Community Guide to Solidarity Movements: Disability Justice, Queer Justice, Racial Justice, and Neurodiversity Justice

Jan 9

COVER PAGE

Community Guide to Solidarity Movements
Disability Justice, Queer Justice, Racial Justice, and Neurodiversity Justice

Written by Bridgette Hamstead
Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism

This guide is part of the Community Guide Series developed by Fish in a Tree to support collective learning, structural analysis, and movement building across neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized communities.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Solidarity movements are essential for building futures where neurodivergent adults can live with dignity, freedom, and full participation in society. Autistic and ADHD adults are disproportionately queer, trans, and members of racialized communities, which means that our lives are shaped by overlapping systems of harm. These systems include ableism, racism, cisheteronormativity, and productivity norms that work together to define who is seen as legitimate, who is granted access, and who is denied safety. Because these systems are interconnected, the movements that resist them must be interconnected as well.

This guide traces the intertwined histories of disability justice, queer justice, racial justice, and neurodiversity justice, and it shows how these movements are united by shared struggles for autonomy, belonging, and liberation. It examines how institutions interpret neurodivergent bodies through surveillance and suspicion, and how collective trauma becomes a foundation for community identity. It highlights the principles of disability justice, including interdependence, anti carcerality, and collective access, as essential guides for cross movement organizing. It outlines the skills and structures needed for effective coalition building, including shared language, decentralized leadership, and community agreements. It also addresses conflict and repair, emphasizing non punitive accountability and the importance of maintaining integrity within movement relationships.

The guide then turns to strategy, offering an analysis of how shared campaigns can build local and national impact. It highlights the role of culture, art, and storytelling in shaping public imagination and expanding what communities believe is possible. It examines the emotional labor carried by neurodivergent individuals in solidarity work and the need for sustainable structures that support long term participation. Finally, it offers a vision of what becomes possible when movements collaborate to transform the institutions, policies, and cultural norms that shape our lives.

This guide is both an invitation and a roadmap. It calls readers to understand solidarity as a structural necessity rather than a moral gesture. It offers tools for organizations, communities, and coalitions to evaluate their practices and redesign their relationships with power. And it affirms that the future of neurodiversity justice is inseparable from the futures of disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice. Together, these movements create the conditions for collective liberation.

PREFACE

The work of building solidarity across movements is not simple. It requires clarity, humility, and a willingness to confront the systems that govern our lives. It also requires an understanding that these systems are not isolated or accidental. They are interconnected structures shaped by histories of exclusion and control, and they impact neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized communities in ways that are both distinct and deeply intertwined.

This guide was written in recognition of a truth that many neurodivergent adults experience daily. The forces that shape our lives do not operate in separate lanes. The school that punishes autistic behavior is often the same school that over disciplines Black students and marginalizes queer youth. The healthcare system that dismisses neurodivergent communication is often the same system that restricts gender affirming care and undermines the expertise of disabled people. The workplace that penalizes sensory needs is often the same workplace that perpetuates racial inequities and upholds rigid norms of professionalism.

These realities make solidarity necessary. They also make it powerful. Disability justice, queer justice, racial justice, and neurodiversity justice each emerged from communities that refused to accept the status quo. Each movement carries its own history of resistance, brilliance, and cultural transformation. Each movement has developed frameworks that help us understand the mechanisms of oppression and the pathways toward liberation. When these movements come together, they create a more complete picture of how power functions and how it can be changed.

This guide is not a comprehensive archive. It is a tool. It is designed to support communities, organizations, and coalitions that are working to build structures grounded in interdependence, autonomy, and collective access. It offers analysis, reflection, and strategy for those committed to long term transformation. It acknowledges that conflict will arise, that emotional labor will be heavy, and that movement work requires rest as much as it requires action. It recognizes that solidarity is not a static state but a practice that deepens over time.

