Autistic shielding is leaning into your neurological differences and behaviours. It is embracing neuro-anarchy: being who you are, doing what you do and bollocks if others don’t like it.
Shielding for me is being aggressively Autistic and Attention Hyperactive and doing my OCD rituals and behaviours with no shame.
Shielding is liberation; protecting myself by showing the most extreme parts of myself. Projecting my weird to find my weirdkin. Surrounding myself with similar others who are also unconcerned with norms, or actively subverting rules to match their own ideals and lifestyles.
Shielding is an aggressive act of protecting myself by being authentically strange.
What is Autistic shielding? – Autistic and Living the Dream
Autistic shielding is involved with projecting yourself, parts of you which would be considered weird or strange, the kind of things people would bully you for (unfortunately for us Autistic folk that is quite a lot). This could include stimming, unique fashion styles and following our special interests without shame – especially if they are very unusual!
The way I imagine Autistic shielding is like a magical bubble shield which goes over an entire person. It has a two-way membrane; it protects the person(s) within but also has the bonus of being able to let other people and interests in(see: What is Autistic Shielding).
Counterculture: Autistic shielding and neuro-anarchy – Autistic and Living the Dream
Autistic Shielding is a term I’ve been wrestling with for a few years. I believe it to be a transformational practice based in authenticity that may look different in different places. Through Autistic Shielding we are not emulating mannerisms and ways of being. We are those ways of being. I’m more Autistic in Autistic spaces. I’m more queer around queer people. What I mean by this is that I lean in to my overt self in all its Autisticness, queerness and in all the other marginalised ways of being and doing that I inhabit.
Autistic Shielding is not a automatic safety response but an ability to create Autistic family, much in the same way that queer people have had chosen families. Autistic Shielding can be seen within Autistic community building for those of use who have the privilege to create and belong to safer spaces to be overtly Autistic.
Navigating Identity: The Importance of Autistic Shielding – Autistic and Living the Dream
Autistic Shielding brings the whole self out and could be applied to neurodivergent people more generally. Leaning in to the behaviours and ways of being that make us outcasts. How can Autistic Shielding become a safer practice to be used by all Autistic people who may want to engage with it?
Navigating Identity: The Importance of Autistic Shielding – Autistic and Living the Dream
