PREFATORY NOTE FROM A SHAMELESSLY UNREPENTANT DIVERGENIK
For some disabled individuals, the 'New Orthodoxy' surrounding neurodivergence is difficult to bear. The 'neurological bargain' (by way of a rather loose analogy with Deniz Kandiyoti's 'patriarchal bargain') is: 'you may indeed be neurodivergent, but only neurodivergent as I command it.'
Thus, as a neurodivergent individual, I am free to identify as neurodivergent, provide I agree to be assimilated in the cozy, warm, cuddly world of Neurodiversity. The Golden Kingdom of Neurodiversity is optimistic, sunny, and most of all, flamboyantly sexy.
However:
I, for one, am not Neurodiversity.
I am Neurodivergence.
That is pain, it is fear, and it is most of all:
Ambivalence.
An idiot must never be too savant...
MANIFESTO WITHOUT A SIGNATURE
I hereby declare the revocation of the oath I never swore...
The oath to eternal fidelity to your 'Disabled Community.'
Rather as 'Our Common Humanity' is not so common, (no more so than 'common sense!') I declare that 'Your Common Disabled-Man-ity' is also not so common.
Not common to me; for this is what counts, in the last instance!
And the first.
And everything in between.
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