I offer this guide with gratitude for the communities who have shaped my understanding of justice, for the movements that made my work possible, and for the neurodivergent adults who continue to transform the world not by fitting into it but by imagining something better. May this guide serve as a companion in the ongoing work of building a world where all of us can exist fully.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Opening Framework: Why Solidarity Movements Matter for Neurodiversity Justice
II. A Brief Political History of Community Resistance
III. Understanding Structural Overlap: How Systems Produce Shared Harm
IV. How Environments Interpret Bodies: Surveillance, Suspicion, and Misidentification
V. Trauma, Belonging, and Collective Memory Across Movements
VI. Disability Justice as Blueprint for Cross Movement Organizing
VII. Coalition Building as Practice: Skills, Structures, and Agreements
VIII. Conflict, Accountability, and Repair in Solidarity Movements
IX. Building Shared Campaigns: From Local Action to National Organizing
X. Culture, Art, Storytelling, and Public Imagination as Movement Infrastructure
XI. The Emotional Labor of Solidarity: Care, Exhaustion, and Sustainability
XII. Building Future Movements: What Solidarity Makes Possible
Closing
Reflection Questions
Community Questions
Organizational Questions
Policy Questions
Author’s Note

I. Opening Framework: Why Solidarity Movements Matter for Neurodiversity Justice

Solidarity is not sentimental. Solidarity is structural. It is the recognition that autistic and ADHD adults do not move through the world as isolated identities but as people whose bodies and minds are shaped by multiple social forces at once. Research consistently shows that autistic and ADHD adults are disproportionately queer, trans, and gender diverse. Population studies estimate that neurodivergent adults are three to six times more likely to identify outside of cisgender and heterosexual categories, a pattern that has held across youth cohorts, adult cohorts, and international samples. These findings support what neurodivergent communities have always known. Many of us do not fit within narrow social expectations because the expectations themselves were built for a limited range of bodies and minds.

When neurodivergent adults try to access safety, belonging, and legitimacy inside institutions that were created without us in mind, we collide with the same structures that target queer people and the same structures that target Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities. Ableism does not exist in isolation. It operates through the same logic that produces racialized surveillance, gender policing, and productivity norms that punish anyone who does not conform to a narrow template of acceptable human behavior. Sociological research on intersectional oppression shows that when multiple marginalized identities overlap, the risk of harm increases at an exponential rate. It is not a simple sum of identities. It is a multiplication of exposure to systems that read our ways of being as deviant or dangerous.

Neurodiversity justice requires a collective structure because neurodivergent adults do not experience injustice as a solo event. We experience injustice through housing systems, employment systems, medical systems, educational systems, and policing systems that interpret our communication, our sensory responses, and our relational rhythms as instability or threat. The same institutions that silence queer adults, punish trans adults for nonconformity, and target Black and brown communities through surveillance and force are the institutions that harm neurodivergent adults through dismissal, pathologization, exclusion, and punishment.

Solidarity movements matter because no single community can dismantle systems that were built to control all of us. Neurodiversity justice becomes stronger when it aligns with disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice, not because these movements share identical experiences but because they share common opponents. These opponents include austerity policies that restrict access to care, educational structures that criminalize difference, healthcare models that dismiss people who do not communicate in expected ways, and legal systems that protect institutions rather than communities.

This guide begins with the recognition that our survival has always been collective. It is not possible to build a future where neurodivergent adults can live with dignity unless the broader systems that regulate power, identity, and belonging are transformed. Solidarity is not an optional practice. It is the necessary foundation for any movement that seeks structural change rather than symbolic reform.

II. A Brief Political History of Community Resistance

Every movement that has shaped the landscape of justice work today was born from communities who refused to disappear. The histories of disability justice, queer liberation, racial justice, and neurodiversity justice are not parallel stories. They are braided histories that have grown alongside one another, shaped by shared conditions of surveillance, exclusion, and resistance. Long before the language of neurodiversity was formalized, autistic and ADHD people were already part of queer and trans organizing, disability rights organizing, and anti racist struggle, often unnamed yet central to the political imagination of these movements.

Disability justice emerged in the early 2000s through the leadership of queer and trans disabled activists of color who understood that the traditional disability rights movement had been limited by its focus on legal access rather than structural liberation. Leaders such as Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milbern, and Leroy Moore insisted that disability could not be understood outside of race, class, gender, and colonial history. Their work built on the legacies of the Black Panther Party, which created the first community based disability assistance programs in the United States, and on the work of queer liberation activists who rejected medical gatekeeping and pathologizing narratives about their bodies.

