Don't even look at Wikipedia on #Neurodiversity. It is a clueless hodge-podge of misinformation based on its faceless "editors" not having done a skerrick of research on what "Australian sociologist Judy Singer" actually said.
And as for what these amateurs did to the "Judy Singer" and "Neurodiversity" page - it's beyond belief! Every single time I've had the courage to look over the past few decades, it has been utter garbage. But what can I do? Wikipedia's amateurs answer to nobody. I hope nobody here has ever relied on such a dis. My official brief biography is on this blog. (NB, I have tried to fix the Wiki entries from time to time, so who knows? You can find the edit history there.)
The Wikipedia entries have constantly been hijacked by goodness knows who, but they appear to rely on evidence going back to the age of the dinosaurs, including from:
- the Anti-Neurodiversity Gang of Four, Clements. Mitchell et al, a bunch of 4 malcontents who claimed to be the "Autistic Dark Web" - all 4 of them (!). These lads pretended to represent a groundswell of opinion. But anyway they disappeared off the face of the earth years ago
- Martijn Dekker, a non-academic who is clearly clueless about processes in the discipline of social sciences , and how academic theses and dissertaions are verified and certified. He has thus cooked up a load of resentful and uninformed allegations which I have refuted here
- But more seriously, if it turns out that these libellous calumnies were inserted into Wikipedia by my academic rivals or their agents: the recently formed actual collective of UK and USA academics, Chapman, Walker, and their less well known associates, Kapp, Botha, Stannard, Giwa Onainu.
These rivals rely heavily on Dekker's clumsy confabulations, which any actual academic or lawyer would laugh at. (I base this observation on experience, as I have shown it unofficially to a few such acquaintances). Dekker is lucky that I have a life, and at 74, am not really about to spend my last years in litigation. Even if I could afford it, since even the meagre income I received from the occasional presentation has dried up, as potential employers have been scared off.
Thus this libellous crew have destroyed even my livelihood. I can only hope Dekker gets his Karma instead.
- I believe, and have had it confirmed by people in the field (who are afraid to speak out), that this is a "Revenge of the Trans" scenario, thus I am especially disappointed that Monique Botha, Morenike Giwa Oneinu, and others whose gender I am not clear on, have been gulled into attacking another
woman. This is exactly what I warned against. It is so sad when women go against the interests of "sisters" at the behest of a couple of female impersonators... or is one of them a male impersonator? It's hard to tell. What was wrong with the honest label of #Tranvestite?
- Just a reminder that I am not transphobic, I have no reason to be. Why would I champion diversity, if I was? For a start, we live in different subcultures and our paths rarely cross. However, I have been forced to become Walkerphobic and Chapmanphobic, envious fellows who used the climate of the times to attempt to clamber over me on the greasy pole of academic supremacy. (Note that I am not now, nor have I ever been an academic.). Unfortunately for these guys, the times have changed. It gives me no plasure that Trump got elected and Trans over-reach is considered partly responsible for this dreadful result.
- Actually I hope they all get their karma, come to think of it. I'm no angel. But unfortunately I'm not into mysticism or "karma". Unless it comes in the form of the advent of a pro-bono solicitor and a winning defamation suit.
Wikipedias's Weasel Words
Some faceless editor on Wikipedia has claimed that I only "popularised" the term.
Not true.
I did not "popularise" the word "Neurodiversity"
I coined it in an an academic thesis
which was completed and submitted to
the University of Technology Sydney
in September 1998.
The work was submitted at the same time to the the then Open University Press, UK in "Disability Discourse" and academice series.
This publisher has now been taken over by by McGraw Hill.
Verification of the publication date
See McGraw Hill:
It is probable that it was through this that my work became somewhat known tp the general public. Note that I do not earn royalties from this book.
My work was actually popularised by American author Steve Silberman in 2001 in Wired Magazine's 20th Anniversary issue devoted to the biggest ideas in its 20 years of publication. It is still available online at Neurodiversity rewires conventional thinking.
Harvey Blume
Much is being made of Harvey Blume because he was the "first to publish the term".
Hardly surprising, given that he was a journalist with bylines in mainstream American media. While I was just an unknown Australian student.
Blume and I began corresponding in 1997, and I mentioned my ideas and to him by phone. But luckily for me, I have written proof. I referred to it in an email as early as 1997 prior to his using it in print, as shown in the facsimile below. As you can see, I didn't make a song and dance about it in text, because of earlier phone conversation.
The fact that Blume published first was because he was a journalist with a few days turnaround, while my academic thesis which was submitted at the same time in 1998 as a book chaptes, was was not available till the following year. This is due to the fact that it takes much longer to publish a book than a magazine article.
Not to mention USA Cultural Imperialism as we called it here in Australia. Blume had a wide audience in major USA media outlets. I was just an Australian student (albeit mature aged). Note that Chapman in his book called me a "young Australian student" - just another sign of poor research. I was well into middle-age at the time. I am now well into my seventies. And frankly I did not expect to spend my retirement years dealing with defamation by a younger generation of contenders.
It is absolutely GALLING that I keep seeing Blume getting equal billing for Neurodiversity. Blume had no background or interest in the Disability Rights movement, or the Social Model of Disability, whereas it was my and my family's "lived experience" of intersectional disadvantage. Blume got the term from me, used it once, then moved on to chase other rabbits.
Harvey and I continued to correspond for several years, though we moved on from the Neurodiversity issue to our other cultural and political interests after just a few posts.
I am sorry to report that Harvey Blume passed away in November 2023 after a hard battle with cancer. He was a brilliant man and a great loss to the world.
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*Of course, wikipedia may have removed the line I am quoting by now.
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