neuro* - a genealogy // 9.5.2023

neuro* perspective 

Much like the Disability Rights Movement was largely led by white disabled men with mobility impairments, the Neurodiversity Movement began with white autistic men in the Autism Pride movement. While progress has been made since the 1980s, the majority of neurodiversity literature and activism, including the more recent critical scholarship and movement work, focuses on the white, cisheteronormative autistic experience. Further, dominant research and cultural discourse centers “high-functioning autism” and “Asperger’s Syndrome.” This medicalized paradigm persists at the expense of those perceived to be lower-functioning, including those described as having co-morbid intellectual, learning, and sensory-processing disabilities or neurodivergencies. 

I come into this project with a different perspective. While I am white and mostly read as high-functioning, I am an intermittent non-speaker and am frequently misfitting with my graduate school environment as a person with dyscalculia and dyslexia. Each of these identities interact to form points of contention at which normative functioning is subverted and thus, can be questioned. Deeper questioning of how neurotypes play into oppression, something only just beginning to be explored, is beneficial to the development of a richer critical consciousness and necessary in the project of liberation.  

I call this a genealogy, rather than a working definition, because it highlights neuro- lineages and maps my arrival at neurotrans and neuro*, rather than providing an in-depth discussion of the terms themselves.

neurodiversity to neuroqueer to neurotrans to neuro*

neurodiversity

Walker (2015) defined neurodiversity as the naturally occurring diversity of neurocognition in the human population. While neurodiversity describes a biological fact, the neurodiversity paradigm is an approach based upon the following by Walker (2014): 

1.) Neurodiversity is a natural and valuable form of human diversity.

2.) The idea that there is one “normal” or “healthy” type of brain or mind, or one “right” style of neurocognitive functioning, is a culturally constructed fiction, no more valid (and no more conducive to a healthy society or to the overall well-being of humanity) than the idea that there is one “normal” or “right” ethnicity, gender, or culture.

3.) The social dynamics that manifest in regard to neurodiversity are similar to the social dynamics that manifest in regard to other forms of human diversity (e.g., diversity of ethnicity, gender, or culture). These dynamics include the dynamics of social power inequalities, and also the dynamics by which diversity, when embraced, acts as a source of creative potential. 

neurodiversity movement

The Neurodiversity Movement, based upon this paradigm, describes a social justice movement that seeks to advance the rights of all neurodivergent people, including, but not limited to, Autistic people. Neurodivergent (ND), coined by Kassiane Asasumasu, means having a mind that does not “fit” the normative standards of functioning, diverging from dominant societal standards. Neurotypical refers to those who do meet normative standards of functioning (Walker, 2014). 

neuroqueer

Neuroqueer, as defined by Walker (2015), is a verb - neuroqueering, or “the practice of queering (subverting, defying, disrupting, liberating oneself from)” socially-imposed neurocognitive and gender norms; an adjective - i.e., neuroqueer culture, a descriptor of things associated with or resulting from the process of neuroqueering; and a social identity. The term has gained traction in both academic scholarship (Egner, 2019; Hartley, 2022; Johnson, 2021; Oswald, Avory, & Fine, 2021; Radulski, 2022; Rauchberg, 2022; Smilges, 2021) and popular neurodivergent culture. Neuroqueer ways of being in (ontology) and understanding (epistemology) the world trouble dominant rhetorics of sociality and narratives of community. 

neurotrans

As a nonbinary person and scholar interested in trans* studies, I realized the generative possibilities of embracing both queer and trans* ontologies and epistemologies.

neuro*

Trans* studies informed my choice to use the asterisk (*) with neuro* (adjective). In order to respect the intersectionality of the neurodivergent community, honor critical theoretical perspectives, and the various ways in which neurodivergent individuals conceptualize their identities, I applied trans* asterisk logic, described by Tomkins (2014) below.

“Recalling the variety of ways… the asterisk can function, trans* blends [its] wildcard function with its use as a figurative bullet point in a list of identities… not predicated on the trans- prefix formulation… [S]tarring trans draws attention to the word, indicating the possibility of a deeper meaning… Finally, the asterisk may act as a footnote indicator, implying a complication or suggesting further investigation. In this sense, the asterisk actually pushes beyond the trans- prefix and opposes it as the only legitimate way to refer to trans* identities and communities.”