At the same time, the neurodiversity movement was growing through online communities, autistic self advocacy, and the refusal of cure based rhetoric. Autistic adults began articulating a political understanding of embodiment that located harm in the environment rather than in the autistic mind. This shift echoed earlier queer and trans movements that reclaimed identity from pathology and insisted on self naming as a political act. Neurodivergent adults found resonance in disability justice because it named the structural forces that shape our lives rather than framing disability as an individual problem to solve.

Racial justice movements have always centered the relationship between identity, state control, and survival. They exposed how institutions interpret difference through racialized assumptions and how these assumptions guide policing, healthcare, employment, and education. For Black and Indigenous neurodivergent adults, whose bodies are already hypervisible to the state, these systems produce intensified forms of risk. The long history of anti racist struggle provides essential context for understanding why neurodiversity justice must address more than diagnostic bias. It must confront the material conditions that create unequal vulnerability.

Queer and trans liberation movements taught the world that autonomy over identity is non negotiable. They challenged the authority of medical and psychiatric institutions to define legitimacy. They expanded the idea of community care through mutual aid networks and chosen family structures, which have become central to survival for neurodivergent adults who experience isolation, family estrangement, and systemic abandonment at high rates.

These intertwined histories show that the movements we now name as distinct are deeply interdependent. Each movement arose because communities recognized that survival required not only resisting institutional power but building new relational, cultural, and political models. Neurodiversity justice stands within this lineage by naming the specific forms of structural violence that target cognitive, communicative, and sensory difference and by aligning with the broader histories that have already taught us how solidarity becomes infrastructure for change.

III. Understanding Structural Overlap: How Systems Produce Shared Harm

To understand why solidarity across movements is necessary, we must first understand how the systems that harm us actually operate. Ableism, racism, cisheteronormativity, and capitalist productivity norms are not separate forces that happen to coexist. They are interlocking structures that reinforce one another, creating an environment where entire groups of people are managed, disciplined, or excluded because their bodies or minds do not conform to what institutions consider stable or valuable. Research on structural inequality consistently shows that marginalized groups who experience more than one axis of oppression are not simply facing additive risk. They face exponential increases in exposure to violence, deprivation, and systemic neglect.

When autistic and ADHD adults attempt to access education, healthcare, employment, or public services, institutions evaluate us through a behavioral lens shaped by these overlapping systems. In schools, neurodivergent behaviors are more likely to be labeled as misconduct when expressed by Black or brown students, which helps explain why Black autistic boys are suspended and expelled at significantly higher rates than white autistic boys. In healthcare, trans neurodivergent adults experience higher rates of diagnostic dismissal, delayed treatment, and coercive gatekeeping. In policing, neurodivergent communication patterns, sensory distress, or executive functioning differences are often interpreted as threat or defiance, which increases danger in encounters where misinterpretation can be fatal.

These patterns do not emerge in isolation. They are produced by systems that rely on narrow definitions of normalcy to justify control. Ableism positions certain cognitive and sensory styles as inferior or unstable. Racism overlays this with criminalization and suspicion. Cisheteronormativity layers on the policing of gender expression and relational norms. Capitalist productivity norms devalue anyone whose pace, focus, or processing style diverges from industrial expectations. Research on labor market discrimination shows that autistic and ADHD adults already face high unemployment and underemployment, but the impact is magnified when race, gender diversity, or queerness intersect with neurodivergence. Each additional marginalized identity expands the number of institutional settings where a person is misread, excluded, or harmed.

The overlap is structural, not incidental. For example, sensory environments in schools, hospitals, shelters, and workplaces are designed for bodies that tolerate noise, brightness, unpredictability, and rapid pacing. This design reflects a dominant cultural assumption that sensory difference is a private issue rather than a social responsibility. Yet the people most impacted by these environments are also the people most likely to be queer, trans, disabled, or racialized. Population level data on chronic stress exposure shows that when people navigate constant sensory overload, interpersonal misinterpretation, or threat of punishment, their risk of anxiety, depression, physical illness, and economic instability rises sharply. In this sense, the environment itself becomes an agent of inequality.

