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Jun 18 2023
Today is Autistic Pride Day: Let’s celebrate our diversity

I have been active in the Autistic community for some years now. I have come to realise that autism as a diagnosis has been somewhat of a failed experiment. Diagnostic models have failed to capture the intricacies of what they dub “autism spectrum disorder”. A lot of the issues with the diagnostic process itself come back to racial and socioeconomic bias in research literature; there are also significant issues with people gendering autism, creating exclusion by denial of gender and sexually diverse experiences.

The Autistic community is diverse. While autism itself is an abstract concept, the very real Autistic people that exist come from all parts of the tapestry of life. One might hope that the days of autism being a diagnosis of middle-class white males is coming to an end, but there is still significant disparity. This article highlights the significant gulf in diagnostic rates in the US alone. It is clear that BIPOC people are being ignored despite the countless voices from their communities speaking up.

I also recently wrote about queerness and being Autistic. Gender diversity and sexualities that do not fit into perceived heteronormativity account for a great deal of the Autistic community. Again, these groups may have a harder time getting a diagnosis due to ideas that position autism as something that is only observed between cis-gendered males. It is clear that if you don’t fit the historical research, diagnosticians will deny you exist.

But you do exist, like all of us. You have the same strengths and struggles, plus other struggles that I can not know as a person with the privileges I have.

When we speak of Autistic pride, I think many view it as cute little get togethers, spending time amongst our own people. That’s not entirely wrong, but Autistic pride, much like any pride, is so much more than celebrating. We are protesting. We are refusing to be ashamed, and what we need to stand against moving forward is the bigoted gatekeeping of the few who believe that multiply marginalised communities should be targeted and minimised.

Autistic pride requires us to root out the bigotry in not just wider society but also our own community. If there is even one person who can not celebrate their Autistic pride, then none of us can. Autistic people are a diverse people, and our fight will not succeed if we are not also fighting for our neurokin who exist at the intersections.

So today, and for all days to come. If someone asks you what Autistic pride is; tell them it is our fight to make sure the world has a place for all Autistic people, not just the select few who fit into the world normative standards. Let’s build a world together where intersectional communities can feel safe to express their experiences without fear of backlash or risk to wellbeing and life.

There is no Autistic liberation while any one of us is being oppressed.

David Gray-Hammond 7 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
Feb 25 2023
Defining and emancipating weirdness: A reflection for Weird Pride

With Weird Pride Day coming up on the 4th of March, I have been considering the way I embody my identity, and how I can use my Self-expression to reclaim neurofuturism from the tech industry and use it to drive us into a post-normal society. It seems to me that post-normal thinking is growing throughout the communities I find myself in. Little by little, we’re getting weirder.

So, how does one embody weirdness? Weirdness is, much like all other adjectives, a social construct. Different cultures and societies have different standards for what classes as weird. Weirdness, then, has been restricted in its own way by normative thinking and what we see as objective weirdness has become somewhat of a caricature. Stereotypical machinations of a prefabricated construct.

True weirdness doesn’t come from the expected. It is not a quantifiable and boundaried concept. Weirdness is abstract, and to embrace, weirdness is to subvert expectation. Weird Pride is not just a refusal to be ashamed of your difference, it is using your weirdness in ever more surprising and innovative ways in order to escape from the soul crushing normativty of the status quo.

Weird Pride is emancipatory. It liberates us from being defined by the observations of others. It is freedom from being a caricature of yourself.

If I can ask one thing of you for March 4th, it is this; be the unexpected. Innovate, generate, emancipate. Don’t be weird by someone else’s standard. Be weird by your standard.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Sep 4 2022
Autism, diagnosis, identity, and culture

For a long time now, we have heard the phrase “If you have met one Autistic person, you have met one Autistic person”. This saying is an oversimplification of the fact that Autistic people have a wide variety of experiences, privileges, and neurocognitive styles. The question I want you to ask yourself is this:

Why is every Autistic person different?

