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Sep 5 2023
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Autistic embodiment and the enactment of neurodivergence

When we seek to describe our Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent selves, we tend towards discrete categories and observable definitions of what we mean. However, to be Autistic is more than a diagnostic category; while Autism is a defining part of my experience, I also enact neurodivergence. My embodiment gives definition to what people mean when they use words like Autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, or Schizophrenic.

Performing Autism

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Like any of the diagnostic categories that have been assimilated into my identity, I perform them much in the way a neurotypical performs neurotypicality. Unlike the diagnostic criteria that bestowed these identities on myself, my performance is not containable. Every word that passes my lips, every action that my body makes; my existence gives meaning to the word neurodivergent. We often hear:

“When you’ve met one Autistic person, you’ve met one Autistic person.”

Unknown Author

I, however, would go one step further. Through our embodied relationship to the Self, we become autism. In the same way, I have become ADHD, and I have become Schizophrenia.

Queering the diagnosis

Autism does not exist as a separate entity, it exists as the embodied performance of ourselves. We choose the meaning that our identity has. We don’t have to be the Autistic that everyone else expects; through our performance of Self, We can redefine what people mean when they use words like Autism, Autistic, or neurodivergent.

We are both the writers and the actors in the performance of our neurodivergence. It is our job to deconstruct the politicised Autistic identity and replace it with the embodied and fluid definition that one might only find within the Chaotic Self. To word it another way; if we perform autism, that performance will change and evolve with each interaction with our environment.

Concluding Remarks

This lays a significant responsibility upon us as both individuals and a connected community. If we are redefining the meaning of autism and neurodivergence, it is on us to ensure that its definition is neither exclusionary or repulsive. The meaning of autism is written on our bodies, and we choose the words that write it into being.

We must strive toward a future free of the dichotomous standard of “meets diagnostic criteria” and “does not meet criteria”. Only when we break free of our politicisation and medicalisation can we truly explore the endless possibilities of doing autism.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Aug 5 2023
Yes, being Autistic does define me

Some years ago, I wrote a similar article for Neuroclastic. I thought perhaps now was the time to revisit the topic with several years more experience under my belt. Too many times I have been told not to let my “autism” define me, that I am something other than Autistic.

So, yes, being Autistic is a defining feature of who I am. This isn’t to say it is the only defining feature, but it is a core part of my identity. Of course, it is more than an identity to me. Much like my being ADHD and Schizophrenic, it defines my relationship to the universe surrounding me. I imagine my Autistic brain as a singular point, an event horizon within which all things become Autistic.

When I wake up, I do so Autistically. When I hold my son, I do so Autistically. When I breathe my last breath, I will do so Autistically. Autism is not a separate entity that inhabits me. I do not carry my autism as one might carry a brief case. My autism is the words I write, the thoughts I think. Autism is the way I feel. Autism is the way I love.

I am David, and so is my autism. If I were not Autistic I would not be David.

When others ask me not to be defined by “my autism”, they are asking me to cease existence. I have no existence outside of being Autistic because everything I do, I do as autism. As Autistic people, we are the point at which autism stops being an abstract concept and instead becomes a living, breathing human. My humanity is Autistic, and I will never know of non-Autistic humanity.

I can not tell you what it is like to be Autistic in a way that you can fathom unless you also are Autistic. Autism is all we know. We have never been anything other than Autstic. Even when I queer my neurology and seek a new way to exist, I do so as an Autistic person. My autism is exploration. It is expression of Self that can not, and will not, perform typicality.

So, do not ask me to define myself outside of autism. To do so is to ask me to define myself outside of my existence.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Jun 14 2023
The link between autism and Queerness

The other day I live recorded a podcast episode about neurodivergence and queerness. In it, we discussed the fact that Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people are more likely to be Queer/2SLGBTQIA+. The discussion was very good, and we really got into some of our experiences.

It’s no secret that Queerness is a significant intersection with Autistic experience. Aside from anecdotes from within the community, studies such as Janssen et al (2016) and Strang et al (2020) indicate that not only are we more likely to be gender-diverse, but that Queer communities are more likely to contain Autistic people. Strang on particular speaks of the lack of research looking into experiences over the lifespan and the need for such longitudinal study to be carried out.

