Neurodiversity

For today’s Friday Faithfuls challenge we’re encouraged to write about what “normal” means to us. I am reminded of the opening phrase to one of the Project 2025 training videos. Mind you, I didn’t see the actual video, but listened to an episode of the podcast, The Ace Couple, walking the listener through it. The goal of the video was to educate Project 2025 supporters about the language leftists (and presumably anyone else not in agreement with their garbage) use and what we (yeah, I’m one of those pesky leftists!) supposedly mean.

The opening phrase was: “I’m just a normal American woman.” The speaker then went on to describe what she supposedly would be called by the Left. The exact wording, I can’t remember but it included “cisgendered” (her words, never mind that it’s “cisgender” without the “-ed” ending), “ethnoimperialist” (a term I’ve never heard of but then again I’m white and assume this is just a parody phrase to say she is too), probably “heterosexual” and “pronouns she/her”.

Now what’s “normal” about all this? Statistically speaking, being straight and cis (which means, for those not aware, that your gender assigned at birth aligns with your gender identity, so the opposite of trans) are indeed “normal”, in that the vast majority of the population falls within this category. White, globally speaking, definitely is not: the majority of the world’s population are BIPOC (Black/Brown, indigenous, or people of color).

I was also reminded of an open discussion I had several months ago with a temp worker who happens to be gay. We were discussing sexual and gender diversity and relating it to neurodiversity. The neurodiversity movement says that autism and other neuropsychiatric conditions are merely a variation of the norm, not a deviation from it. The difference is that variants are statistically less common but not less valuable, whereas deviants carry a connotation of “less than”. Autistic/neurodivergent people are different, not less in a similar way that people under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are different, not less.

Now I would like to say that no-one is “less” as a person. However, some human conditions, traits and behaviors are both abnormal and undesirable.

I do understand that what are considered “deviations” from the norm rather than mere variations, changes over time. Autism, commonly, is still seen as a disorder in need of a cure and there’s hardly any protection against discrimination based on it. Homosexuality, thankfully, not anymore. At least, not in the Netherlands. This doesn’t mean gays don’t face discrimination, but in that case, society sees that it’s the person being homophobic who’s in the wrong, not the gay person.

I am a strong supporter of both neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ rights, and a member of both communities, for clarity’s sake. Though I am white, I try to learn about race issues. I may not statistically speaking be “just a normal woman” and thank goodness in this era I’m not American. However, I am a human being and this means I deserve human rights.