Understanding this overlap is essential because it reveals that the same systems of power create parallel forms of harm across communities. The school that criminalizes a Black autistic child is relying on the same logic that pathologizes queer identity. The clinic that dismisses a trans ADHD adult is operating from the same framework that devalues disabled expertise. The workplace that penalizes sensory regulation is guided by the same productivity norms that have historically marginalized women, queer people, and disabled communities. These are not separate struggles. They are connected through shared mechanisms of control.

Neurodiversity justice requires us to recognize these mechanisms clearly. If we fail to understand that our harms are structurally linked, we will be encouraged to fight in isolation, which benefits the systems that target us. When we understand the overlap, we can articulate strategies that dismantle shared barriers rather than treating each injustice as an isolated problem. This is the foundation for building a movement that transforms institutions rather than adapting to them.

IV. How Environments Interpret Bodies: Surveillance, Suspicion, and Misidentification

Institutions interpret bodies long before they interact with the people inside them. In every school, clinic, workplace, public space, and community setting, assumptions about normalcy guide how bodies and minds are read.

These assumptions shape which behaviors are interpreted as safe, which are interpreted as disruptive, and which are interpreted as threatening. For neurodivergent adults, whose communication patterns and sensory responses often differ from dominant norms, this interpretive process becomes a source of chronic misidentification. For neurodivergent adults who are also Black, brown, queer, or trans, the misidentification intensifies because institutions apply multiple layers of surveillance and suspicion at once.

Research on educational discipline shows that Black autistic students are significantly more likely than white autistic students to be labeled aggressive, oppositional, or volatile, even when displaying the same behaviors. This pattern is not about individual interpretation. It reflects a long history of racialized control that positions Black bodies as inherently disruptive or dangerous. When combined with ableist expectations for quiet compliance, the result is a system that reads sensory distress as defiance and self regulation attempts as misconduct. Similar dynamics appear in healthcare, where autistic and ADHD adults who communicate differently are more likely to be dismissed or misdiagnosed, especially when their race or gender identity makes clinicians view them through an additional lens of suspicion.

Queer and trans adults experience parallel forms of misidentification. Gender diverse communication patterns, relational styles, and sensory expressions are often pathologized or misunderstood as instability. Trans neurodivergent adults in particular report high rates of clinical gatekeeping, where providers misinterpret autistic communication differences as evidence of compromised self understanding. This gatekeeping reflects a belief that legitimacy must be proven through normative communication, a belief shaped by both ableism and cisnormativity. The same dynamic appears in workplace settings where sensory needs are framed as personal inconveniences and where autistic or ADHD communication styles are misread as insubordination, moodiness, or lack of professionalism.

Surveillance is not only about monitoring behavior. It is also about interpreting meaning. Institutions project meaning onto neurodivergent bodies based on how closely those bodies align with expected norms. For example, rapid speech, atypical eye contact, stimming, or difficulty shifting tasks may be interpreted as instability rather than as ordinary expressions of neurodivergent regulation. When racialized assumptions intersect with these interpretations, the consequences become more severe. Studies on police encounters with disabled people show that autistic and ADHD adults are at heightened risk of escalation when their sensory distress is interpreted as threat. The risk increases significantly for Black and brown neurodivergent adults, whose bodies are already positioned within a cultural narrative of danger.

These patterns matter because they reveal that institutions are not neutral. They are interpretive systems that apply meaning to bodies. The meaning they apply is shaped by historical power structures that define which behaviors are acceptable, which identities are trustworthy, and which forms of communication are treated as credible. Misidentification becomes a structural outcome rather than a personal misunderstanding. It shapes who receives support and who receives punishment, who is believed and who is ignored, who is included and who is pushed out.

For neurodiversity justice to be effective, it must address the interpretive practices that lead to harm. It is not enough to increase awareness or provide training that encourages empathy. We must transform the environments themselves. We must redesign systems so that neurodivergent communication, sensory expression, and relational rhythms are recognized as legitimate rather than suspicious. Solidarity across movements is essential here because communities targeted by racism, transphobia, and ableism already understand how misidentification produces harm. Their strategies for resisting surveillance and redefining legitimacy are vital to the future of neurodivergent liberation.

