The tin can conundrum: the problem with “labels”
David Gray-Hammond is an autistic mental health and addiction advocate living in the South East of England.
I live in a world that doesn’t fit me well by design. I refuse to accept that world, and I hope to leave a better one than the one I was born into.
Let’s consider neurotypicality. You don’t get “diagnosed” as neurotypical. This is because people with neurotypical bodyminds are able to perform their cultures neuronormative standards. They are able to assimilate into society, and therefore are generally good and obedient profit machines that don’t upset the status quo.
Neurodivergent people, however, are somewhat of a wrench in the gears. We can not perform neuronormative standards, not comfortably anyway. We require the masters house to be dismantled and rebuilt. Here’s where the conundrum comes into play.
As Dr. Nick Walker explains in her book Neuroqueer Heresies, the master will never give you the tools to dismantle their house. In this case the masters tools look like a society that disables neurodivergent people, and uses that disability to pathologise neurodivergence by locking all of the support that might improve our lives behind a medical diagnosis. That medical diagnosis, in turn, is then used as a marketing tool where by people have to pay for diagnosis (in many countries), pay for support, and in fact the “autism label” is used to wack a premium on anything that might make our lives more comfortable.
Read in its entirety: https://emergentdivergence.com/2022/08/20/the-tin-can-conundrum-the-problem-with-labels/
