Intersectional neurodiversity
This is the fourth of six posts where students voice ideas about neurodiversity, 拟合的, and what it means to be included.
What’s your experience with intersectionality?
Contributors reflect on how neurodivergence is intertwined with gender, 性取向, 心理健康, 比赛, 和更多的. They caution about making assumptions about LD when human experience is complex.
“I have had a different experience as a white woman with 注意力缺陷多动症 than a black man with 注意力缺陷多动症 has had. Not only through the differences of our racial backgrounds and how society treats us because of our 比赛s, but also because of our genders. 我的多动症很严重, far less likely to be used as a weapon against me the way it could potentially be used against a black man with 注意力缺陷多动症. The consequences of my 注意力缺陷多动症 are different than his, and that is important to be aware of when having conversations about 注意力缺陷多动症 in a room of people with mixed identities.”
“I am leaning towards identifying as nonbinary, but there has always been a very loud voice in my head that found every single reason why I couldn’t possibly be nonbinary. 很长一段时间, I have been afraid of telling people simply because I worried that my ASD diagnosis invalidated my gender identity. It was an argument I had read often online, and it had a tight hold on my feelings. It all boiled down to the idea that autistic people perceive the world … very differently than neurotypical people, 因此, autistic people’s views about gender were skewed. It is an idea that I have internalized and am only just starting to address and chip away at.”
“I’m realizing that I haven’t thought much about my own intersectionality. As a person with 注意力缺陷多动症 and social anxiety, not only do I not learn like a stereotypical student, but my intense fear of being evaluated brings extra hurdles to many aspects of my educational experience. School isn’t hard because of one diagnosis or the other – it’s both. But that’s not how we’re taught to approach these things. 而不是, I work through my states of being separately: I get academic accommodations for my learning difference and therapy for my social anxiety. In this separation, something is lost.
… I’ve found myself needing something in between a writing center appointment and therapy, and not knowing where to find it.”
“这{视频 Trans 101: 神经的多样性} really resonated with me because as a Jewish, cis-woman-identifying dyscalculic who has slow-processing, executive function issues, 心理健康问题, 可能还有多动症. A lot of people’s preconceived ideas about any of the aforementioned aspects make them think they know what I’m going through (when they don’t), or don’t bother to consider any accommodations or clarity I may need at all.