My fun personal background that led me to being interested in the concept of neuroqueering starts in 2019 or so when a friend of mine told me they were autistic and queer and wanted me to design a sticker for their laptop that had a double rainbow like the one used by twainbow.org. I didn’t know very much about autism at the time and decided I should research it in order to be a better friend.
So I spent some time researching autism and reading especially from autistic writers to try to unlearn any stereotypes I may have picked up. This happened around the same time that several close friends of mine also discovered that they were autistic, and I was making more autistic friends online in the Doctor Who fandom.
I always found that I had lots of things in common with many of my autistic friends but nothing really clear-cut enough to make me think I was definitely autistic. I had some friends convinced I was autistic and other friends convinced I had ADHD (or both) but I was pretty sure I didn’t have ADHD and pretty borderline with signs of autism. I’m partway through reading Unmasking Autism by Devon Price (I had to return it to the library) and that really solidified my feelings that I’m definitely neurodivergent, even if I’m not necessarily in a particular category. (This aligns with how I feel about gender and sexual and romantic orientation as well! I never totally fit into categories in any part of my life and I kind of love that.)
Anyway, I have a background in studying queer theory and I’m super interested in neurodiversity so I definitely wanted to read this book to understand what “neuroqueer” means beyond a narrow definition of someone who is both neurodivergent and queer, which is what I first thought when I saw the word. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it! Here I’ll be summarizing some of the key points that really stood out to me in the book.
From the about the author section: “Nick Walker is a queer, transgender, flamingly autistic writer and educator best known for her foundational work on the neurodiversity paradigm, her development of the term neuroqueer and the concept of neuroqueering, and her contributions to fostering the emergent genre of neuroqueer speculative fiction.”
Website: neuroqueer.com – her website has copies of some of the same essays that are in the book, so I’ll link the relevant ones as I go. : )
This essay lays out one of the big points the author is making: that we need to move away from the pathology paradigm and toward the neurodiversity paradigm.
One of the definitions she gives for paradigm is “a mindset or frame of reference that shapes how one thinks about and talks about a given subject.”
Currently, most of our society operates under a pathology paradigm where we assume there is one “normal” way for human minds to work, and if you are outside of that range, there is Something Wrong With You.
The pathology paradigm also goes along with person-first language, like “a person with autism” or “a person living with autism.” You would never say “a person living with homosexuality” or “a person with Blackness” and this is why I am not using person-first language for autism, because it implies that there’s Something Wrong with being autistic. For more on this, see: https://neuroqueer.com/person-first-language-is-the-language-of-autistiphobic-bigots.
In contrast, the neurodiversity paradigm assumes that it’s normal for human minds to be diverse! There is no “normal” way for human minds to work, just ways that might be more common than others. And society discriminates against people who go against what is treated as “the norm.” Like being cisgender or straight or white.
The author also talks about autism and being neurodivergent generally in a social model of disability framework. The social model of disability looks at disability as a lack of accommodations/problems with the environment rather than problems with the individual. So for example, if someone uses a wheelchair and can’t get to the second floor of a building because it doesn’t have an elevator, the disability isn’t caused by the person not being able to walk up stairs but instead is caused by the lack of the elevator. If there were an elevator, the wheelchair user would be able to get to the second floor.
I think the social model of disability is cool as long as you don’t erase some problems that really are problems that can’t be fixed by changes in society or buildings, like chronic pain. (Although to be fair, if the workday was shorter than 8 hours, my chronic pain would be less of an issue than it is now. But it would still limit what I am able to do.) Walker also emphasizes that she isn’t saying being neurodivergent can’t be a disability – just that the pathology framework is not helping people.
So along the same lines as the social model of disability, instead of thinking that neurodivergent people need to “fix” themselves to be more like neurotypical people, we should be thinking about how society discriminates against neurodivergent people and how to embrace neurodiversity instead.
To make the shift to the neurodiversity paradigm, Walker writes that we need to throw away everything from the pathology paradigm (just like we’ve thrown away everything that talked about “homosexuality” as a disorder). We need to recognize that “the pathology paradigm is nothing more than institutionalized bigotry masquerading as science.” (129)
This part was so helpful to explain some of the terminology.
