The Lexicographer and the Fae: Decoding the Myth of Autism
The outsider arrived at dawn, his boots sinking into the dew-drenched grass of the fae lands. He carried his tools in a leather satchel: a notebook, an ink-stained quill, and a curious contraption he had built himself, one that he claimed could “decode” the fae’s mysteries. The device glowed faintly, whirring like an impatient insect, eager to record every gesture and whisper.
He had heard tales of the fae from his peers: ethereal beings who spoke in riddles and moved in ways that defied logic. To the outsider, they were a puzzle—chaotic and fragmented, their world a tapestry woven with loose threads. He had come to make sense of it all, to impose order upon their nonsense.
The fae watched him from the shadows of the trees, their luminous eyes reflecting the pale light of the morning. They moved in rhythms that made the outsider uneasy: fluid, circular, unpredictable. He scribbled furiously in his notebook, his pen scratching the paper like claws against stone.
“They lack direction,” he wrote. “Their movements are erratic, as though they cannot focus on a single path.”
A fae child darted out from behind a tree, her hands twisting into shapes that seemed to carry meaning. She hummed a melody that rose and fell like a heartbeat. The outsider leaned forward, his machine clicking and whirring as it analysed her actions. On its tiny screen, words began to appear: “nonsensical gestures,” “high-pitched noise.”
The child tilted her head, curious. She reached out to touch the machine, but the outsider pulled it back sharply. “No, no,” he muttered, “you wouldn’t understand. This is for your own good.”
The fae retreated, murmuring among themselves in their language of movement and sound. The outsider could not hear the words behind the hums, could not see the meaning in their hands, but he was certain his machine could. He turned to his notes again.
“They lack awareness of social norms. Primitive communication systems. High sensitivity to environmental stimuli.”
By the end of the week, the outsider’s notebook was full, his machine humming with satisfaction. He had categorised the fae’s behaviours into neat columns, defined their gestures with exacting precision, and labelled their quirks with words like “deficit” and “aberration.” He felt proud of his work, certain it would bring enlightenment to those who lived beyond the hills.
He did not see the fae watching him as he packed his tools. He did not hear their laughter—soft and melodic—as they mimicked his stiff gait and furrowed brow. He did not know that the words he had written would be shared among them, not as truths but as tales, cautionary stories of an outsider who thought he could capture a song in a cage.
When he returned to his own land, the outsider was hailed as a genius. His “Dictionary of Fae Behaviour” was celebrated in the courts, its pages quoted by scholars and lawmakers alike. They spoke of the fae as curiosities, as problems to be solved, as subjects to be managed.
But in the fae lands, the songs continued. The stories grew. And the outsider’s words, carried on the wind, dissolved like mist in the morning sun.
Ok. That was fun. But what are you on about Jaime?
When I read the recent Star article about researchers “decoding autism” with “artificial intelligence,” I was struck by the weight of its language: the framing of autism as an enigma to solve, a mystery to decode. The article celebrated technology’s supposed ability to catalogue and interpret autistic behaviours as though it were a grand discovery. But as I digested the piece, I was reminded of another, older story—a historical footnote that suddenly felt strikingly relevant.
The story of Robert Kirk, the 17th-century minister and lexicographer, came to mind. Though Scottish by birth, Kirk was not a Gael himself and was deeply entrenched in the Anglicised culture of the colonising church, which his family served. Educated in England and steeped in the values of that world, Kirk ventured into the Gaelic-speaking Highlands to create what he called the first Gaelic dictionary. Framing his work as an act of preservation, he cast himself as a benevolent interpreter bringing clarity to what he perceived as an impenetrable and chaotic language. Yet, much like the researchers in the Star article, Kirk’s project was steeped in the colonial mindset. Gaelic speakers did not need their language “discovered” or “translated” by an outsider; it was already woven into the fabric of their lives, thriving in forms that resisted the rigid and linear definitions imposed by Kirk’s English-influenced framework.
The parallels between Kirk’s lexicon and the modern quest to “decode” autism are glaring. Both efforts stem from a position of power—outsiders observing a community they do not belong to, misunderstanding it, and flattening it into terms that fit their worldview. For Kirk, Gaelic was a curiosity, its poetic forms reduced to the cold precision of dictionary entries. One can imagine the grating dissonance of hearing an outsider read the word “Alba,” the Gaelic name for Scotland, and pronounce it clumsily as “Al-ba,” unaware of the unstressed vowel glide that gives it the correct sound, “Al-ah-buh.” This unspelled, nuanced feature—a hallmark of Gaelic’s linguistic identity—was invisible to Kirk’s rigid framework. For today’s researchers, autistic behaviours are treated similarly, labelled as “deficits” or “aberrations,” their richness and complexity erased by algorithms that fail to capture the depth of what they seek to “decode.”
