tbh a neurotypical is just someone who hasn’t failed the game often enough or severely enough to be pathologized for it. yet.
part of the problem is that “neurodivergence” is so poorly-defined—which is fine when you’re talking about particular forms of accessibility and communication, but is immediately a problem when you start treating it as a binary in which “neurodivergent” people are a coherent class with shared traits other than disenfranchisement.
some people use “neurodivergent” to exclusively mean developmental and learning disorders, like autism, adhd, dyspraxia, dyslexia, etc. in this case it makes more sense to use a binary framework… there are people with developmental disorders that affect them in particular ways and people without, and accessibility can mean broadly similar things.
but other people use “neurodivergent” to mean basically anything in the DSM—autism, yes, but also OCD, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, PTSD, even addiction—you name it! in this sense it’s useful to the extent of solidarity, mad rights, and addressing ableism and psychiatric abuse. what it is not useful for is identifying a binary of guys who are like this and guys who are like that; all we have in common is failure. and anyone can fail (or be failed), at any time, regardless of communication style or eye contact. this failure is racialized, it’s gendered, it’s class-stratified, it’s age-bound, it’s politicized.
“neurotypical” just isn’t a coherent Type Of Guy because sanity is a cultural construct that changes over time and context.
(via familyabolisher)
