Neuroqueering
Neuroqueer: Gender Identity and Autistic Embodiment
This article looks at neuroqueer theory and the Autistic embodiment of gender. It considers how one might construct their gender, and how being Autistic queers our ideas of gender.
Autistic Community
Autism
I'm not Asocial, I'm AuSocial: Conceptualising Autistic sociality and culture
Being Autistic is a nightmare (sometimes, actually, a lot of the time). This isn't because being Autistic is inherently good or bad, but rather because we are a minority group, and as such experience direct and indirect oppression from the privileged majority. Given that the world is designed
Autistic Community
More on Zeno's Paradoxes and the issues with Autistic to non-Autistic communication
As you may have noticed from my most recent blog post, I am somewhat down a rabbit hole at the moment. In my previous article I discussed Zeno's paradox of plurality and how it applies to the dehumanisation of Autistic people and the double empathy problem. Today I
Autism
Coping with psychiatric medication when Autistic
For many of us, medication is a necessary part of life. For a huge portion of the Autistic population, that medication is prescribed by a psychiatrist. Psychiatric medication can be a troublesome topic, psychiatry itself is a relatively young discipline, and can often be found to be neuronormative in nature.
Trauma
Autistic Substance Use Survey 2022
Below is a survey on Autistic people and substance use. The aim is to collate data anonymously on the use of drugs and alcohol in the Autistic community, and use that data to write a report that will be published on this website. The hope is that these insights may
Neurodiversity
Creating Autistic Suffering: Clustered injustice compounds minority stress in Autistic experiences
This article was co-authored between David Gray-Hammond and Tanya Adkin Trigger Warning: Injustice, mental health, systemic oppression, minority stress, fabricated and induced illness, stigma. "The state creates the rules and dictates the processes to be followed: processes that fragment, silo, and compartmentalise, and in doing so, generate the complexity
Autistic Community
Double empathy, solipsism, and neurotypicality
Why do interventions such as Applied Behavioural Analysis and Positive Behavioural Support exist? Why is it that our world uses neurotypicality as the standard from which neuronormativity is drawn? Fundamentally, I believe that it comes down to the double empathy problem. Autistic people have a different style of communications to
Autistic Rights
Shifting the paradigm on world autism day
April 2nd. It's a day that so many of us dread. For as long as "world autism day" has existed, it is a day where (much like every other day) adherents of the pathology paradigm do their best to drown out the voices of those that
Autistic Pride
Big news with even more big news on the way!
I have been nominated for a National Diversity Award, positive role model- disability category. I am honoured to have recieved this nomination, and while I don't expect to win, I do enjoy reading the kind things that people day about me in their votes. If you wish to
Autistic Rights
Not your tragedy, not your epidemic, not your inspiration: reflecting on Autistic existence
Being Autistic is not inherently good or bad, it just is. That's not to say that I am not proud of who I am, and I am most certainly not denying the obstacles I have had to over come. While being Autistic is an inseparable part of my
Neurodiversity
Neuroqueering the Neuroculture: Exploring our place in society through the neuroqueer lense
Recently I started talking about a concept I call neuroculture, by discussing the risk of harm to society if the prevailing neuroculture becomes homogenous (find that discussion here). In this discussion, I would like to explore our individual contributions to said neuroculture, and how we can effect change in a
Society
Neuroculture and the dangers of homogeneity
Today I decided to learn about monocultures. A monoculture is an environment in which a single crop is cultivated. The problem with monocultures is that a small change can destabilise the entire thing. This got me thinking about something I call neurocultures. A neuroculture can be considered the culture created