Let’s consider the traditional route of Autistic discovery. Many of us found out we are Autistic when we were referred for and then recieved diagnosis. This diagnosis is based on the criteria laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or, the DSM) now in it’s fifth edition and the recent recipient of a text revision.

Davies (2022) discusses in their book Sedated: How modern capitalism created our mental health crisis, how the DSM is constructed. Davies discusses that the roughly 370 “disorders” detailed in the manual are voted into the manual by committee consensus rather than by any neurobiological research.

What does this mean for the diagnosis of Autistic people?

It means that Autistic experience is reduced to a list of traits, decided on by professionals who really only see Autistic people when they are in distress. After all, why go to a psychiatrist when everything in life is perfect? It also means that the experiences that constitute a DSM diagnosis of autism are voted into existence by groups whose entire careers are built upon neuronormative ideals.

So, of course we are vastly different from each other.

Herein lies the real existential conundrum though. Autism doesn’t actually exist.

As I write this, I can feel you getting ready to hit that “unfollow” button, but stick with me for a second.

Dr. Chloe Farahar of Aucademy once said that autism doesn’t exist, it’s an abstract concept, the only thing that actually exists is Autistic people.

If autism isn’t a disorder, condition, or even a tangible and existing entity that can be observed and measured, then what does being Autistic mean?

Autistic people are a minority group. We are a group of humans with shared experiences and communication styles. Autistic spaces are shared culture, and “Autistic” is an identity. Our vastly different experiences and privileges make us individuals, but our shared culture and neurocognitive style make us Autistic.

Diagnosis in and of itself is a privilege, a privilege that is required to access support, and in turn, upholds the pathology paradigm that Autistic people are drowning in.

There is a false economy surrounding the word “autism”. The insistence of it’s existence is the thing that is used to force quack cures upon Autistic people. Millions are poured into the prevention of Autistic people and the abject attempts to exorcise the abstract entity of “autism” from Autistic people.

The truth is that you will never separate the autism from the Autistic person. You can not remove what doesn’t exist. The only thing that “cures” and “therapies” will do is traumatise us. Because without our Autistic identity, we would not be us.

To destroy the autism, you will destroy the person.

This is why language matters, and it is why we need to move firmly into the neurodiversity paradigm. It’s time to stop pathologising human experiences.

David Gray-Hammond 6 Comments
Sep 3 2022
“Why are you so quiet?” Autistic voices and the fight to be heard
Post by elixirchai Text reads "you've been told all your childhood that it's rude to interrupt. and now you have grown up and speak only when there is a pause in the conversation. but suddenly you understand that neurotypicals are all interrupting each other and this is quite normal. but you are already used to not interrupting and waiting for a pause in the conversation and do not understand how to normally maintain a conversation in order to talk, but at the same time not to seem rude "
This image has alt text

Society is built upon a surprising number of rules that, when fully considered, seem rather arbitrary. In actual fact, societies rules are not arbitrary at all. They are deliberately designed to keep minority groups quiet while amplifying the voice of the oppressors.

I think most Autistic people have come across this particular micro-aggression. Sat in a social situation, listening, waiting for our chance to join in…

“Why are you so quiet?”

It’s a loaded question, because the truth is that society has conditioned us to be quiet. Don’t interrupt, don’t shout, don’t swear, don’t do anything that might upset the status quo. A status quo that upholds the victimisation of Autistic people while allowing those who want us eradicated to hog the microphone, so to speak.

It’s hard enough to know when my turn is in a conversation, let alone when the entire room is breaking the very rule that has caused my bewilderment in these situations. Neuronormativity dictates that everyone’s voice and opinion is equal, while silencing those who are harmed by this worldview.

Why is all of this relevant? Because I want you to understand why the titular question is micro-aggression.

Back to the social situation, I am lost and scared in a neurotypical environment, people speaking over each other and interrupting. Meanwhile my pavlovian ass is adhering to the rules that have been instilled in me since I could first speak.