V. Trauma, Belonging, and Collective Memory Across Movements

Every liberation movement is shaped by trauma. Not individual trauma alone, but collective trauma produced by systems that punish difference and enforce conformity. Autistic and ADHD adults carry the imprint of this trauma in ways that are often unrecognized by institutions. Many of us grew up navigating environments that treated our bodies and minds as problems to be corrected. Research on minority stress shows that chronic exposure to misattunement, rejection, and forced assimilation produces long term physiological and psychological harm. These effects mirror patterns seen in queer communities, trans communities, and racialized communities, where prolonged exposure to discrimination and social exclusion generates measurable impacts on health, longevity, and mental well being.

Neurodivergent trauma is often framed as an individual issue, yet the conditions that produce it are social and political. When a child is punished for sensory distress, the trauma is not located in the child. It is located in the environment that refuses to accommodate that child’s nervous system. When an autistic adult is dismissed in a clinical setting, the trauma is not a personal weakness. It is the consequence of institutional norms that treat neurodivergent communication as unreliable. When a trans ADHD adult is denied gender affirming care due to biased assumptions about decision making capacity, the trauma emerges from the intersection of ableism and transphobia. These experiences accumulate over time, creating patterns of hypervigilance, mistrust, and exhaustion that are not failures of coping but adaptations to structural harm.

Belonging becomes difficult in environments that consistently misinterpret us. For many neurodivergent adults, especially those who are queer, trans, or racialized, belonging has had to be built through community rather than inherited through institutions. Studies on community resilience show that marginalized groups develop shared cultural practices that protect against isolation and that strengthen collective identity. Queer communities have long used chosen family structures to resist rejection. Disabled communities have built networks of interdependence to survive institutional abandonment. Racial justice movements have nurtured collective memory as a tool for survival, passing down knowledge about resistance and care across generations.

These traditions are vital for neurodivergent liberation. When neurodivergent adults gather in peer led spaces, we rebuild the sense of belonging that was denied in childhood, school, workplaces, and healthcare systems. We relearn connection on our own terms, without the pressure to mask, flatten, or adjust ourselves to meet nonnegotiable norms. Collective memory grows through these gatherings. Over time, we begin to see that our experiences are not private failures but shared patterns created by environments that were never designed for our bodies or minds. This recognition is transformative. It shifts the narrative from self blame toward structural analysis and collective healing.

Collective trauma also shapes how movements understand time. Neurodivergent communities often describe a sense of remembering childhood backwards, only realizing in adulthood how many experiences were misinterpreted or dismissed. Queer and trans adults describe similar retrospective clarity, where early experiences take on new meaning once language and community become available. Racialized communities describe intergenerational memories of survival, teaching children how to navigate systems that remain dangerous. These forms of retrospective understanding show that trauma is not only about what happened. It is also about what was never named.

When movements share their histories, they create pathways for solidarity. Disability justice carries the memory of activists who refused institutionalization and fought for community based care. Queer justice carries the memory of resistance to medical pathologization and police violence. Racial justice carries the memory of centuries of struggle against state control. Neurodiversity justice carries the memory of autistic and ADHD adults whose lives were shaped by misunderstanding and whose voices were silenced or dismissed. When these memories meet, they reveal a larger story about who has been allowed to exist fully and who has been forced to conform, hide, or survive in the margins.

Solidarity becomes possible when we recognize that our traumas are connected not because our identities are the same but because the systems that harmed us rely on the same logics of control. Belonging becomes possible when we create communities that honor our ways of being without requiring us to perform normalcy for protection. Collective memory becomes a tool for liberation when it guides us toward a future that refuses to repeat the past.

VI. Disability Justice as Blueprint for Cross Movement Organizing

Disability justice offers one of the most comprehensive frameworks for understanding how liberation becomes possible for communities that live at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. It emerged because disabled activists recognized that the traditional disability rights movement had never accounted for the experiences of disabled people who were also queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, or otherwise marginalized. Disability justice names the truth that disability cannot be separated from race, gender, class, or colonial history. It understands that no single identity explains how power operates and no single strategy can dismantle systems that are interconnected. For neurodivergent adults, this framework is essential because it provides the political language to describe how cognitive and sensory oppression functions as a social and structural phenomenon rather than an individual burden.

