Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

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This is a book by an autistic thinker, theorist, and activist who has played a key role in shaping the language and frameworks at the the core of the neurodiversity movement. While the author is expansive in her views on who gets to be "neuroqueer," she is quite judgmental when it comes to the ways people choose to speak publicly about and embody autism in the world. Lays out extremely digestible definitions of and frameworks for utilizing different terms related to neurodivergence, neurodiversity, and neuroqueer, and the problems with pathologization, as well as provides extremely important input for interacting with and honoring the individuality of autistic individuals (through clinical work, educational settings, and personal relationships). This book also goes on to explain concepts like neurocosmopolitan and Neuroqueer in ways that people can understand. Neuroqueer Heresies' is urgently needed in a world that is still dominated by the corporate co-opting of the neurodiversity paradigm, and by conversion "therapies" that have only one goal: turning the fears of parents and the trauma of neurodivergent people into profits.

Most people do not intentionally seek to harm those they love or work with, yet many of the current methods—which are accepted by society—are doing just that. If this makes you uncomfortable, it is worth persistence and engaging in self-reflection as you read further.

There also seems to be a hierarchy of autistic people - those who should be trusted and those that are “tame autistics” benefitting from a life of internalized oppression. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the foundations, terminology, implications, and leading edges of the emerging neurodiversity paradigm. One point of seeing neuroqueer as verb is that any and all people can learn to 'unzip their normal suits' and embody neuroqueer body movements and thought processes by getting in touch with their sensory impulses. As this was actually a collection of essays I felt it sometimes lacked flow and occasionally felt like it needed a tad more embellishment. Many of the technical or academic sections, defining terms or laying the groundwork for understanding concepts, were written for an intellectual, and to risk being blunt, intelligent audience.

I have been looking for a book to recommend to families who are exploring their children’s diagnoses and also questioning if they, themselves, may also be autistic. She's also a professor of psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies, an aikido teacher, and a lifelong zen practitioner. Early in the text, for example, Walker states the “pathology paradigm consistently results in autistic people being stigmatized, dehumanized, abused, harmed, and traumatized by professionals and often their own families.However, Walker's prescriptivist lens has, to give one example, the unfortunate consequence of obscuring the neurodiversity within autistic populations. Featuring a vibrant rainbow design, and our super-sized Q logo, you won't find a more stylish way to make a statement. This was clearly a collection of writings for vastly different purposes (academia, casual blog posts), written at highly different reading levels.

The early essays were flawed and frustrating to read, and I am disappointed that they were published without being edited significantly or rewritten. Walker encourages the reader to be their true, authentic, oddball selves, regardless of what socio-cultural expectations dictate.Walker is co-founder and Managing Editor of the worker-owned indie publishing house Autonomous Press, and has co-edited and contributed to multiple volumes of the annual Spoon Knife neuroqueer lit anthology published by Autonomous Press' NeuroQueer Books imprint.