Why I don't identify as #ActuallyAutistic

I have an official diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome

3 generations

But I don’t identify as #ActuallyAutistic 

I have described myself as being “in the middle of three generations of women somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum”


This is as much as I will commit to, as I don't want to be pigeonholed into any particular views


I find that #ActuallyAutistic lacks both the specificity and the authority that the word "Actually" implies


I'll leave it at that for now, but hope to learn more when I get to the UK


I am aware that the word "Actually" may have different connotations for Britons than it does for Australians.


But here is how I described myself in my thesis, "Odd People In" in which I used the word Neurodiversity for the first time. 


There is one sentence in particular that I have redacted and wish I hadn't written.  I intended to be ironic, but its raw bitterness does show that I never thought autism was the benign difference some want to make it out to be.

Situating myself (p22, Odd People In)

My answer is complex:

·      A locus of the historical forces of ethnicity, class, disability, and gender of course.

·      A partial self, always in the act of inventing itself.

·      A moving point on a sliding scale between free will and neurological determinism, between essentialism and social constructionism.

·      The daughter of a woman with Asperger’s syndrome.

·      The mother of a daughter with Asperger’s syndrome.

·      “Somewhere on the spectrum” myself, somewhere between low-functioning normate under-achiever, and high-functioning autistic survivor-against-impossible-odds.  And a bemused observer fascinated with this latest classificatory schema imposed on an infinitely complex reality.

·      Deeply ambivalent as I live out the contradiction between feeling the victim of my mother’s deficit, and yet wanting to be the protector of my daughter’s right to difference. A contradiction that doesn’t automatically lead to an altruistic politics. 

·      Deeply ambivalent as I live out the contradiction between feeling the victim of my mother’s deficit, and yet wanting to be the protector of my daughter’s right to difference*. A contradiction that doesn’t automatically lead to an altruistic politics. XXX XX XXXXX XXXXXXX XX XXX XXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XX XX X XXX XXXXX.

·      Somewhere between a divine spark embedded in universe full of meaning and purpose, and a biological machine, engineered by the purposeless but necessary operations of physical laws.

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*   The autobiographical chapter following should make this point more understandable

Video greetings to Montreal Neurodiversité book launch

My greetings from Sydney to the Montreal Neurodiversité Collectif's launch of their book Neurodiversity: 20th Anniversary of the birth of the concept

My first attempt at making a video!

The book is collection of essays by the speakers at their 2018 conference celebrating that anniversary. It features an introduction by Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes, and chapters by Joel Monzée, Josef Schovanec, Melanie Ouimet and myself.

My chapter in the book is titled Reflections on the NeuroDiversity Movement 20 years on

You can order either French or English versions of the book at https://etsy.com/ca-fr/listing/701221413/neurodiversity-20th-anniversary-of-the?ref=shop_home_active_4&frs=1