What does this mean for Autistics trying to be a part of the conversation within the Autistic Rights movement?

It’s not just a room full of people speaking over each other and drowning us out of the conversation, it’s a world of people who think they know better. The irony being that when they don’t give us the chance to speak out against their rampant pathologisation of our identities, they use our silence to uphold their outdated and harmful beliefs about us.

The silence they instil in us by never giving us the chance to talk, is the very thing they use to justify calling us an epidemic. We social outcasts can’t possibly contribute to the economy through silence, can we?

So, sod the rules.

I will speak up and over the navel-gazing masses who believe me to be broken. I will stand in defiance of their arbitrary social rules, and I will live a life that feels right for me and my neurokin.

We are not broken, we are not ill.

We are quiet because you don’t give us the opportunity to step up to the proverbial mic.

So yeah, I hope that answers the question.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
Aug 28 2022
Spirituality and my Autistic experience

“Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it – its height, the way the sunlight refracts as it passes through – and it’s there, you can see it, and you know what it is, it’s a wave. And then it crashes on the shore and it’s gone. But the water is still there.”

Chidi Anagonye, The Good Place (Season 4 Ep. 13)

When the average person considers the word “spirituality”, they probably picture traditional places of worship associated with the major world religions. For me, however, spirituality is about a lot more than worshipping am unseen entity, and its arbitrary (and often outdated) models of morality.

When I consider my own spirituality, I think about my place in reality. I consider the interconnectedness of all things, and the beautiful tapestry that is our universe.

Humanity so often considers itself the pinnacle of existence, we are the “dominant” species on our planet. However, we are observably insignificant compared to the scale of our universe. It is, in my opinion, our connection to our universe, and how we influence it that makes us significant.

We are constantly altering our environment, which has knock on effects for all living beings within it. The actions of those living beings, in turn, effect us. Everything we do effects everything that exists in some way, even if to slight to be noticed. We have a responsibility to ensure that our existence does not leave the universe worse than it was before our existence.

This, perhaps, is why the following quote (that I have referenced a few times) has become a mainstay in my own form of spirituality. I use it as a guide for my actions, even if I do so imperfectly.

“To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds, that go on and are pushing themselves throughout all time.”

Revelation of Sonmi-451, Cloud Atlas, Written by David Mitchell

The actions that we make in our lives will forever change the course of history. The things that we do are writing the future that those who come after us will have to live with. I’m not just talking about humanity’s collective actions. The things we do as individuals ripple out, contributing to huge changes.

We are the multitude of droplets that create an ocean.

In this sense, my work advocating for Autistic people is a spiritual practice for me. I am trying to leave the world a better place than when I found it. Spirituality, for me, transcends the boundaries of religion and such practices. It is a way of enacting good in a world that so often rejoices in the dark.

Another aspect of spirituality that is important to me is the exploration of the self.

The truth is that our entire concept of the self is built upon rules and structures that have existed long before we did. To truly know the self, we have to understand the effects we have on the universe around us. We have to understand how our actions influence our shared existence. We have to embrace the fact that we are imperfect, and that some times our actions will do harm.

When this happens, we have to be open to the process of accepting what we have done, and trying not to repeat our mistake. We also have to respect the fact that once something happens, it cannot unhappen. Every action we make has a permanent impact on the world around us. To put it another way, what is done cannot be undone.

Spirituality does, and should, look different for everyone. Our experiences of reality are subjective, and I believe this is where mainstream religion fails. It tries to box everyone together into a shared and objective reality, which in itself is an impossibility.

We have one life on this earth with which to do good. We can’t waste it trying to fit into someone else’s reality. We can only be ourselves.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Feb 19 2022
‘Disabled’ is not a dirty word

By Katie Munday (They / them) – Autistic academic, activist and advocate.

There have been too many moments in my life where people have non-disabled-splained to me how to talk about my own embodiment and experiences. People question, or try to correct my language with good intentions; but the basis for their use of person first language (“people with disabilities”) is nothing but uncomfortable, ignorant and down right awful.