With so much Queerness in the Autistic community, one might wonder why this intersection is so significant. I think the answer is quite simple. Albeit somewhat theory heavy.

Neuronormativity.

Neuronormativity is pervasive, and if you think that it only effects neurodivergent people you are wrong. Both BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities have fallen foul of the belief that there is a standard of neurology we should all achieve. It was not so long ago that being gay or transgender was listed in the DSM as a psychiatric disorder.

Autistic people naturally queer neuronormative standards. In this sense, queer is a verb. It is the subversion of societal expectation. Through our rejection of neuronormativity, we create space to explore our gender and sexuality (or lack thereof) unencumbered by the chains of bigoted standards of being.

When we begin to dismantle neuronormativity, we also begin to dismantle heteronormativity. Our experience of ourselves and attraction (or lack of attraction) to others is built upon the experiences we have of our environment. Experiences that we have through the lens of being Autistic. You can not separate autism from our queerness any more than you can separate a person from their brain. They are part of us, and without them, we would be someone different.

Thus, to neuroqueer in society is to become more than just neurologically queer, but also queer with respect to gender and sexuality.

With this said, there is still bigotry in the Autistic community. There are those who weaponise our intersectionality against us, and wield it as a tool to invalidate and oppress us; and yes, there are oppressive attitudes within our own community.

We must continue to build a community that is loving and accepting of all of the diversity within Autistic experience and recognise that Autistic people all experience the world in their own unique way.

David Gray-Hammond 16 Comments
Jun 2 2023
The relationship between queerness and being Autistic

“Queer is a term used by those wanting to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It can also be a way of rejecting the perceived norms of the LGBT community (racism, sizeism, ableism etc). Although some LGBT people view the word as a slur, it was reclaimed in the late 80s by the queer community who have embraced it.”

stonewall.org.uk

I am queer, and I am also Autistic. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I’m queer and multiply neurodivergent; I am not just Autistic, but also ADHD and Schizophrenic. Some might wrongly assume I should keep my queerness out of discussions of neurodivergence, but the two are inextricably linked.

As an Autistic person, I find myself constantly questioning the status quo. Even before the discovery of my neurodivergence, the concept of normality felt painful and alien to me. I used to believe that normality (perhaps more accurately, normativity) consisted of arbitrary rules, but I realise now they are not arbitrary at all.

Normativity is designed to oppress those who do not comfortably fit into it. For Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people, we struggle to fit into the system because of our neurology. For queer people, we do not fit into the capitalist fairy tale of binary gender and monogamy within the confines of heterosexuality. This is neuronormativty and heteronormativity respectively.

The relationship between the two lies in my abject rejection of normativity. I have neuroqueered myself into a fluid and radical identity that stands opposed to what colonial society wants me to be. This is more than just “acting Autistic”. I embrace queerness in all aspects of my life, sexuality included.

Queerness in this respect is not solely about who you are or who you sleep with. For me, my queerness is an act of defiance, a refusal to be contained. Being queer leaves me the space to be whomever I wish, to explore avenues that society would rather cordon off from me.

If I were not Autistic, perhaps if my particular mix of neurodivergence were different, I would not have this drive to liberate myself from the cult of normality. We were sold the lie of essentialist identities, and my bodymind is painfully aware of its dishonesty. I am queer because the world does not want me to be queer.

To be contained into fixed and sanctioned identities is to entangle the Self in the chains of normativity. Queerness, then, is the angle grinder cutting through those chains. I am openly queer so that it may be safer for others to be queer. My pride is not egotistical, but a refusal to be ashamed of any part of my being.

I reject normativity in all kinds, including the identity politics of my perceived peer groups. None of this would happen if I were not Autistic.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
May 2 2023
Neuroqueering education through rhizomatic community networks

This article exists, in part, thanks to the ongoing discussions in my Discord server. You can join by clicking here.

When considering the pervasiveness of neuronormativity, nowhere is it more visible and prevalent than in the education system. Educational institutions place a great deal of pressure on students to engage with behaviour policies, uniform policies, curriculums; more so, they define not only how one should learn, but how one should embody that learning and the ways we think about that learning.

