AutCasts Recommends: Neurodivergent Reads!
A round-up of my favourite neurodivergent advocacy books to wrap up NeuroPride month!
Today is the penultimate day of NeuroPride month and to mark the occasion I decided to take a little break from the usual deep-dive into movies to review some of my favourite neurodivergent reads!
Welcome to AutCasts, a free bi-weeekly newsletter by writer, Aisling Walsh, exploring neurodivergence through cinema’s oddballs, misfits & rebels!
After my Autism diagnosis in December 2021, I did what I always do when confronted with an unexpected life situation and the onset of a new obsession: I sought out books that would help me understand this new identity. After a few initial searches, however, it became clear it would take a certain degree of ‘neurodiversity literacy’ to wade through the vast swathes of misinformation, disinformation, lies, quackery and conspiracy theories to find accurate and helpful information about Autism. I turned to the few reliable Autistic and neurodivergent organisations I was aware of to look for recommendations and eventually found my way to guides, memoirs, novels and advocacy books written by #ActuallyAutistic and neurodivergent people. It’s been 18 months and I haven’t made it through half the books out there and with more published every month it’s unlikely I’ll get through them anytime soon!
I did, however, want to share with readers some of the books I’ve found most useful, insightful and moving on this journey. All of these books present a direct challenge to the negative and damaging rhetoric which have dominated the discourse on Autism and neurodivergence for far too long. They offer hope for policy and paradigm shifts, the possibilities for living authentic, joyful and unmasked neurodivergent lives and that future generations of Autistic and neurodivergent people will grow up in a world more accepting of all kinds of diverse identities and experiences. And, like everything I’ve ever read by #ActuallyAutistic people, these books have deepened my understanding Autism and given context to many of my own life experiences. More than anything else, however, they have given me hope that it’s possible to build world where NeuroPride is a given rather than an activist statement.
Without further ado and in no particular order, I give you:
We’re Not Broken
We’re Not Broken by journalist and advocate, Eric Garcia, was published right around the time of my diagnosis and the first book by an #ActuallyAutistic advocate I was really aware of. Garcia’s guest appearance on the You Are Good podcast discussing Rain Man, gave me the final push I needed to take the idea of getting a diagnosis seriously, and We’re not Broken was top of my reading list!
We’re not Broken is a book of journeys. Firstly, Garcia takes us through the history and evolution of Autism diagnosis, policy and disability rights in the US. The reader is then taken on a thematic journey through the contemporary issues facing Autistic people from education and access to supports, to employment, gender, sex and relationships. Finally, there is the literal journey across the US as Garcia interviews Autistic people about their lived experiences, joys and challenges. Garcia is equally open about his own struggles and successes, as well as sharing his passion for politics and music. By talking with openly Autistic politicians, advocates, creatives and ordinary people, Garcia brings to life the diversity of experience in the Autistic community, as well providing much needed insight into the everyday struggles Autistic people can have in accessing educational supports, housing, employment and social welfare.
We’re Not Broken, demonstrates Garcia’s journalistic flair for storytelling, his passion for Autism advocacy and makes a compelling argument for a shift in policy and advocacy aimed at ‘curing’ Autism to supporting Autistic people in living fulfilling lives, whatever that might look like for us. Though US focused, the insights Garcia provides are relevant to many other contexts, particularly as the disability research and policy agendas in the US are influential across many other countries.
You can find We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation at Bookshop.org 1
Neuroqueer Heresies
Neuroqueer Heresies by Dr. Nick Walker is the definitive guide to the history and origins of the neurodiversity movement. Through a mixture of previously published and new writing, Walker charts the move away from the deficit and pathologising model, where the language of disease and disorder is deployed when discussing neurodivergence, towards the neurodiversity paradigm. Neuroqueer Heresies charts the origins and evolutions of the neurodiversity movement, provides a complete explanation of key terms, clears up common misunderstandings in the language of neurodiversity, explains how neurodivergent experiences fit into a neurodiversity paradigm, how the movement aligns with the disability rights movement and unpacks the concept of Neuroqueering. All that in one book, phew!
Neuroqueer is both a verb — the practice of neuroqueering — and an adjective — I am a neuroqueer — that represents those of us who actively and intentionally subvert, defy and disrupt the expectations and impositions of neuronormativity and heteronormativity in our lives, work, relationships, activism and creative endeavours.
Neuroqueer Heresies is essential reading for anyone who finds themselves straddling the spectrums of queerness and neurodivergence. It is at once a manifesto for an alternative paradigm which celebrates diversity of all kinds and an invitation to begin living your best Neuroqueer life.
You can find Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities on bookshop.org
Unmasking Autism
Both before and after diagnosis, masking was one of the hardest concepts for me to get my head around. Was I doing it? If so how, and under what circumstances? Like many other Autistic people I was desperate to understand who I could be underneath all the masks I had constructed to survive in this world. Unmasking Autism by
provides a comprehensive explanation of the concept of masking, the ways it can manifest in our lives and how we might begin to peel back the layers masks we have built up over years of social rejection, isolation and confusion.
