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. There is no such thing as a “neurodiverse individual.” The correct term is “ neurodivergent individual.” An individual can diverge, but an individual cannot be diverse.

Neuroqueer is about recognizing the fundamentally entwined nature of cognition, gender, and embodiment, and also about treating cognition, gender, and embodiment as fluid and customizable, and as canvases for ongoing creative experimentation. The conceptualization of neurodiversity as diversity among bodyminds has been central to Neuroqueer Theory from the start. Just as a cosmopolitan perspective recognizes that there’s no “normal,” “superior,” or “default” culture or ethnicity, a neurocosmopolitan perspective––or a neurocosmopolitan society––is one in which no sort of mind is privileged as “normal,” or as superior to others, or as the natural default way for a mind to be. Another term you use a lot is “neurocosmopolitan” or “neurocosmopolitanism.” Where does Neuroqueer Theory fit into a neurocosmopolitan world? But the work of mad scholars, and our presence in academic spaces, is not necessarily, and certainly not only, about accurately representing our diagnoses. Though lived experience work is often valued in the medical humanities, its perceived value can tend to be limited to what mad people can tell us about madness. We are told that we are the experts on our experience. Unfortunately this valuing of expertise can tend to begin and end with the light we can shed on our diagnosis and the patient experience. I think that what this misses is that lived experience scholarship has the potential to bring urgently needed new critical perspectives, including critiques of how we understand particular diagnoses and also ways of thinking, feeling, knowing, and doing otherwise.

What It Means:

Really? So human brains and minds don’t differ from one another? There’s an awful lot of scientific evidence that shows quite plainly that there’s considerable variation among human brains. And if we all thought alike, the world would be a very different place indeed. The person who wrote this sentence was probably trying to object to the neurodiversity paradigm and/or the positions of the Neurodiversity Movement, and has ended up sounding rather silly as a result of failing to distinguish between these things and the phenomenon of neurodiversity itself. I’m always happy to support the next generation of scholars by serving on dissertation committees and thesis committees. If you’re a student at California Institute of Integral Studies, having me on your committee is easy to arrange. If you’re a student elsewhere, find out your school’s policy on external committee members; a lot of schools actually prefer that you have an external member (i.e., a faculty member from a different school) on your committee. This group is for people who identify as both queer and ND (neurodivergent).” NEUROTYPICAL, or NT What It Means: What we do know is that there are some people who feel that their ability to think of themselves as a particular gender is affected by their autism. This feeling is shared by enough autistic people that they have dubbed themselves “ autigender.” Autism is a neurotype that specifically affects our perceptions and understanding of social conventions, norms, etiquette and mores.

Neuroqueer transcends essentialist identity politics not only by treating identity as fluid and customizable, but also by being radically inclusive. Neuroqueering is something anyone can potentially do, and there are infinite possible ways to do it and infinite possible ways to be transformed by it. The term neuroqueer points to a horizon of creative possibility with which anyone can choose to engage. Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities Coming to Terms Autigender is not explicitly saying that “My gender is autism”– it’s not about saying you are a boy, girl, enby, autism, whatever. It’s about your relationship with your gender. The fact is that autism is a neurotype that specifically affects our perceptions and understanding of social conventions, norms, etiquette and mores. New paradigms often require a bit of new language, and this is certainly the case with the neurodiversity paradigm. I see many people – scholars, journalists, bloggers, internet commenters, and even people who identify as neurodiversity activists – get confused about the terminology around neurodiversity. Their misunderstanding and incorrect usage of certain terms often results in poor and clumsy communication of their message, and propagation of further confusion (including other confused people imitating their errors). At the very least, incorrect use of terminology can make a writer or speaker appear ignorant, or an unreliable source of information, in the eyes of those who do understand the meanings of the terms.This book is a work of advocacy for fellow neurodivergents, an intellectually demanding book that will challenge your preconceptions and assumptions. A lot of work on neurodiversity has been strongly informed by the lens of disability studies. This work is necessary and important, but I think some people fall into the trap of thinking that the disability studies lens is the only useful way to think about neurodiversity. So what does it mean to neuroqueer, as a verb? What are the various practices that fall within the definition of neuroqueering… Neuroqueer: An Introduction

Neurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species. What It Doesn’t Mean: Very few books have ever left me with such a frustrating recurrence of feeling "This is such a poor way to put this and I can see why people probably bully you" followed by "damn, but you're right though".

What It Doesn’t Mean:

I coined the term neuroqueer in a paper I wrote for a grad school class in the Spring of 2008. Over the next several years, I played with it in further grad school papers, in private conversations, and in the ongoing development of my own thoughts and practices. The concept of neuroqueer, or of neuroqueering (I’ve always seen it as a verb first and an adjective second), increasingly came to inform my thinking, my embodiment, and my approach to life.

Regardless of which specifics resonate with different readers, my hope is that in some way or another the book will awaken in each and every reader an expanded sense of the possible. My hope is that the book will inspire readers to explore of the infinite realms of creative potential that lie beyond the walls of normativity. On the first day of that class, Dr. Grand summed up the underlying premise of somatic psychology like so: The psyche is somatically formed and organized. Meaning, in other words, that one’s psyche and selfhood are developed through processes of bodily experience and action, with the implied corollary that new bodily experience and new habits of bodily action have the power to effect significant mental transformations.As a neurodivergent professional working with people whose neurodivergence differs from my own, it is helpful to be educated and reminded about many of the inherently ableist attitudes and practices that serve as obstacles to our community, even though I have experienced it on some level.