Stimpunks Foundation

Mutual Aid and Human-Centered Learning for Neurodivergent and Disabled People

Illustration of a woman speaking into a microphone

Manifesto

🗺️

Home/Manifesto

▶ Table of Contents

  1. Table of Contents
  2. Pluralism
  3. Neurodiversity & Diversity
  4. Accessibility
  5. Framing
  6. Centering
  7. Interdependence
  8. Care
  9. Disability Justice
  10. Equity
  11. Inclusion
  12. Intersectionality
  13. Power
  14. Belonging

This is a manifesto that begins but will never end. This is a translation of my world into yours. This is a protest of the notion that there is any correct way to live.

Playful Manifesto

Core Declaration

We reject neuronormativity and demand the right to live and learn differently.

Illustration of a woman speaking into a microphone Text reads: Stimpunks Manifesto This is a manifesto that begins but will never end. This is a translation of my world into yours. This is a protest of the notion that there is any correct way to live. We reject neuronormativity and demand the right to learn and live differently.

Table of Contents

Pluralism

Pluralism is our reality.

Embracing pluralism is good citizenship. Democracy demands equal accommodation.

Fostering healthy pluralism, which democracy demands, means confronting intolerance.

Neurodiversity & Diversity

Neurodiversity is one of the most powerful ideas in human history.

Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason; our differences are the genius – and the conscience – of our species.

To face the challenges of the future, we’ll need the problem-solving abilities of different types of minds working together.

Diversity is strength. Difference is a teacher. Fear difference, you learn nothing.

Foreground complexity as the baseline.

Refuse reductionism in any direction.

Affirm complexity.

Neuronormative domination is a public health crisis.

Neurodiversity is for everyone. Collective liberation must be collective.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a collective process!

The accommodations for natural human variation should be mutual.

Enable dignity. Everywhere should be accessible.

The right to learn differently should be a universal human right that’s not mediated by diagnosis.

Systems built for the most complex communicators are not niche solutions—they are blueprints for broad accessibility, exposing what existing systems routinely ignore.

Build from the outset for people with intersecting sensory, motor, and communication needs.

Structural redesign is not about eliminating all accommodations, but embedding them so deeply that they become expected rather than exceptional.

Framing

Neurodiversity, the social model of disability, and intersectionality are urgently needed reframing necessary to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Reframe out of the confines of the medical model and pathology paradigm and into the respectfully connected expanse of the biopsychosocial model and the Neurodiversity paradigm.

Reframe from deficit ideology to structural ideology.

Reframe these states of being that have been labelled deficiencies or pathologies as human differences.

Reject the pathology paradigm and the neuronormative paradigm and embrace the neurodiversity paradigm and the human interdependence paradigm.

Centering

Design is tested at the edges.

Center the marginalized and the different.

Center edge cases, because edge cases are stress cases.

Center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds.

Inclusion must begin where exclusion has been the deepest.

Interdependence

Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

It is time to celebrate our interdependence!

Access intimacy is interdependence in action.

Care

Organize our lives around love and care.

Care work makes all other work possible.

We need a counterculture of care.

Disability Justice

Disability justice (and disability itself) has the potential to fundamentally transform everything we think about quality of life, purpose, work, relationships, belonging.

Elevate ableism as one of the injustices of our world.

Equity

There is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity.

Inequities are primarily power and privilege problems.

In order to achieve equity, we must prioritize the interests of those whose interests historically have not been prioritized.

Equity requires the redistribution of material, cultural, and social access and opportunity.

You cannot counter structural inequality with good will. You have to structure equality.

We are all accountable to the urgent work of building a more just, more equitable world.

Robust, healthy diversity and inclusion cannot exist without equity.

Inclusion

Giving inclusion safety is a moral imperative.

Psychological safety is the foundation of inclusion.

We have an obligation to demolish nativism and ethnocentrism.

For the most marginalized, inclusion will not come from incremental adjustments but from radical solutions and systemic overhauls.

Inclusion safety is provided by genuinely inviting others into your society based on the sole qualification that they possess flesh and blood. This transcendent connection supersedes all other differences.

Intersectionality

Those most impacted often have the clearest insight into pain points.

Designing for the intersections of people and contexts that produce high support needs is not a niche exercise. It improves access for everyone.

Design that starts at the edges moves everyone forward.

Power

Name the systems of power.

The lens of power can really help us see what’s going on.

Do not be the oppressor.

People suffer, and when they do, it’s for a reason.

Belonging

All human beings have the same innate need: We long to belong.

Authenticity is our purest freedom.

This is a protest of the notion that there is any correct way to live.

Playful Manifesto

Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

A group of disabled queer Black folks talk and laugh at a sleepover, relaxing across two large beds. Everyone is dressed in colorful t-shirts and wearing a variety of sleep scarves, bonnets, and durags. On the left, two friends sit on one bed and paint each other’s nails. On the right, four people lounge on a bed: one person braids another’s hair while the third friend wearing a C-PAP mask laughs, and the fourth person looks up from their book. In the center, a bedside lamp illuminates the room in warm light while pill bottles adorn an end table.

Mission

We exist for the direct support and mutual aid of neurodivergent and disabled people.

We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Hands overlapping with a heart painted in the middle

Creed

I center the marginalized and the different. I center edge cases, because edge cases are stress cases and design is tested at the edges. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds.

A disembodied arm with blue skin and a self-care tattoo flashes the sign of the horns

Covenant

We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

Two cosmic beings, one bearing a red hue and one bearing a blue hue, share a spark inducing kiss

Philosophy

We steer by these acquired phrases. They are compasses and stars that align us on our mission.

Rainbow woven cloth evoking our diversity and interdependence

Interdependence

It is time to celebrate our interdependence. Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

The many forms of difference. Adaptive Behavior Assessment (ABAS-3), Adult ADHD Self-report Scale (ASRS-v1.1), and Behavior Rating Inventory Executive Function (BRIEF 2) forms spread across a wooden table

Edges

Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassion are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequality, injustice, and thoughtlessness.

Illustration of a woman speaking into a microphone

Manifesto

This is a manifesto that begins but will never end. This is a translation of my world into yours. This is a protest of the notion that there is any correct way to live. We reject neuronormativity and demand the right to learn and live differently.

Ezra Furman – “Temple Of Broken Dreams”

Love and Care

Let's organize our lives around love and care
Let's write each other letters and call it prayer
Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere
At the temple of broken dreams

Ezra Furman – Temple of Broken Dreams Lyrics

Header art: “Speak Up” by Betsy Selvam is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0