gold, rainbow, or both
Which colour means what is a matter of convention, and the sources differ. Grant gives the rainbow to the whole neurodivergent community and the gold to autism. The American Autism Association treats the rainbow infinity as the sign of Autistic Pride Day and of the diversity among autistic people. The Autistic Pride flag uses both, and even its description varies: the Autistic Empire describes a rainbow infinity on a gold field, while AutismBC describes the same flag as a gold infinity on a rainbow background. The rainbow infinity has its own page.
See also
Infinity symbol (∞), Neurodiversity symbol, Sigils, Schrödinger’s cat, Infinity symbol (∞), Neurodiversity symbol.
Sources
- Why the autism jigsaw puzzle piece is such a problematic symbol, Aimee Grant, Swansea University, 10 April 2025, The Conversation
- Our first decades: a timeline, National Autistic Society, 1960s
- New Brand Launch FAQ’s, Autism Society of America, “Where is the puzzle piece?”
- Autistic Pride, Autistic Empire
- Understanding Red and Gold: Colours of Autism Acceptance and Pride, AutismBC
- Autistic Pride Day – June 18th, American Autism Association
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research