One of the core principles of disability justice is collective access. This principle rejects the idea that access is a personal accommodation negotiated quietly on the margins. Instead, collective access views accessibility as a shared responsibility and as a cultural practice that must be built into every environment from the beginning. For neurodivergent adults, whose bodies often require sensory regulation, flexible pacing, communication variation, and autonomy over participation, collective access offers a foundation for environments that do not punish difference. Research on inclusive design shows that when environments are structured around collective access rather than after the fact adjustments, outcomes improve not only for disabled people but for everyone, especially those with other marginalized identities.

Another central principle is interdependence. This principle challenges the myth of individual independence, which has long been used to justify the exclusion of disabled people from full participation in society. Interdependence recognizes that all humans rely on one another and that communities thrive when they build networks of mutual support. Neurodivergent adults who have grown up being told they are too much, too intense, or too dependent often experience profound relief when interdependence is framed as a strength rather than a failure. This principle also aligns deeply with queer and trans communities, which have long used mutual aid and chosen family structures to survive systems that deny care.

Disability justice also centers leadership by those most impacted. It asserts that people who live at the intersection of disability, race, gender diversity, and poverty hold knowledge that institutions have historically refused to recognize. For neurodivergent people who are also queer, trans, or BIPOC, this principle validates the knowledge gained through lived experience and positions that knowledge as essential for building movements that will not replicate harm. Leadership grounded in lived experience is consistent with emerging research showing that community led design, peer led support models, and participatory decision making produce more equitable and sustainable outcomes than top down approaches.

The framework rejects carceral logic and challenges punitive responses to difference. Carceral logic appears anywhere institutions rely on punishment, surveillance, or containment to control disabled people. Neurodivergent adults encounter this logic in schools that criminalize meltdowns, workplaces that punish sensory needs, healthcare systems that withhold care until people perform stability, and police encounters where communication differences are misinterpreted as threat. Disability justice insists that safety cannot be achieved through control. It must be achieved through redesign.

Neurodiversity justice draws heavily from these principles while expanding them to name the specific forms of oppression that target cognitive and sensory difference. It identifies compliance culture as a structural harm, not a developmental expectation. It exposes how institutions demand coherence, calmness, and self control from neurodivergent adults as a condition for receiving support. It names attunement, autonomy, and communicative legitimacy as non negotiable components of justice. While disability justice lays the foundation, neurodiversity justice adds the layers of analysis needed to understand how environments weaponize expectations for emotional neutrality, linear processing, and normative communication.

Taken together, disability justice and neurodiversity justice create a powerful framework for cross movement organizing. They show that liberation requires more than access. It requires a transformation of the cultural, political, and economic structures that determine whose bodies are valued and whose ways of being are respected. They teach that justice is not a service to be delivered to individuals. Justice is a collective redesign of the world we live in.

VII. Coalition Building as Practice: Skills, Structures, and Agreements

Solidarity becomes real only when communities learn how to work together in ways that do not reproduce the very harms they seek to dismantle. Coalition building is not symbolic. It is a disciplined practice that requires shared language, shared values, and shared accountability. It also requires a clear understanding that the work is not simply about expressing support across movements but about aligning strategies to confront the systems that harm all of us. For neurodivergent adults who experience disproportionate rates of marginalization across healthcare, education, employment, policing, and community life, durable coalitions offer a path toward structural change that cannot be achieved through isolated advocacy.

Research on effective social movements shows that coalitions succeed when they are built on a clear material analysis rather than on generalized empathy. Empathy cannot replace structural understanding, and it cannot sustain long term organizing. Movements grounded in shared analysis are more likely to build campaigns that address root causes rather than symptoms. For example, the school that punishes a Black autistic student for sensory distress is the same school shaped by policies that harm queer and trans youth through rigid conformity and harm low income students through austerity cuts. A coalition that recognizes these shared conditions can target the structural sources of inequality rather than fighting separate battles.

Shared language is one of the most important tools for coalition building. Communities often use different terms to describe similar experiences of harm, and these differences can create unnecessary barriers. Neurodiversity justice offers language for cognitive oppression, sensory oppression, and compliance culture. Disability justice offers language for interdependence, collective access, and anti carcerality. Racial justice movements offer language for structural racism, state violence, and historical trauma. Queer and trans movements offer language for self determination, bodily autonomy, and the rejection of pathologizing narratives. When these vocabularies meet, they expand one another and create a more complete understanding of how systems function.

