Liberating the Degenerates & Neuroqueers

Decadence, degeneracy, and deviance (part 2 of 2).

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Exnomination and excommunication

Please note, this is part 2 of a two-part article series. If you missed the first half, I recommend reading that first. Enjoy!

As mentioned previously, the term neuronormativity, coined by Autistic scholar Dr. Nick Walker, is defined as “the performance of the local dominant culture’s current prevailing images of how a so-called ‘normal’ person with a so-called ‘normal’ mind thinks and looks and behaves. A neurodivergent person, in contrast, “diverges from the prevailing culturally constructed standards and culturally mandated performance of neuronormativity”.

As a (AuDHD) neurodivergent person, my neurology differs from the statistical norm, and is therefore considered abnormal, or deviant. Neurotypical people are those whose neurology falls within the population average, and the standard against which neurodivergent people are measured, making neuronormativity a parallel exemplar of exnomination.

As promised, I will now expand on Dr. Walker’s concepts of neuronormativity and neuroqueering, and bring in Dr. Robert Chapman’s work on neurodivergent liberation.

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Degenerates and neuroqueers

Dr. Walker defines the act of neuroqueering as “intentionally liberating oneself from the culturally ingrained and enforced performance of neuronormativity”. The word “queer” was previously used exclusively as an epithet, a homophobic slur meant to denigrate gay people. Now, “queer is a word that some activists and scholars embrace [as] a willful rejection of the hegemony of sex/gender normativity”.