Neurodiversity – diversity of human minds. You use it like the word “diversity” – one person doesn’t have diversity by themself, but a group can have diversity. Similarly, neurodiverse is used like the word “diverse” – one person isn’t diverse by themself, but a group can be diverse. Walker uses “minds” in a broad sense – the mind is entwined with the brain, and the brain with the body, and neuro– means nerve, as in the entire nervous system. So Walker writes, “when I say that neurodiversity is the diversity among minds, I’m really saying that it’s the diversity among bodyminds.” (54)
Neurodivergent – “having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of ‘normal.’” One person can be neurodivergent. A person can also be multiply neurodivergent if they are neurodivergent in more than one way (like being autistic and dyslexic). Neurodivergence is the state of being neurodivergent. There are lots of ways to be neurodivergent.
Neurotypical – “having a style of neurocognitive functioning that falls within the dominant societal standards of ‘normal.’” It is the opposite of neurodivergent.
Neurominority – a population of people with the same/similar type of neurodivergence, which is a largely innate type, and they experience prejudice/discrimination from the neurotypical majority.
This essay has a lot more info and examples of correct vs. incorrect usage!
A note on neuroessentialism (from page 172-73 of the book):
Neuroessentialism is the idea that a person is born either neurotypical or neurodivergent. Walker makes a parallel to gender essentialism, which is believing that there are two innate genders, rather than an infinite range of gender possibilities. Similarly, she writes that “an overly neuroessentialist mindset—a mindset which conceives of human neurodiversity as consisting of little more than an assortment of largely innate and immutable ‘neurotypes’ or ‘types of brains’—is an obstacle to the realization of the infinite range of neurocognitive possibilities, and to the realization of our full potentials for intentional creative queering of our minds.”
She does say that categories can be important and helpful, when not pathologized or stigmatized! But “we shouldn’t allow our conceptions of neurodiversity and its potentials to be constrained” by categories. This really resonated with me because of what I wrote above about feeling like I don’t fit into categories, and how apprehensive I am about essentialism within the LGBTQ+ community.
Here’s some queer theory background info that may be helpful in understanding “neuroqueer.” You may have heard of Judith Butler and gender performativity before. It’s the idea that “one’s gender is constituted by one’s ongoing performance of culturally conditioned habits of embodiment and activity.” (170) Gender is something that you do, through habitual performance of specific actions. (Check out this video of Judith Butler to understand the difference between “gender is performed” and “gender is performative.”)
So if you do things that “creatively deviate from and fuck with heteronormative performance,” it’s called queering. Like you’re queering your gender.
Now Walker adds neurodiversity to the idea of queering something. She first conceived of “neuroqueer” as a verb; “neuroqueering as the practice of queering (subverting, defying, disrupting, liberating oneself from) neuronormativity and heteronormativity simultaneously.” (160)
For example, she talks about how suppressing visible expressions of autistic embodiment and trying to pass for neurotypical paralleled her experience suppressing her femininity and trying to pass as cisgender. (170) And if letting herself embody more fluid and feminine gender expressions was “queering heteronormativity,” then maybe letting herself embody her neurodivergence could be described as “queering neuronormativity.”
“Neuroqueer is intentional noncompliance with the demands of normative performance.”
p. 175
Another example I thought was really eyeopening was her analysis of how policing the movement of hands can come from both a neuronormative place and a heteronormative place. (183) For example, if a child is known to be autistic, their non-normative hand movements might be seen as a “symptom” of their neurodivergence. But in a different context, the same hand movements might be flagged as gender violations, like a girl with “unladylike” movements or a boy whose movements are seen as “gay.” (185) And the same child could be getting this from both sources at the same time – like from autistiphobic adults and homophobic and transphobic peers. Both sources are policing body movements for what’s “normal.”
Neuroqueer is also an adjective.
“One can neuroqueer, and one can be neuroqueer. A neuroqueer individual is any individual whose identity, selfhood, gender performance, and/or neurocognitive style have in some way been shaped by their engagement in practices of neuroqueering, regardless of what gender, sexual orientation, or style of neurocognitive functioning they may have been born with.
