Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

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Of all the errors that people make in writing and speaking about neurodiversity, the misuse of neurodiverse to mean neurodivergent is by far the most common.

Some forms of innate or largely innate neurodivergence, like autism, are intrinsic and pervasive factors in an individual’s psyche, personality, and fundamental way of relating to the world. The neurodiversity paradigm rejects the pathologizing of such forms of neurodivergence, and the Neurodiversity Movement opposes attempts to get rid of them. That all said I did really love the last part of the book, and will summarise one of my favourite points here: Queer,” in any case, does not designate a class of already objectified pathologies or perversions; rather, it describes a horizon of possibility whose precise extent and heterogeneous scope cannot in principle be delimited in advance. The correct word here would be neurodivergence, rather than neurodiversity. An individual, by definition, cannot be “diverse” or “have diversity.” I really wanted to offer this book to my peers at college, as we are on the final level of a counselling qualification, and I feel that it is so important it is for counsellors to be informed about how autistic people actually feel, so that their understanding is not dictated by the medical model. *shudders*

Examples of Incorrect Usage:

Neuroqueer, then, is the idea that individuals who do not to conform to neurotypical standards are neurologically queer, further queering their bodyminds. Queerness begets more queerness. Not everyone who is Neurodivergent neuroqueers, but everyone who neuroqueers is Neurodivergent. Some might question if one might be able to unconsciously neuroqueer, we will explore this further in another article. Because autigender describes the relationship with gender, an autigender person’s gender can be, well anything. Boy. Girl. Enby. Cis. Trans. Anything. Agender. Gender Nope.

Seeing neuroqueer as practice is important because nobody is born neurotypical. Some are born with the capacity to meet normative performance demands. However, they are not neurotypical. They are no more neurotypical than they are a chemical So there you have it, from the people who brought you the term. This definition is, again, not an authoritative “last word” on the subject, because that would be a silly thing to attempt. Rather, I hope this will be taken as a “first word” – a broad “working definition” from which further theory, practice, and play will proceed. Neurotypical, often abbreviated as NT, means having a style of neurocognitive functioning that falls within the dominant societal standards of “normal.” Ada Hoffmann is best known so far for the Outside series, which so far includes her first novel The Outside and its sequel The Fallen. It’s going to be at least a trilogy; there’s a third book in the works already. And then you look at M. Remi Yergeau’s work, and it’s full of all these fresh mind-bending insights, because Yergeau’s approach to the topic of neurodiversity is based in the field of rhetoric––and that’s a whole other lens that reveals entirely new potentials of the topic.Autigender” is a term that some autistic people use to describe their relationship with gender. Specifically, it means that they feel that their autism affects the way they perceive and feel about gender.