Schools are, for the most part, completely ill-equipped for students who can’t conform to the restrictive ideals placed upon them by a school and institution that functions as a machine, creating apostles of our neoliberalist economy. Far too many children are traumatised and subsequently excluded from their human right to education because of the normatively violent approaches of the education system.

So how might we subvert and redesign education?

I have spoken recently of rhizomes. Vast networks of points that are connected while remaining independent of each other in terms of their survival. Such rhizomatic communities take a post-structural approach to the creation of community and the sharing of knowledge by ditching hierarchical notions of milestones and targets and instead allow us to take an interest-led approach.

Allowing communities to form around mutual interest creates different points within the rhizome. Through exploration and knowledge exchange, intrinsic connections form through the understanding that all knowledge is inherently connected. This is the basis of how one might queer the education system.

By allowing people to engage with interests and learn through that which they are intrinsically motivated to explore, the natural connections between points in the rhizome can be used to expand learning into other areas while maintaining and interest-led approach. Such a world would have no need for institutional education as knowledge creation and sharing would be a community endeavour.

Everyone would be the educator and the learner.

Some may worry about the standard of education that a person can achieve outside of the traditional institutional structure; truthfully, how much of the knowledge you hold now was attained within the walls of a school? Most learning is community based. School systems offer a very limited basis of knowledge that often seems pointless thanks to a lack of context.

Education should not be reliant on normative standards of teaching. We should be empowering each other to share the knowledge that we gain over a lifetime. Such a world would take us away from the self-reliance of our current society while allowing us to retain our individuality. Through a rhizomatic network of learning, we create a multiplicity in our individual existence that can not be achieved within the confines of the institution.

For access to bonus articles from David, check out David’s Divergent Discussions. Click here for 50% off your first year.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Apr 30 2023
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Rhizomatic communities and the Chaotic Self

I have recently begun to explore the idea of the Autistic Rhizome as a futurist ideal of what the Autistic community could look like. In this concept, we explore communities that exist of networks with no single point of origin. They are interlinked but not dependent on one another for their existence.

You can read more about this here and here.

Co-existing with this idea is my concept of The Chaotic Self, which I first discussed in my book A Treatise on Chaos: Embracing the Chaotic Self and the art of neuroqueering. This idea position’s the Self as a fluid entity, constantly changing with each new interaction, making one’s identity as changeable as your hair colour.

What I would like to consider is the interplay between these two concepts.

If we consider the Autistic Rhizome, we are connected to one another either directly or indirectly. We are not independent of each other, but also do not rely on one another for our space in this rhizomatic network. What happens when we queer our neurology and alter our sense of Self?

As the Chaotic Self alters and grows, its relationship with the rest of the rhizome is altered. This affords it a different set of interactions and experiences, which in turn queers the Self further. Due to the interconnected nature of such a rhizomatic network, neuroqueer theory becomes farther reaching than ones own neurology. By queering ourselves, we are queering entire sections of humanity.

One could assume that at a certain degree of separation within the network, our reach is stifled, but as we queer ourselves, the relational change with our immediate environment transfers the process onwards to the rest of our community in somewhat of an u predictable manner.

Perhaps then, the argument could be made that if we want to alter society, we must first alter ourselves. When Walker (2021) tells us to “throw away the masters tools”, we must realise that we are the masters tools. Society has made us complicit in our own imprisonment. To throw away the tools means queering ourselves on a fundamental level. We must become different on an individual level and, in turn, alter the world around us.

As such, to embrace the Chaotic Self requires us to embrace the rhizome. We must recognise that any change to our own embodiment and subsequent relationship with the environment alters more than our inner world, it has knock on effects for the human collective, that itself is an ever-changing, amorphous entity.

Further Reading

Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker

A Treatise on Chaos by David Gray-Hammond

I also recommend becoming familiar with the work of Delueze and Guattari for a broader understanding of some of the motivations behind this post.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 24 2023
Intergenerational trauma and the perpetuation of harm

“Mother is God in the eyes of a child”

William Makepeace Tackery

The above quote, whilst pertinent to this discussion, is only half of the picture. Adults control most aspects of a child’s life, and whether or not we realise it, we do this by being the people they depend upon to survive. I often wonder if those who abused me stopped to realise quite how severely they failed me in constructing a child for whom a feeling of safety was a rarity.