People who advocate for person first language believe that Disabled people are separate from, and therefore ‘more than’, their Disabled embodiment. This is problematic as it centers the Disabled person as a person who is suffering, who has an affliction, a disease, a disorder or illness. It takes all the joy from atypical existence and it makes rags of the otherwise beautiful quilt of human diversity.

Us Disabled people are not more than our bodies or neurologies and neither should we be. Neurotypicality and being a so called ‘abled-bodied’ person is not the goal here.

‘Normal’ is not quite as aspirational as many people would have us believe.

Some Disabled folk do use person first language, these people are usually ashamed about and even hate their bodyminds. Some of us struggle with these things on and off throughout our lives and acquired disability is a process which tends to come with a lot of sadness, regret and blame too. However, many more of us are happy and proud to be who we are. Our disability and /or neurodivergence is a massive part of who we are – it is inseparable from our very essence, the very things which make us, us. I couldn’t do anything in a non ADHD / Autistic / OCD fashion because all of these differences effect all of my life. They’re not compartment-able or controllable.

Non-disabled people love policing how we talk about our own experiences, cultures and bodyminds. Even when they do start an open-conversation with us they still disagree. They have this need to control our narrative: ones they don’t understand, usually have no stake in and seemingly don’t care about.

My opinions and understanding of myself, my life and my experiences are not up for debate.

I am Neurodivergent.
I am Autistic.
I am Disabled.

All of these differences and identities are the ways in which I make sense of the World around me and my part in it (including the way I am treated by others systemically and individually). And none of these are shameful terms.

‘Disabled’ is not a dirty word.

Katie Munday 3 Comments
Feb 7 2022
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 neurotypical dominated culture.

It’s no secret that neurodivergent people are actively oppressed by society. We live in a neuroculture that assumes anything outside of neuronormative standards is broken or sick. Neurotypicality has become the dominant culture, and with it, the pathology paradigm.

Despite this, largely on the Internet, smaller and more contained neurocultures are developing. These cultures are still largely homogenous, consisting mainly of a particular neurocognitive style. However, the advancement of the neurodiversity movement and an increased understanding of what is and isn’t neurodivergence is allowing people of many different ‘flavours’ of neurodivergence to come together. Thanks to this, there are now neurocultures developing that allow for the inclusion of multiple neurocognitive styles.

So now, we have two distinct neurocultures, the dominant neurotypical culture, and a neurodivergent sub-culture.

Here is where neuroqueering comes into the mix.

In order for society to survive, we need a fully inclusive neuroculture, that allows neurotypical and neurodivergent people to co-exist without any one group retaining more privilege than another. Effectively, a neurocosmopolitan society. In order for this to happen, the prevailing neuroculture needs to subvert and erase the neuronormative standards that hold us back in the pathology model.

Neuroqueer theory tells us that the best way to destroy neuronormativity is to intentionally queer our neurological processes. To put it another way, the mask must be fully destroyed, and we must act in a natural and authentic way, not the way that society expects us to act.

This will be difficult for everyone in the current neuroculture, but especially difficult for neurotypicals. Neuronormative standards come easily to them, and subversion of those standards has been stigmatised for a long time. Therefore, the neurodivergent led neuroculture needs to model the queering of societies expectations and roles. It is on us to teach the dominant culture that there is another way to exist.

By engaging in the act of neuroqueering, we ‘normalise’ the subversion of neuronormativity, and the more of us who do so, the more ‘abnormal’ society as a whole will become. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?

Of course it’s not a quick or simple process. Many of us are not privileged with the safety to just drop the mask completely. That’s why advocates and activists must work everyday, and change the neuroculture one small step at a time; until each drop becomes an ocean of change.