Or, to put it more concisely (but perhaps more confusingly); you’re neuroqueer if you neuroqueer.” (161)
“You’re neuroqueer if you neuroqueer.”
p. 161
Walker has a list of examples of practices that fall within the definition of neuroqueering, and I found that I resonated most with #3:
“Engaging in practices intended to undo and subvert one’s own cultural conditioning and one’s ingrained habits of neuronormative and heteronormative performance, with the aim of reclaiming one’s capacity to give more full expression to one’s uniquely weird potentials and inclinations.”
– p. 162
Yes! Let’s embrace our uniquely weird potentials!
And importantly – Walker writes, “If you see anyone trying to narrow the definition of neuroqueer and trying to police who gets to use the term, feel free to tell htem that I said to stop acting like a fucking cop. The world needs more queering and fewer cops.” (167)
So why is this important?
I’m not going to do a whole synopsis of what “counts” as stimming here (Walker differentiates between movements that are seen as normative vs. not), but a point that really stood out to me was that pathology paradigm thinking has framed stimming as something that serves no purpose other than to detract from the performance of normativity, while researchers and professionals commonly see it as serving functions of self-regulation and integration. (106) In fact, that was my complete understanding of it prior to reading this.
But Walker writes that stimming shouldn’t be understood as only a coping strategy (which continues to frame it as compensating for a type of defect). Walker writes, “[i]n addition to serving to regulate and integrate sensory, perceptual, cognitive, and emotional experience, stimming can also function as a way of exploring and relating to the sensory world, and as a means of accessing not only a wide range of cognitive and emotional capacities but also exceptional human capacities such as flow states or experiences of profound communion and ego transcendence.” (107) I had to go over to google to figure out what “communion” and “ego transcendence” meant here but I think it’s broadly about accessing different states of mind or ways of thinking. A flow state, which I’m familiar with through my music performance anxiety research, is when you’re “in the zone,” or fully immersed in energized focus on an activity. Anyway, I thought this was very cool and interesting.
Suppressing non-neuronormative embodiments (including stimming or other types of non-normative movement) is called masking, while reclaiming those embodiments is called unmasking. (186) Walker writes that unmasking, “the reclaiming of previously suppressed ways of moving, can be intense and profoundly transformative.” Years of masking blocks not only spontaneous movements but also feelings and psychological capacities associated with those movements. (187) And this applies not only to autistic people but also to anyone who has been suppressing movements that violate normative performance. (188)
Walker writes that her students have told her that “learning to attune to their long-suppressed stimming impulses had expanded their consciousness, sparked interesting changes in their cognitive processes, and helped to restore their joy and vitality and creativity.”
This reminded me of an earlier point in the book, where she writes about classroom accommodations for neurodivergent students, that a student who constantly has to exert energy and attention toward “passing for ‘normal’” has less energy to focus on class, and that “freedom of embodiment is also an access need.” (154) (She also talked about how conflicting access needs can be negotiated, so that one student can have freedom of embodiment while accommodating another student who might be distracted.)
It was really interesting to me reading Walker talking about how all babies have freedom of movement and neurotypical movements are learned — in context with what I’ve been told that I did not move as a child. (I also didn’t do facial expressions.) I’ll be thinking about that next, about whether there was ever a before I was unnaturally still, or how I developed my fear of making noise and disturbing other people (maybe I was just born with Way Too Much Anxiety).
I found myself stimming a lot more during the pandemic, and having noticeable neck pain from holding still whenever I had to have my camera on in class. (It felt like there was more pressure to look normal in a little camera box on the screen than it would be as one face among many in a classroom, and you never knew if someone was looking at you.) I accumulated a fidget toy collection. I started getting feedback that I was being too loud and could I stop wearing headphones all the time because I wasn’t being quiet enough with my movements. I was like, “don’t you want me to be happy?” Or just more convenient?
I feel like I’m at the very beginning of a very big question. But the concept of “neuroqueering” and destroying all these societal norms brings me a lot of joy.
Anyway, lots of thoughts. I’m thinking about doing blog posts for NaNoWriMo this year. Let me know if you have any thoughts/comments/questions/suggestions!
nebula galaxy 