It sounds like you use "protected" here with the intention of forming part of an argument -- presumably that social anxiety should be protected? Isn't that circular?
It also means that anyone disparaging it like that in the workplace is guilty of discrimination against a disabled person, just as if they had called someone with an amputated leg a "worthless cripple", or mocked a hearing-impaired person for not being able to hear them when they whisper in a meeting.