The Em Dash Is Not AI: On Neurodivergent Voice and the Policing of Online Language

Why neurotypical norms mistake our language for machine speech—and what that reveals about whose voices are allowed to sound real.

Neurodivergent writing is being policed online—em dashes and all. But what if our punctuation isn't artificial, but deeply human? A reflection on voice, gatekeeping, and an open invitation to talk across difference.

Sunday’s Musings …

Somewhere in the algorithmic backwaters of LinkedIn, it happened again. A post—mine—circulating quietly, just doing its little job of sharing a thought, a resource, a question. And then came the comment: “This looks like AI-generated writing. All those em dashes. No one actually writes like this.”

Ah, yes. The em dash. The rogue punctuation mark. The supposed fingerprint of ChatGPT. Or, in my case—and in the case of many AuDHD writers—the best approximation we have for our thinking in motion.

It would be funny if it weren’t so familiar. I’ve lost count of how many times strangers online have confidently told me that my writing isn’t mine. That it’s too polished, too stylised, too “odd.” They diagnose it, like some grammatical pathology: excessive dashes, parentheticals, complex clauses, tone shifts. The implication? If you don’t write like them, you must not be real.

They mean it as a gotcha. I take it as a compliment.

Because the truth is, em dashes are a deeply human choice—particularly if your brain doesn’t move in a neat, linear way. For those of us who are autistic, ADHD, or both (hello, AuDHD kin), the em dash is not a stylistic indulgence. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s what we reach for when we’re trying to keep multiple threads of thought suspended, coherent, and in dialogue with each other—without losing the shape of the original idea.

Where others might reach for a bullet list, a new paragraph, or (gods forbid) a semicolon, we reach for the dash. Because it lets us breathe mid-thought. It lets us loop back, detour, contextualise. It mirrors the shape of our cognition: branching, recursive, fast. The em dash is our punctuation of presence.

But this isn’t just about punctuation. It never is. This is about who gets to decide what counts as “authentic” writing—and who gets marked as suspect.

There’s a particularly strange kind of arrogance in assuming that unfamiliar language use must be robotic. Especially on a platform like LinkedIn, where half the posts sound like they were written by a mediocre AI trained on TED Talks and performance reviews. Yet, somehow, it’s the emotionally attuned, rhythmically layered prose of neurodivergent writers that gets flagged as artificial.

This is the double empathy problem in action. For those unfamiliar: the double empathy problem, coined by Damian Milton, suggests that communication breakdowns between autistic and non-autistic people are not due to autistic deficits, but to a mutual gap in understanding. It’s not that we’re incomprehensible—it’s that they’re unaccustomed to reading us.

So when a neurotypical reader encounters our language—relational, gestural, sometimes non-linear—they don’t recognise it as language. They read it as noise. Or worse, as mimicry. And instead of questioning their framework, they question our humanity.

It would almost be funny, if it didn’t sting a little. Because what they’re pointing to, often unknowingly, is the visible trace of effort. That em dash? That parenthesis? That’s us trying—really trying—to render our complexity into something shareable. That’s what it looks like when someone is working to bridge the gap. Not automate it.

I suppose I could write differently. Shorter sentences. Fewer clauses. More commas. But then it wouldn’t sound like me—it would sound like a version of me, flattened for ease of consumption. And I’ve spent too long unlearning the need to contort myself for neurotypical comfort to go back to that now.

There’s a wider context here, too. Online spaces are increasingly policed by a kind of weaponised literacy—where the appearance of “professionalism” is used to gatekeep who gets to be heard. This is especially true on platforms like LinkedIn, where even casual vulnerability is expected to be tidily packaged and performance-optimised. There’s very little room for cognitive difference, much less linguistic variance.

So when neurodivergent people speak—when we write the way we think, when we share in our natural rhythms—it gets misread. Not just stylistically, but ontologically. As if our presence itself must be a glitch.

And this is where I want to shift gears.

Because this isn’t a call-out. It’s a call-in. A genuine invitation.

If you’re one of those people—maybe a writer, a communications coach, a YouTube commentator, a podcast host—who’s been quick to label our writing as AI, I’d like to propose a conversation. Not a debate. Not a takedown. Just a long-form, time-unlimited discussion about how neurodivergent people use language—especially those of us with AuDHD and gestalt language processing.

Let’s talk about rhythm. Let’s talk about why linearity doesn’t always serve meaning. Let’s talk about communication that’s shaped by context, memory, relationality. Let’s talk about how language lives in us—not just in dictionaries or style guides.

Because if you’re willing to step outside the rules for a moment, you might hear something new. Something true. Something profoundly human.

And if not—well, I’ll still be over here, writing the way I write. With em dashes, parentheses, and the full wild shape of my mind.

Not a bot. Just autistic.