Celebrating Neurodivergence amid Social Injustice

Abstract

Burgeoning narratives of neurodivergence increase representation in media, producing an unprecedented visibility and awareness of what it means to be neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. In this article I examine the ways in which a neurodivergent subject position can provide liberatory insights into oppressive patriarchal gender structures, while exploring productive tensions of the histories and lineages of neurodivergence marked by inequities, erasure, and epistemic injustice (Catala et al. 2021). Although self-diagnosis is often accepted among communities, individuals without diagnosis face delegitimization in navigating institutions, accentuating race, class, and gender disparities. How do we honor a lineage of stories of neurodivergent individuals who could not claim this identity, and what does it mean to celebrate neurodiversity and simultaneously hold space and honor the absences marked by intersecting oppressions? Using Maria Lugones's world-traveling as a method, I reflect on these tensions via narratives of my own discovery of neurodivergence and diagnosis, contextualizing it within a larger lineage of neurodivergent family who do not identify as such, as well as my encounters with varying levels of access, privilege, and understanding. I position my autoethnographic analysis against anecdotes and discursive media of the neurodiversity movement, finding that an autistic subject position complicates both femininity and gender.