Both efforts share a reductive, colonial logic: the belief that outsiders are best positioned to interpret and define the lives of those they observe. Whether it’s the language of a people or the behaviours of a neurodivergent community, these projects strip away context, autonomy, and nuance, replacing them with frameworks that serve the outsider’s agenda. The result is not understanding, but appropriation—a theft of meaning that elevates the observer at the expense of those being observed.
This realisation led me to explore the broader implications of these parallels, questioning how we approach neurodivergence, culture, and difference in ways that perpetuate colonial patterns of thought.
The Colonials are Coming …
Robert Kirk’s foray into the Gaelic-speaking Highlands occurred at a time of profound upheaval in Scotland’s history. His so-called “preservation” of Gaelic culture was not an isolated intellectual pursuit but part of a broader colonial project tied to the Enclosures, the Acts of Union, and the Union of the Crowns. These were not just political or economic actions; they were cultural offensives designed to erode the autonomy and identity of the region’s Gaelic-speaking communities. Kirk’s mission to document Gaelic language and customs mirrored the intelligence-gathering practices of colonial agents, seeking not only to conquer land but to capture the very soul of the culture. His work turned living, breathing traditions into lifeless entries in a dictionary—a symbolic bottling of an entire people’s heritage for control and posterity.
This desire to dominate and assimilate echoes in the present day through acts like the Autism CARES Act in the United States. While its name suggests compassion, the funding it provides often supports research and initiatives that serve not the autistic community but the agendas of those who wish to pathologise and control it. Like Kirk’s Gaelic lexicon, these efforts focus on documenting and dissecting the “mysteries” of autism, driven by outsiders who prioritise their frameworks over the lived experiences of autistic individuals.
States funnel Autism CARES funding into initiatives that treat “autistic behaviours” as problems to be solved, such as developing AI to “decode” autism or promoting harmful therapies that aim to “normalise” autistic people. These programs are not rooted in the needs or voices of autistic communities. They don’t ask autistic individuals what accommodations they need, how best to support their thriving, or how society might change to remove systemic barriers. Instead, these efforts are geared toward making autistic people more palatable to neurotypical society—a modern parallel to how Kirk’s work sought to flatten Gaelic culture into something legible to an Anglicised audience.
Just as Kirk’s work foreshadowed the vanquishing and assimilation of Gaelic culture, the Autism CARES Act perpetuates the marginalisation of autistic people under the guise of care. The parallel is stark: a relentless need to document, study, and define the “other,” not to understand or uplift but to control, assimilate, and dominate. Both examples illustrate the failure to listen to the communities at the heart of these stories and the urgent need to centre their voices, needs, and autonomy.
Final thoughts …
Centuries later, the fae lands are no longer magical. The once-lush hills, alive with melodies and luminous rhythms, have become barren, uninspiring, and dark. The trees no longer hum; the air no longer dances with the unseen. The outsider’s books sit in libraries, gathering dust, their pages filled with observations that fail to capture the soul of what once was. The fae are gone, their presence wiped from the landscape as thoroughly as their stories were erased from the outsider’s narrative.
Where did they go? Some say they retreated underground, into the lower elements of the earth, leaving the surface world to its conquest and sterility. Whispers remain—of those who still hear faint songs when the wind brushes the rocks, or glimpse a fleeting shimmer in the shadows. Others believe the fae simply dissolved, their essence dissipating in a world no longer willing to hold it.
The barren land raises a haunting question: who would want to live here now? A world without the fae, without their spontaneity and vibrancy, is bleak and unremarkable. The absence of their beauty and variety leaves behind a hollow space, devoid of the magic that made it a place worth being.
Likewise, what will become of autism when the Taylorists and eugenicists have their way? Their dream of a “standard human” is a nightmare of conformity—a vision of humanity stripped of its eccentricities, its creativity, its kaleidoscopic diversity. If the richness of neurodivergent experiences is erased, who will bring the unexpected insights, the joy of unconventional thinking, the beauty of minds that see the world differently?
A society devoid of difference is no society at all—it is a machine, cold and lifeless. The relentless pursuit of “normality” risks creating a world as barren and uninspiring as the fae lands after their erasure.
The story ends with a glimmer of ambiguity. Perhaps the fae, like the autistic community, have not disappeared entirely. Perhaps they have simply gone where they can live free from intrusion and control, building their own worlds in the unseen spaces. The question remains: will we, like the outsider, be content with the hollow world left behind—or will we realise, before it’s too late, the price of our conquest?