Children, like all of us, are socially constructed. The Self is an amalgam of the relationships and experiences afforded to us by the environment. This proves particularly problematic for children in abusive situations. Extensive and prolonged abuse creates a rocky foundation for Self-actualisation and scaffolding of one’s identity.

Much as the child who grows up seeing nothing but shadows does not realise there is a person who casts them, the child who is consistently and extensively mistreated does not view their abuse as out of the ordinary. This is how trauma passes from generation to generation. The normalisation of inflicted pain allows for it to be passed on.

There is a greater complexity to this matter than simply the way our parents and other family members treat us. Services and professionals who are meant to support us often compound the pain we are experiencing. When one is more concerned with the law than with ethics, you are almost definitely contributing to pain.

So, now we have a world where harm comes from all directions. This harm is so consistent and resilient to change that we do not realise its lack of acceptability. We are constructed into adults who believe that things should remain the same because “we turned out fine”.

We didn’t.

It’s not okay.

Our colonial society has taught us that normative violence is the pinnacle of love, and yet so few of us have actually known what real love feels like. We are hurt people who are hurting people. Not because we are fundamentally bad, but because the inflicting of pain in our world is taught to us as a second language.

We have become masters of our own torture.

It is necessary then to explore ways of moving away from this world of normative suffering. We must queer the expectations of human experience in order to build a new society where abuse of the Other is as unacceptable as any other crime against humanity.

We deserve a world where our fundamental human rights are not trampled daily, and more so, our children deserve the opportunity to construct themselves in love and not the crucible of pain.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 22 2023
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Decolonising the Autistic community

Community is somewhat of an abstract concept. It is an adjective for a group that has a shared identity. It comes with rules and politics that dictate how one must carry themselves. There is a dichotomy of insider and outsider within communities, often dictated by agreement of the communities politics. Those who don’t conform are ejected.

The Autistic community is not immune to this. Deleuze and Guattari, I imagine, would see the Autistic community as a machine. One enters the community, working their way through it until they achieve the title of advocate. There is a power imbalance between those that advocate and those who choose to remain quiet in the public domain. As advocates, we largely write the rules of our community.

I have previously written about the Autistic Rhizome in the context of neuro-anarchy. I envision this as an interlinked network with no point of origin. Each point of interest on this map of communities is linked with the others but independent in the sense that they do not require each other to exist. I explored this in an article for Stimpunks Foundation.

The Autistic Rhizome is decentralised. It has no goal other than mutual knowledge exchange and support. Rather than creating colonised communities engaging in separatism, they are nomads. Within the Rhizome, we explore the topography of neurodiversity while respecting each culture that we encounter. In my opinion, the evolution of an Autistic Rhizome is the first proper step towards a neurocosmopolitan society.

We can create communities through realising the connections in our individual nature.

This allows us to begin dismantling the structures we have built (out of necessity) using the masters tools. We can create a new community away from the colonial influence of our normative society. In this sense, these growing networks are queering the meaning of community through the rejection of hierarchy and the balance of power.

Like any new endeavour, it has the potential for mistakes to be made. One must accept that exploration comes with a few wrong turns, but as long as mistakes can be corrected in good faith, we can create a new kind of community.

This is the thesis of neurofuturism. To create a new culture and community.

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David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Apr 21 2023
Neuro-anarchy and the rise of the Autistic Rhizome

Before we start, I want to go over some terms that will be covered here.

Neuro-anarchy: as conceptualised by Katie Munday, I use this to refer to to the decentralisation of hierarchy as it pertains to neurocultures such as that of the Autistic community. Munday and I co-authored an article on this here. Neuro-anarchists arrive at this position by existing on the fringes of their own communities and challenging the politics within them.

Rhizome: as conceptualised in the work of Deleuze and Guatarri. A network with no single point of origin. No part of the network depends upon the existence of another. I have introduced the idea of this in the context of community here.

When considering the nature of the neuro-anarchist, one could be forgiven for expecting to see Autistic people clad in post-apocalyptic garments decrying the existence of government. Some of us are like that. However, some of us look like this;

Image of David. A white, Mediterranean, masculine person with a shaved head, thick rimmed glasses, lip piercing, and an ear tunnel. David is wearing a waistcoat, white shirt, and tie. He is sat at a covered picnic table.

