The Epistemic Injustice of Autistic Existence Under the Yoke of Neuronormativity


The epistemological significance of divergent modes of acquiring and communicating knowledge is easily underestimated as the majority of the minds doing the estimating do not experience frequent and pervasive invalidation trauma when sharing their experiences, ideas, thoughts, conclusions and beliefs. The majority of the minds doing the estimating, commonly referred to as the neuromajority, share similar sensory profiles and learning styles, consequently developing similar expectations and assumptions, leading to consistent validation when sharing experiences, ideas, thoughts, conclusions and beliefs. Autistics are members of a neurocognitive minority group, disabled by the impact of epistemic injustice, co-occurring conditions and environment, as well as being commonly thought of as mentally ill, intellectually challenged and without empathy. Despite the extraordinary history of autistic people’s contributions to humanity as system builders, associative thinkers, advanced pattern perceivers and paradigm shifters, autistic people continue to experience the trauma of their authentic selves repeatedly and consistently rejected, early, often and continually thought their lifetimes. Although autism is a neurotype and not an illness or disease, the medical establishment continues to respond to the discovery of autism as a discovery of illness or disease. Humanity’s quest for human rights for all is hindered for autistics by the narrative and understanding of autistic people being controlled by monied interests. Genocidal research focus continues because you cannot cure something that is not an illness or a disease and you cannot reverse something that is not a progressive process. Consequently, autistics are still screaming into an endless void for help with co-occurring conditions and the lack of expertise about autism among the so-called experts. The medical establishment profits from the extremely slow integration of the evolving understanding of autism as a neurotype and from the willful ignorance of neuronormative expectations and assumptions while the psychological establishment profits from co-opting the language of the neurodiversity movement with empty claims of neuro-affirming care.

Neuronormativity leads the neurotypical mind to unconsciously think of oneself as the standard to which all humans should be measured and assume that their own expectations and assumptions are the same as everyone else’s expectations and assumptions. Neuronormative epistemic injustice leads the neuromajority to commonly believe that there is one limited set of social skills that all people need to acquire and strictly adhere to and that anyone appearing to or assumed to lack that specific and limited skillset is worthy of derision and rejection. In an apparent effort to “help” autistics commonly appearing or assumed to lack neuronormative social skills, members of the neuromajority have developed an autistic conversion therapy known as Applied Behavioral Analysis or ABA. This conversion therapy uses “behavior technicians” to train the autistic client to pretend to be neurotypical by forcefully applying a neuronormative standard to autistic behavior. Lacking fundamental understanding of the autistic neurotype, the inventers and practitioners of ABA consequently developed a torture method for autistics. This torture method is the standard of care for autistics in America and the only “therapy” that health insurance will cover, other than cognitive behavioral therapy which is ineffective for autistics if the therapist is not autistic or not well-trained and educated by autistics.

In addition to the lack of understanding of autism in ABA theory and application, we find fundamental understanding of neuroscience and trauma is also lacking. The result is generations of autistics have been harmed by the very therapy claiming to help. Despite decades of evidence that ABA causes PTSD and the fact that only 10% of autistics support ABA, it remains the only option in many countries around the world.

Let’s change that!