Coalition building also requires intentional structures. Decisions cannot rely on informal dynamics or the personalities of leaders. Research on coalition governance shows that decentralized decision making, clear communication channels, and rotating leadership roles create more sustainable movements. These structures prevent power from accumulating in ways that exclude marginalized members, especially neurodivergent adults who may process information differently, communicate differently, or need flexible pacing during discussions. Coalitions that incorporate neurodivergent communication norms often find that meetings become more participatory and generative because people are no longer pressured to perform cognitive or emotional neutrality.

Community agreements are another essential tool. Agreements create shared expectations for how members will communicate, resolve conflict, and maintain accountability. They help coalitions avoid the unspoken norms that often privilege dominant identities. Agreements that recognize sensory needs, communication variation, and pacing flexibility prevent neurodivergent members from being marginalized. Agreements that address racism, transphobia, and class privilege create a foundation for collective integrity. When agreements are co created rather than imposed, they function as a living document that evolves as the coalition grows.

Coalitions also require clarity about purpose. They need to articulate what they are trying to change and why their collaboration is necessary. Effective coalitions identify shared targets such as unjust legislation, discriminatory practices, inaccessible public infrastructure, or harmful institutional policies. They then design campaigns that leverage the strengths of each movement. For example, neurodivergent communities bring expertise in sensory design and communication access. Disability justice communities bring expertise in anti carceral strategies and collective care. Racial justice communities bring expertise in resisting state violence and challenging institutional surveillance. Queer and trans communities bring expertise in self determination and navigating medical and legal systems that attempt to restrict autonomy.

Coalition building is a practice that requires patience, humility, and long term commitment. It asks communities to stay in relationship even when conflict arises, and it asks people to learn new ways of working that honor the knowledge and leadership of those most impacted by structural harm. When coalitions succeed, they transform not only policies but entire cultural narratives about whose bodies and minds are valued.

VIII. Conflict, Accountability, and Repair in Solidarity Movements

Coalitions are built from communities with different histories, different survival strategies, and different relationships to power. Conflict is not a sign of failure. Conflict is an inevitable and necessary part of collective work. The question is not whether conflict will occur but how movements respond when it does. For neurodivergent adults who have often been punished for misunderstanding, intensity, or emotional expression, conflict can evoke deep fear. Yet conflict can also become a space of growth when accountability is grounded in care rather than punishment.

Accountability within solidarity movements must reject carceral thinking. Carceral thinking appears whenever harm is responded to with exclusion, isolation, or punitive measures. Research on restorative and transformative justice shows that punitive responses rarely reduce harm and often create new forms of trauma for marginalized communities. Neurodivergent adults are especially vulnerable to these dynamics because many of us have experienced school discipline, workplace reprimands, or social rejection due to behaviors rooted in sensory distress or communication differences. When coalitions rely on punitive frameworks, they risk replicating the very systems they are trying to dismantle.

Non carceral accountability requires clarity, consent, and compassion. It involves naming harm honestly while recognizing that harm often emerges from structural conditions rather than personal malice. For example, a neurodivergent member may interrupt frequently or speak in ways that others find abrupt. A queer member may assume shared knowledge that not everyone has. A racialized member may carry trauma responses shaped by persistent surveillance. These dynamics can create tension, but they do not require punishment. They require curiosity about how each person has learned to survive environments that misinterpret them.

Repair requires time. It requires patience with different communication rhythms. It requires recognizing that neurodivergent adults may need space to process conflict, that autistic communication can be direct without being hostile, and that ADHD communication can shift rapidly as thoughts unfold. Research on neurodivergent communication shows that misunderstandings often arise not from intent but from differences in pacing, tone, and sensory load. When coalitions understand these dynamics, they can respond with practices that support regulation rather than escalation.

Conflicts involving racism, transphobia, or ableism require a different level of attention because these forms of harm are rooted in systemic power. Accountability practices must center the people harmed while avoiding the trap of punishment. This means addressing both the harm and the conditions that made the harm possible. It also means recognizing that neurodivergent people are not exempt from perpetuating oppression. Many autistic and ADHD adults grew up without access to political frameworks that explain their experiences. Unlearning internalized norms is essential for collective liberation.

