We fought for the right to learn differently, and lost. The journey was instructive.

We found ourselves along the way. We found community among other neurodivergent and disabled people. We found vocabulary, vocabulary like “neurodiversity”, “neurodivergent”, “neurotypical”, and, more recently, “neuroqueer”.

…intentionally liberating oneself from the culturally ingrained and enforced performance of neuronormativity can be thought of as neuroqueering.

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

Unlike neurodiversity and neurodivergent, neuroqueer has a verb form. Neuroqueering is what makes you neuroqueer, and anyone can neuroqueer. Neurodivergent or neurotypical. Gay or straight. Anyone can neuroqueer and be neuroqueer.

A neuroqueer individual is any individual whose identity, selfhood, gender performance, and/or neurocognitive style have in some way been shaped by their engagement in practices of neuroqueering, regardless of what gender, sexual orientation, or style of neurocognitive functioning they may have been born with.

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

In retrospect, our fight for the right to learn differently was one of neuroqueering education, learning, learning spaces, healthcare, and all the systems aligned against our non-normative ways of being.

When our education systems failed to include us, when “all means all” refused to account for us, we made our own education, one authentic to our neuroqueer selves.

We exist as friction. We neuroqueer to survive. We neuroqueer by necessity in a world designed against us.

We refuse to perform neuronormativity.

Just be punk rock about it. That’s what I say.

Patty Schemel

At Stimpunks, we have two rules of punk:

• Be Yourself
• Reframe

When we reframe, we perceive others such that they too can be themselves.

Be yourself. Reframe. Neuroqueer.

Neuroqueer is essential vocabulary for our times. It is a vital tool in the toolkit of humanity.

We are responsible for neuroqueering the systems we inhabit. Load-share the burden of friction.

One cannot convincingly challenge a paradigm of compulsory neuronormativity while remaining complicit in the institutionalized enforcement of that same neuronormativity. In the immortal words of Audre Lorde, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

Walker, Nick. Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities (p. 151). Autonomous Press.

To that end, we present the Neuroqueer Learning Spaces project:

• Neuroqueering Learning Spaces: An Exploration
• Neuroqueering Education at Home
• The Path to Equity Begins with Neuroqueer-Sensitive Learning Spaces
• Cavendish Space: Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes for Dandelions, Tulips, and Orchids
• Creating Cavendish Space on a Budget
• #NeuroqueerLearningSpaces