I am autistic.

There's a story there - much larger than I will attempt to fit into this space - but for now, it's sufficient to say that my brain does not work like most brains.

For all the challenges it brings, I insist on thinking of my own autistic nature as a good thing.

Moreover, I want the language I use to describe my appreciation of my own brain to clearly express certain principles and values of mine.

Why Terminology Matters

Like a lot of us with brains that are not compliant with normative expectations, I've had to struggle not to feel like I am a problem. Society certainly treats us like problems - or at least inconveniences - at almost every turn. Having a different-brain is a liability.

Historically, there has been a massive push - via the ideologies of eugenics - that insists we need to be "cured" or "fixed" or "rehabilitated" or just plain exterminated. It is not a coincidence that this has largely come from the anti-cultures of white societies.

Of course, there is resistance to this as well. There have been various terms created over the years, especially in recent decades, to try and capture the myriad forms of "ways brains work" in humans. There's been a growing cultural push to regard these experiences as natural, good, and worthwhile things.

Rejected Attempts

As often happens with counter-cultural changes, many new words and phrases have popped up as part of the effort to de-stigmatize brain variations. I've explored as many of these existing suggestions as I can discover, and ultimately found each of them unsatisfying in one way or another.

I do not like the term "neuro-divergent" because to me it carries a connotation of "there's a default, and then everyone who veers away from the default." Even the most careful formulations of this language do not really address the fact that "divergence" in and of itself is a concept of division. I reject the idea that certain people should be separated from anyone else, purely on the basis of our neuro-anatomy. I wish to prize our differences.

On the surface, the linguistics of "neuro-diversity" feel more useful to me. Unfortunately, one of the main proponents of the term is committed to perpetuating anti-trans bigotry, and like many other queer people, I've chosen to set aside her terminology as an act of protest against her choice. We will not gain liberation for people with different-brains by resorting to lateral violence and finding different sets of people to oppress. (It's also very much worth noting that there is a well-known and well-documented - and profoundly strong - overlap between the trans and gender-expansive population, and the autistic population.)

Other, less-popular terms have run afoul of similar concerns; people mired in uncritically repeating certain facets of kyriarchy - racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and on and on - are not people I want to emulate. One by one, I've rejected many other suggestions for language about all this. I refuse to understand myself through the lens of justifying my existence because I can be exploited effectively by sufficiently-clever capitalists. I refuse to position myself as superior-to or opposed-to the existence of "normative" people and their brains. I refuse to create yet another ranking hierarchy just so I can feel like I'm at the top of it, instead of the status quo of being near the bottom.

Neuro-Beautiful

So ultimately, I've arrived at referring to myself as "neuro-beautiful."

I love my brain. She's a good brain - if you're willing to learn how to appreciate her uniqueness. Not everyone will like her, certainly not at first; and some people will never try.

But beauty doesn't vanish just because someone won't perceive it. As long as anyone can recognize beauty, it exists - and it cannot be taken away.

I believe that all brains are beautiful, in one way or another. I reject the notion that any one form of thinking, understanding, or experiencing life is inherently preferable or superior to any other.

The task of embracing neuro-beauty is not one of reshaping or reconfiguring anyone to conform to any particular expectations or standards or demands. It is nothing more or less than working to adjust our own perspectives, so that we can find the abundant beauty in our own brains, and everyone's around us.