The tale of two competing views
My email inbox is flooded daily with news from around the world related to autism. I subscribe to many news lists, so I volunteer for the spam. Two articles came in recently with competing views. I thought I’d share them with you, hopefully sparking some thoughtful discussion.
The first, “What Does It Mean If You Are Neurotypical?” (link), breaks down the “differences” between neurotypical and neurodivergent. I was already starting to wonder at the implied binary that underpinned the rather short article when the second article for today, “Decolonizing= abolishing bioessentialism & the neurodivergent/ neurotypical binary” (link), arrived in my box. The former is quite a short treatment of superficial and stereotypical themes around the topic. The latter dives deep, considering why we’re having the discussion in the first place.
The latter article asks some important questions:
Why do we need to label? What if labels aren’t needed or wanted? What if labels aren’t helpful?
Who decided upon these labels? What happens when labels are imposed on populations that don’t find them helpful?
What if a culture doesn’t have a concept of individual identity labels?
Another revelation for me centres on the “autistic community’s” “choice” of the infinity rainbow for it’s symbol. How do we get from infinity to binary (NT vs ND)? In other words, why do we have to reduce complexities to simplistic binaries?
I won’t go too much farther. I’d rather you go and read these, then come back and post your thoughts in the comments. I look forward to finding out what your thoughts are.