In Unmasking Autism, Price weaves insights from his own journey towards realising he was Autistic and the process of unmasking, with those of other Autistic people who have also decided to unmask. Sprinkled with practical exercises for getting to know ourselves, our needs, our desires and our values, Unmasking Autism works as a guidebook for Autistic people grappling with our layers of masks. It also offers new ways of thinking about Autism, how we might create the kind of Autistic life we wish to lead and how we might reimagine a neurodiverse world based on the social model of disability. The latter includes recommendations for legal and public policy changes, including the creation of a more sensory friendly world, expanding social norms beyond neurotypical expectations, broadening neurodiversity education, universal health care and basic income and an end to institutionalisation including prison abolition, all of which would benefit society as a whole, not just Autistic people.
Unmasking Autism is a manifesto for a world unmasked where everyone, not just Autistic or neurodivergent people, would be able to live more authentic and fulfilling lives.
You can find Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity on bookshop.org
Sincerely Your Autistic Child
Sincerely Your Autistic Child is a collection of letters from #ActuallyAutistic adults to their parents, where they share, sometimes for the first time, all they wish their parents had known about what it means to group up Autistic. Produced by the Autistic Women and Non Binary Network and edited by Emily Paige Ballou, Sharon Davanport, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, the Letters are organised thematically around early memories and education, acceptance and intersectionality, where empathy, love and the desire to live an authentic, unmasked life are recurring threads. The letters are often sad but also joyful, offering unique insights into the emotional, sensory and embodied experiences of the contributors.
Whether diagnosed or undiagnosed as children, the contributors share, the sometimes terribly simple, measures that would have helped them feel more accepted and loved as children and their hope for change for future generations. The contributors’ experiences are incredibly relatable and I was often moved to tears as I remembered similar experiences or feelings isolation and incomprehension from childhood. This is a wonderful contribution to the #ActuallyAutistic cannon from the Autistic Women and Non Binary Network, a key voice in Autistic advocacy by and for #ActuallyAutistic people.
You can find Sincerely, Your Autistic Child: What People on the Autism Spectrum Wish Their Parents Knew about Growing Up, Acceptance, and Identity, on Bookshop.org.
I Will Die On This Hill
In I Will Die On This Hill Jules Edwards and Meghan Ashburn have done what few have dared: attempted to bridge a seemingly unbridgeable gap between Autistic adults and non-Autistic parents of Autistic children. Edwards is an Ojibwe and Autistic mother of autistic children, advocate and activist and Ashburn is a mother of Autistic children. Alongside guest contributions from Autistic advocates and a forward by Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, Edwards and Ashburn engage in a dialogue which explores their origins in mutual incomprehension, how they began to understand that their struggles had more in common than they might ever have guessed, and discuss how these two communities might work together for the best interests of Autistic children. Written with honesty and compassion, favouring accessible, over technical, language I Will Die On This Hill allows readers to navigate advocacy perspectives from both sides of the divide, as well as challenge the swathes of misinformation about Autism, disability justice and the neurodiversity paradigm. They provide compelling insights that those of us on either hill can learn from.
As a committed decolonial scholar, I particularly appreciated Edward’s “gentle reminders” throughout that disability justice must go hand in hand with decolonial and anti-capitalist struggle. She explains clearly how ableism is central to a white supremacist, capitalist and neocolonial system where only “productive bodies” are valued and deemed worthy of a dignified life. The Ojibwe worldview of relationality and connectedness across difference is invaluable for envisioning a world in which disability is considered a natural part of the life cycle rather than something which must be eradicated or cured. I Will Die On This Hill offers lessons in advocacy, in allyship and the hard, often uncomfortable, work of building coalitions. It is an essential contribution to Autistic writing and advocacy that is firmly situated in the neurodiversity paradigm, where the wellbeing of Autistic children is paramount.
You can find I Will Die on This Hill: Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and the Children Who Deserve a Better World on Bookshop.org
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Thanks for stopping by this week, happy NeuroPride and happy reading! Join me Little Foot, Sarah, Dicky, Spike and Petrie on our journey to A Land Before Time!
This post is in no way affiliated with Bookshop.org but it seemed preferable to linking to an Am*zon page. If you have the means to support the work of any or all of these authors why not buy a copy from your local bookshop? Alternatively you can request it from your local library so that others can enjoy it too! Bonus: the more our libraries fill with books by #ActuallyAutistic authors the better!
I'm currently reading comedian Fern Brady's book 'Strong Female Character' about her late autism diagnosis.
Thanks so much for this great list of books! I loved Unmasking Autism and look forward to reading the others. I really appreciate your recommendations.