It will change how you view yourself and others in your life, guiding you to fully embrace your weird and amazing self. If your personal and professional life intersects with neurodivergent folx (and we are kind of everywhere, I'm afraid) then this is a rocking good guide to the future we're imagining for ourselves. However, Walker's prescriptivist lens has, to give one example, the unfortunate consequence of obscuring the neurodiversity within autistic populations. If this makes you uncomfortable, it is worth persistence and engaging in self-reflection as you read further. Behind all of this though, were conclusions about social behavior and biological systems that are both absolutely true and not often talked about.

I am aware that this book is meant to be an academic text, especially since the author literally wrote that she intended to use this book as a textbook for courses she teaches. Nick Walker is a queer, transgender, flamingly autistic author of both speculative fiction and nonfiction, and co-creator of the urban fantasy webcomic Weird Luck (weirdluck.Her expansive definition of what it means to engage in "neuroqueering," and to "be neuroqueer," is refreshing. I personally felt that for myself a lot of it has been covered extensively elsewhere so it wasn't particularly revelatory for me. Too often high-profile queer activism relies on shaming people for understanding gender and language in anything other than a middle-class way. Corporations can co-opt individual words, but they can't co-opt the entire language system of the neurodiversity movement without revealing their colours as part of the attempt. This is the second queer, trans, autistic, doctorate-level author I’ve found in the last month and I am again so disoriented after reading.

An iconic quote, “If you see anyone trying to narrow the definition of neuroqueer and trying to police who gets to use the term, feel free to tell them that I said to stop acting like a fucking cop. This is the type of work that I expect to be fully ignored in 5-10 years but also be responsible for inspiring a slew of important, thought provoking, work over that same time period. She is consistently clear and makes such interesting points and I desperately wish I could take one of her classes!Other parts are terribly casual, hand waving away opposing viewpoints by offering no criticism other than them being "disgusting" or "abhorrent" without justifying why. Nick Walker has been part of the neurodiversity movement for the last couple of decades, and knows people who were there at the beginning when autistic people started meeting and building culture online. As well as educating readers about terminology related to neurodiversity, you will learn about the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities—a challenge to normativity. 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.

Intentionally liberating oneself from the culturally ingrained and enforced performance of neuronormativity can be thought of as neuroqueering”. If you are new to these topics—particularly if you are a non-Autistic person—some may be challenging to read. If you are new to these concepts and wondering what neurodiversity actually is, what each of the terms—such as neurodivergent or neurodiverse—mean, and how this relates to autism and Autistic rights, Neuroqueer Heresies is the perfect place to start. Took a star off because there was definitely a vibe of "I'm the expert and anyone who disagrees with me, is wrong.

The million copy bestseller, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and. And finally, I got a little annoyed by Walker explaining the background behind every essay and where it was originally published, etc. Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities The work of queer autistic scholar Nick Walker has played a key role in the evolving discourse on human neurodiversity.