Neuro-anarchy as a concept is important. In any community built upon identity, identity politics come into play. Humans have this bizarre tendency to look for leadership, and when they find it, they will often defend it, even if it is overtly harmful. Neuro-anarchy, however, invites us to consider the nature of that leadership and whether the hierarchy of our own communities serves the greater good.

Allow me to elaborate.

Humans are fundamentally neutral. We are equally as capable of tremendous evil as we are of a beautiful good. We are not born naturally good or evil. That is an identity given to us by the sum of our actions. However, the tendency to create community hierarchy means that some members of the community sit in a position of power over others.

Neuro-anarchy seeks to rebalance the power dynamics of a given neuroculture, allowing for mutual exchange of knowledge and support.

Enter the rhizome.

On discord, there is a growing network of communities. I have lovingly dubbed this collective The Autistic Rhizome. They are an interconnected network of knowledge exchange, and mutual aid and support that have displaced the hierarchical nature of advocate/follower relationships.

We are equal in these spaces.

This doesn’t mean that all knowledge shared is useful in advancing the neurodiversity movement. Like any knowledge, some is good, some is bad, most is somewhere in the middle.

This growing network consists of communities that do not depend on each other to exist, but are still enriched by their interconnection. There is no starting or end point. There is no advancing through communities based on levels of knowledge. They just simply exist, and people come and go as they please.

I personally feel this is neuro-anarchy on action. We have decentralised the Self and become a collective. We are connected in the neutrality of our individuality.

There is somewhat of a liberated feeling within the Rhizome. It feels safe.

I strongly believe this might be the next step for growing our communities. A rhizomatic network of free thought that considers each member equal. The ethos of “do no harm” is a wonderful thing.

If you want to check out the Autistic Rhizome, you can join my server and no doubt explore into others!

Don’t forget you can support David’s work by purchasing a subscription to his Substack and purchasing his books.

David Gray-Hammond 6 Comments
Apr 21 2023
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Neuroqueering knowledge and its production

In a previous article, I discussed the idea of verisimilitude. I discussed how we might never find an objective truth that explains neurodivergent experience. In fact, we might never find one for human experience on the whole. What we can do is seek a falsehood that is close enough to truth to seem true, it has verisimilitude.

One of the flaws in this is the arborescent approach to knowledge creation that this takes. We are constantly building on previous knowledge. Our foundations are rooted in the past. However, if we accept the verisimilitous nature of all knowledge pertaining to neurodivergent experience, then we must accept that there is a good chance that prior knowledge is a falsehood that seems true.

This presents an issue. If the foundations we branch out from are unstable, the metaphysical structure of our knowledge is one doomed for collapse. I believe we need to move beyond the roots and instead create new knowledge, not by abandoning the past, but by utilising it in a way that no single part depends upon another.

One might pontificate that knowledge exists to evolve, but what if we approach knowledge as being independent of its purpose. Rather than measuring knowledge by its reiteration and resilience in the fave of scrutiny, we can view it as interconnected while retaining its independence.

Can we create new knowledge through linking networks of knowledge that are seemingly unrelated? How might one approach the creation of knowledge in a way that does not depend on antiquated thought?

Knowledge is a by-product of thought, which itself is a by-product of the bodymind. If we desire to queer knowledge, we must first queer the bodymind. This requires us to abandon the politics of our own existence and instead explore our own reality.

Through exploration of the Self, we are able to tweak and alter the bodymind. This, in turn, will alter our thoughts and, thus, knowledge production. By abandoning the arborescence of our own thoughts, we can abandon the roots of antiquated knowledge.

To liberate humanity, we must liberate thought and knowledge. We must escape the branching nature of our current system of knowledge and instead explore the coherence of our entire knowledge base rather than focusing on small details. When we can embrace the connectivity of everything, we can wield knowledge as the tool it should always have been.

Normative society has standardised thought to control the direction of knowledge. To be free of normativity, we must first free our thoughts and knowledge.

Don’t forget to check out David’s new book Unusual Medicine and subscribe to his Substack!

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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