since you folks seem to have lost your sense of fecking whimsy, have a folklore rant from the mouth (or hands, rather) of a disabled Irish woman who grew up hearing the history along with the tales and had changling stories in my own family. and no, my post will NOT be riddled with source links because my source is the oral history from the people who told the stories

for heaven's sake the changling myth is not ablist or anti-autism it was mostly about fricking crib death

and most irish people are/were cool with the fae. if you're desperate to bring autism in the mix, mostly you'll get "aye, they got a wee bit o' fae blood in them. just work around their quirks, and you'll get along swell". but mostly the changling myth was either a) crib death - "the Fae Folk trusted you with their child's last moments, and yours isn't dead, it's running around happy as can be with the faeries", which helped mothers with ptsd and depression after the sudden and inexplicable passing of their child because they didn't have the medical technology to know what crib death was and most old irish mothers blamed themselves (I used to know what crib death was caused by, but I forgot - I'm pretty sure it was an inevitable genetic thing)

or b) chronic illness (such as connective tissue disorders, g.i. disorders, and yes neurodivergence) that would be hard to recognize in a baby - "the Fair Folk trusted you with this fragile, sickly child and in return for your loving care will provide your own child with wonders none of us humans can imagine".

most families with changling children loved and treated the "faerie" like their own blood (which they were, but still), and we're a very hospitality-driven culture. you treat everyone like your own family, it's a close-knit community - even more so back then. were there people who tried to "return" the faerie child, leaving a baby alone in the woods? yeah, a few, but not the majority. and pregnancy has been known to do some pretty nasty things to some minds, this would be more a mental health problem of the mother than an ablist "that's not my kid" thing. also ablists do exist in every culture, there is that point as well.

my main point is - legends draw from life, and life is full of biases. are goblins/gnomes (forgot which one) anti-jew? maybe. are changling children ablist? only sometimes, and those are the outliers (my own mother was considered a changling by her grandparents - that didn't make them love her any less). are vikings depicted as wearing helmets with horns because of Irish people? yes because THEY WERE INVADING AND R*PING AND PILLAGING OUR TINY LITTLE ISLAND WITH NO PROVOCATION. what better way to get children and unknowing adults to run and hide and save themselves than creating a monster instead of Some Guy?

if you try to make a story with zero biases that won't offend anybody, it will be as bland and beige as your fricking houses. if something in your life is scary or bothersome or different than you, that will translate into your oral narrative. that's just how oral histories work. also, any blatant or malicious biases in the original story/cryptid will have trickled down through a millennia-old game of telephone and would be practically unrecognizable unless you were looking for it. stop looking for things that are "problematic" or "anti-___" and you'll realise that people need whimsy in their life

and finally - you don't have to believe in everything, but don't mess with it just in case.