Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: There is an established association between neurodivergence and gender variance, with growing documentation of the challenges and inequities faced by those who exist at this intersection. This paper contributes a critical analysis of interviews with 24 autistic adults in the U.S. about their gender experience; yielding three themes: “gender divergence?”, “gender socialization on crip time”, and “either/or: whose intolerance for ambiguity?”. Results suggest that gender variance—if it is best understood as such—among those on the spectrum emerges through a complex set of relationships between participants’ bodyminds (e.g., sensory and cognitive styles); dominant cultural concepts of gender; and ableist and heterocissexist social relations. Neuronormative ways of knowing gender, institutionalized through biomedical research, healthcare, and social policy, emerge as a normalizing discourse contributing to the oppression and marginalization of participants as neurodivergent people. Justice implications of accounting for the epistemology of the neurodivergent bodymind and decentering neuronormative ways of knowing are discussed.
Source: Societies
DOI: 10.3390/soc16010031
Author: Jessica Penwell Barnett
Institution: Wright State University
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,689
OpenAlex ID: W7124450194