neuroqueer

English

Etymology

neuro- +‎ queer

Adjective

neuroqueer (comparative more neuroqueer, superlative most neuroqueer)

1. (neologism) Belonging to, characteristic of, or related to the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness, particularly autism and LGBT identities.
   • 2018, M. Remi Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness‎^[1], page 123:

     Whether discussed in clinical journals or in media accounts, ABA purports to change neural pathways, rewire neuroqueer brains, and ford synapses.

   • 2019 February, Justine E. Enger, “'The Disability Rights Community Was Never Mine': Neuroqueer Disidentification”, in Gender & Society, volume 33, number 1, page 124:

     Neuroqueer perspectives challenge typical understandings of identity categories through disidentification processes. A neuroqueer project not only questions typical conceptions of gender but also pivots away from normative gender categories altogether.

   • 2022, Jessica Sage Rauchberg, “Imagining a Neuroqueer Technoscience”, in Studies in Social Justice‎^[2], volume 16, number 2, page 372:

     My conceptualization of neuroqueer technoscience is also strongly influenced by 3 my own experiences as a multiply neurodivergent queer femme.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:neuroqueer.

Hyponyms

• (of a neurodivergent gender identity): gendervague, neurogender
• (of an autistic gender identity): autigender

Noun

neuroqueer (countable and uncountable, plural neuroqueers)

1. (neologism, uncountable) The state or quality of being neuroqueer.
   • 2019 February, Justine E. Enger, “'The Disability Rights Community Was Never Mine': Neuroqueer Disidentification”, in Gender & Society, volume 33, number 1, page 124:

     Neuroqueer is a queer/crip response to normative discussions about gender, sexuality, and disability as pathology.

   • 2021, Ryan Lee Cartwright, Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 188:

     Autistic rhetoric scholar Melanie Yergeau theorizes neuroqueer as a kind of “asocially perverse” motioning.

   • 2022, Peter Kuppers, Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters, unnumbered page:

     For a primer on the issue of neuroqueer and its roots in multiple discourse fields from queer aversion therapy to antiautistic hate speech, see Yergeau 2018.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:neuroqueer.
2. (neologism, countable) One who belongs to the neuroqueer community.
   • 2018, M. Remi Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness, unnumbered page:

     In this regard, the potential of a prosthetic, specialized environment is the always-now —any change could result in neuroqueers backsliding into neuroqueerity.

   • 2019, Nadia Erlam, “Cognitive Dispossession: Ecofeminism, Entheogens, and Neuroqueering Drug Policy”, in Chiara Baldini, David Luke, Maria Papaspyrou, editors, Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine: Creativity, Ecstasy, and Healing, unnumbered page:

     For those of us who inhabit the spaces between the cracks, the neuroqueers who wander outside a prescribed notion of “cognitive normalcy,” we know things are not that simple.

   • 2020, Lindsay Eales, Danielle Peers, “Care haunts, hurts, heals: The promiscuous poetics of queer crip Mad care”, in Journal of Lesbian Studies, volume 25, number 3:

     We affirm that there is nomore important queer project than for neuroqueers, crips, and non-normates more generally to survive with an essential flourish (Peers, 2018) in the face of that which would render our most basic needs undesirable, untenable, unreasonable, or “special.”

Synonyms

• (state or quality of being neuroqueer): neuroqueerness

Verb

neuroqueer (third-person singular simple present neuroqueers, present participle neuroqueering, simple past and past participle neuroqueered)

1. (neologism) To make or become neuroqueer.
   • 2018, M. Remi Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness, unnumbered page:

     I believe in the potentialities of autistic stories and gestures, of neuroqueering what we've come to understand as language and being.

   • 2018, Anna Reading, “Neurodiversity and Communication Ethics: How Images of Autism Trouble Communication Ethics in the Globital Age”, in Cultural Studies Review, volume 24, number 2, page 120:

     King’s video neuroqueers the dominant popular cultural image of autistic people always having great powers of visual memory by showing a different version of this.

   • 2021, Kristen L. Cole, “Neuroqueering interpersonal communication theory: listening to autistic object-orientations”, in Review of Communication, volume 21, number 3:

     Listening to autistic narratives reveals possibilities for neuroqueering interpersonal communication theory.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:neuroqueer.