Re-Citing the Origins of Neuroqueer.

Abstract

Recently, neurodiversity scholars published a letter to the editor of Autism arguing that Judy Singer should not be cited as coiner of neurodiversity; rather, the term should be attributed to earlier neurodiverse forums online. I make a similar argument for neuroqueer. Neuroqueer is typically attributed to one of the letter's authors: Nick Walker (2015). Archival information, however, demonstrates that the term was developed in neuroqueer community conversations on the NeuroQueer blog (2013-2016) and, even earlier, on the alt.support. autism Usenet forum (2003). Walker's claim to coinage, then, obscures the collective origins of the concept and erases neuroqueer people from their own story. In retracing these historiographical steps, I pursue two theoretical questions. First, what can this broader history illuminate about the concept, theory, and practice of neuroqueer? Second, what might an explicitly neuroqueer citation politics look like? If not a single-origin story, then what?