“Queer” can be used to describe someone’s sexual orientation or stand as a political statement. Its definition has many dimensions, from gender identification to a resistance against structural rigidity to a strange sensation or state of being. “Queer” isn’t a word that many people clearly understand when used to describe yourself. Allow me to elaborate what being queer personally means to me, as “queer” means different things to different people.

Being queer is first and foremost a state of mind. It is a worldview characterized by acceptance, through which one embraces and validates all the unique, unconventional ways that individuals express themselves, particularly with respect to gender and sexual orientation. It is about acknowledging the infinite number of complex, fluid identities that exist outside the few limited, dualistic categories considered legitimate by society. Being queer means believing that everyone has the right to be themselves and express themselves without being judged or hated because that doesn’t fit in with what’s normal. Being queer means challenging everything that’s considered normal.

Being queer means ceasing to think in binaries like “male” or “female,” “gay” or “straight,” “monogamous” or “non-monogamous,” because there are more than two sides to every person and every context. It means being aware of and OK with the fact that our own identities and sexualities are always in flux, never static. Being queer means recognizing that there are alternate gender identities, such as transgender or genderqueer or androgynous folks, and respecting that these identities are just as legitimate as those that are visible.

Being Queer Means… | HuffPost Voices

Queer has to do with being different. And how everyone is different from everyone else. Some people are different because they are gay or because of their gender. You can be different in lots of ways. We are all a little different, or weird, or even strange. And that’s a good thing.

UNICORNS are QUEER HORSES!! – Queer: QUEER KID STUFF #3

A central concept in Queer Theory, perhaps best articulated by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble, is that one’s gender is constituted by one’s ongoing performance of culturally conditioned habits of embodiment and activity. One’s gender, in other words, is first and foremost something that one does—and therein lies the possibility of liberation from the confines of normativity. If gender is maintained through the habitual performance of specific actions, then heteronormativity and heteronormative gender roles can be subverted, transformed, modified, loosened, escaped from, and/or rendered more fluid, through engagement in practices that creatively deviate from and fuck with heteronormative performance. To engage in such practices is commonly referred to as queering.

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

Just as intentionally liberating oneself from the culturally ingrained and enforced performance of heteronormativity is sometimes referred to as queering, 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

If the process of liberating myself from my acquired habits of masculine gender performance and letting myself embody more fluid and feminine gender expressions could be described as a process of queering heteronormativity, then perhaps the process of liberating myself from my acquired habits of neurotypical performance and letting myself embody my neurodivergence could be described as queering neuronormativity.

The more I reflected on the process by which I was pushed into the ill-fitting confines of heteronormative gender performance and the process by which I was pushed into the ill-fitting confines of neuronormative performance, the more it became clear that the two processes weren’t merely similar or parallel: they were deeply and thoroughly entwined with one another, with no solid dividing line between them. Ultimately it wasn’t two similar and parallel processes I was looking at, but a single multifaceted process.

If the social imposition of heteronormative performance was inseparably entwined with the social imposition of neuronormative performance, then the process of liberating myself from the confines of heteronormative performance was also inseparably entwined with the process of liberating myself from neuronormative performance. The queering of heteronormativity and the queering of neuronormativity were interconnected at some fundamental level. I couldn’t truly liberate myself from heteronormativity without also liberating myself from neuronormativity, and I couldn’t truly liberate myself from neuronormativity without also liberating myself from heteronormativity.

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

It’s no secret that Queerness is a significant intersection with Autistic experience. Aside from anecdotes from within the community, studies such as Janssen et al (2016) and Strang et al (2020) indicate that not only are we more likely to be gender-diverse, but that Queer communities are more likely to contain Autistic people. Strang in particular speaks of the lack of research looking into experiences over the lifespan and the need for such longitudinal study to be carried out.

With so much Queerness in the Autistic community, one might wonder why this intersection is so significant. I think the answer is quite simple. Albeit somewhat theory heavy.

Neuronormativity.

Neuronormativity is pervasive, and if you think that it only effects neurodivergent people you are wrong. Both BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities have fallen foul of the belief that there is a standard of neurology we should all achieve. It was not so long ago that being gay or transgender was listed in the DSM as a psychiatric disorder.

Autistic people naturally stand queer neuronormative standards. In this sense, queer is a verb. It is the subversion of societal expectation. Through our rejection of neuronormativity, we create space to explore our gender and sexuality (or lack thereof) unencumbered by the chains of bigoted standards of being.

When we begin to dismantle neuronormativity, we also begin to dismantle heteronormativity. Our experience of ourselves and attraction (or lack of attraction) to others is built upon the experiences we have of our environment. Experiences that we have through the lens of being Autistic. You can not separate autism from our queerness any more than you can separate a person from their brain. They are part of us, and without them, we would be someone different.

The link between autism and Queerness – Emergent Divergence

Neuronormativity and heteronormativity, in essence, are systems of artificial restriction on human potential. By their very nature, they limit our possibilities. To neuroqueer is to refuse to be constrained by those limits. Wherever restrictive conventions of compulsory neuronormativity and heteronormativity exist, there also exists the potential to open new vistas of creative possibility by queering those conventions in some way or another. The possible forms and horizons of neuroqueer practice are effectively infinite; the amount of space outside of a closet, after all, is always infinitely greater than the amount of space inside the closet.

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

It opens at a young age
That all-protective closet
Just lock the door
And settle in among the raincoats
The longer you stay in there
The more you'll get distorted
The more contorted all your lies will have to be

Don't wait a moment longer:
Stand up and turn the doorknob
And I'll tell you my secret
If you will tell me yours

--Compulsive Liar by Ezra Furman

Main Takeaways

• Being queer means constantly questioning what’s considered “normal” and why that norm gets privileged over other ways of being.
• Being queer is a worldview characterized by acceptance, through which one embraces and validates all the unique, unconventional ways that individuals express themselves.
• Being queer is about acknowledging the infinite number of complex, fluid identities that exist outside the few limited, dualistic categories considered legitimate by society.
• Being queer means believing that everyone has the right to be themselves and express themselves without being judged or hated.
• Being queer means challenging everything that’s considered normal.
• Being queer means ceasing to think in binaries.
• Queer is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.
• Queer does not designate a class of already objectified pathologies or perversions; rather, it describes a horizon of possibility.
• Queer has to do with being different. And how everyone is different from everyone else.
• Autistic people naturally stand queer neuronormative standards.
• Queer is the subversion of societal expectation.
• When we begin to dismantle neuronormativity, we also begin to dismantle heteronormativity.
• The universe always turns out to be more complicated and queer than we think it is.
• Liberating oneself from the culturally ingrained and enforced performance of heteronormativity is referred to as queering.
• One can queer and one can be queer.
• The queering of heteronormativity and the queering of neuronormativity are interconnected.
• All queering (including neuroqueering) is inherently transgressive, since by definition it involves subverting, defying, deviating from, and/or fucking with normativity.
• Wherever restrictive conventions of compulsory neuronormativity and heteronormativity exist, there also exists the potential to open new vistas of creative possibility by queering those conventions in some way or another.
• The amount of space outside of a closet is always infinitely greater than the amount of space inside the closet.

Further reading,