Society needs a cosmopolitan neuroculture to thrive.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Jan 14 2022
Autistic community, identity, and the sense of self

During my years of active addiction, I had no concept of who I was beyond being a drug and alcohol user. For this reason, I felt trapped into my substance use, unable to escape the horror that I was habitually inflicting upon myself. I finally found sobriety, but was clinging on desperately.

That’s when it happened.

A team of neurodevelopmental psychologists conducted an extensive assessment and told me I was Autistic. I will admit that to begin with I didn’t know what to make of it. Was this the reason for my suffering? Could I make the memory of my darker years disappear if it were removed?

I won’t say I am ashamed, I was suffering, but I’m not proud to admit that there was a time when I may well have taken a “cure” had it been scientifically tested and offered to me.

Then I found a community.

This community was a strange place, because I no longer felt like an outsider. The experiences they described and the feelings they expressed were like the sweetest song lyrics, gently soothing my Autistic soul. These people knew me. They were me. I was no longer adrift in the world.

That community was the Autistic community.

I was learning more and more every day. I can’t mark the exact moment when it happened, but suddenly I had a real identity. As my engagement with that community grew, so too did my sense of self.

No longer was I David the drug user. I was David the writer, David the advocate, David the activist.

Presenter, host, speaker, consultant, trainer. The list simply grew.

I saw the imperfections of the community and felt it to be a beautiful melody. They were as imperfect as me, and they did not hide it. They seemed more human to me than those who had called me an alien.

This community. This beautiful, imperfect community, had saved my life. So now my work commenced to return the favour. I looked around and realised that the suffering I had once experienced, that all of us had experienced, had nothing to do with my Autistic mind. The problem was a cruel and indifferent society.

I set out to help my neurokin, one person at a time.

Thus, a new David had emerged from the ashes of his former life. Finding the Autistic community didn’t just give me a new identity, it fundamentally altered my sense of self. It gave me purpose and focus where before there had been none.

I can never be sure of whether or not my debt to this community has been repaid. Not that I particularly care. I adore this community, and will fight for it for as long as I draw breath.

Thanks to this community, I know myself, and that is a thing that is priceless.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Jan 9 2022
Radical Advocacy: Being an advocate in a hate filled world

Recently I have found myself considering the direction that my advocacy is taking. I have found myself reading extensively on “autism theory” and, on the other hand, writings by actually Autistic authors.

At first I felt broken by what I had realised. Our world is built on a paradigm that by design oppresses anyone outside of it’s cultural standards of normal. What can we do about such a hate filled world? How can a minority group take on a system that is set up to silence them?

The answer is the opposite of hate. Which some might call love, but I find that utterly reductive and terribly clichéd. So if love is what drives us to stand up for another, then advocacy is the tool that we use to do so.

Where the hateful and oppressive masses sit in silent glee as all that is not “normal” is destroyed and hidden away, a self-advocating culture amplifies the voices of those who may otherwise go unheard.

Some people think that the job of an advocate is to give the oppressed a voice, but this is not true. An advocates job is to listen, and communicate what they hear in a way that can no longer be ignored.

Advocacy isn’t always about representing another person. Often as advocates we have to sit with ourselves and listen to our own inner voice. What helps us? How did we unlearn that? An advocate must be able to reflect on their own experience, and how that impacts the people they are standing up for.

The most radical thing an advocate can do, however, is to unlearn the systemic lies that society has drilled into us since birth. As Autistic advocates, the greatest lie we have been raised with is that society has a standard that we must adhere to.

There is no standard, there is no normal. This is a mistruth used to keep us static. Our society desperately wants our silence, so it fools us into thinking that we diverge from “normal”, when the truth is that what we truly diverge from is the dogma of a world that craves our indifference.

From a young age we are taught that our difference makes us broken, a shameful secret to be remedied or hidden from sight. An advocate must stand tall in the knowledge that our diversity is what makes us beautiful.

That, is what can combat a hate filled world. Not love, but advocacy that guides the world into seeing the beauty in our differences, instead of trying to eradicate them.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
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