Effective coalitions treat accountability as a shared responsibility. They create structures that support repair rather than relying on individual members to carry the emotional weight of conflict. These structures might include facilitated discussions, conflict support teams, or community agreements about how to raise concerns. Research on collaborative governance shows that when groups commit to non punitive accountability, they develop stronger trust and deeper resilience. They are better able to navigate future conflicts without fragmenting.

Repair is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation requires mutual willingness, which may not always be present. Repair focuses on restoring integrity to the group’s purpose and relationships without forcing emotional closeness where it cannot exist. For neurodivergent adults who have experienced chronic misattunement, repair that honors autonomy is a crucial component of safety. It allows people to remain part of the movement even when relationships shift.

Conflict handled well becomes a site of learning. It becomes evidence that the coalition is strong enough to hold complexity. It becomes an opportunity to practice the world we are trying to build. A world where difference is not punished. A world where harm is addressed without replicating violence. A world where collective liberation is a practice rather than an aspiration.

IX. Building Shared Campaigns: From Local Action to National Organizing

Solidarity becomes transformative when communities move from shared understanding to shared action. Building campaigns across movements requires a clear awareness of how systems of harm overlap and how collective strength can be mobilized to confront them. Research on multilateral social movements shows that campaigns with cross movement participation are more effective, more durable, and more likely to achieve structural change because they target the root mechanisms of inequality rather than isolated symptoms. For neurodivergent adults who experience disproportionate harm across nearly every institutional setting, cross movement campaigns provide a pathway toward national impact that individual advocacy cannot replicate.

Shared campaigns begin by identifying common targets. These targets are not random. They emerge from the patterns of injustice that cut across communities. Policing is a shared target because racialized, disabled, queer, and neurodivergent bodies are all disproportionately harmed by systems of surveillance and force. Austerity is a shared target because budget cuts to education, healthcare, housing, and social services intensify harm for communities that rely on public infrastructure for safety and survival. Medical gatekeeping is a shared target because queer, trans, disabled, and neurodivergent adults are routinely denied care or forced to perform legitimacy to receive basic services. Workplace exploitation is a shared target because capitalist productivity norms create barriers for anyone whose body or mind does not fit the expected mold.

When campaigns identify a shared target, the next step is to develop a shared narrative. Narratives matter because they shape public understanding and political will. Research on social change shows that narratives grounded in lived experience, data, and structural analysis are more effective than narratives centered on individual stories alone. Neurodivergent communities bring evidence about sensory oppression, communication misinterpretation, and compliance culture. Disability justice communities bring evidence about institutional neglect and the failures of legalistic access models. Racial justice communities bring evidence about state violence and the structural nature of inequality. Queer and trans communities bring evidence about medical pathologization and the fight for bodily autonomy. When these narratives combine, they create a comprehensive picture of systemic harm that is difficult for institutions to dismiss.

Shared campaigns also require diverse strategies. No single tactic is sufficient for confronting systems that adapt quickly to protect their interests. Effective coalitions draw on multiple forms of action, including policy advocacy, public education, mutual aid, litigation, direct action, research dissemination, and cultural production. Neurodivergent activists often excel in areas like design thinking, sensory accessibility planning, data analysis, and public storytelling. Disability justice organizers often lead in areas like mutual aid infrastructure and community based safety models. Racial justice organizers bring experience in legislative campaigns, mobilization, and resistance to state surveillance. Queer and trans organizers bring expertise in navigating medical policy, public narrative, and community based care. When these skills are combined, campaigns become stronger and more adaptive.

Local action is essential because it allows communities to build momentum and test strategies in environments where relationships already exist. Research on social movement diffusion shows that successful local victories can spread across cities and states, influencing national policy over time. For example, a local campaign to redesign sensory environments in schools can grow into statewide education reform. A community based alternative to police response for mental health and sensory crises can inform national debates about public safety. A city level policy expanding gender affirming care can help establish federal benchmarks for healthcare equity.

National organizing becomes possible when local and regional campaigns connect through shared infrastructure. This is where the work you are building through the Neurodiversity Coalition of America becomes central. National coordination requires networks, training, shared resources, and consistent communication channels. It also requires a unified political vision that honors the expertise of each movement while maintaining clear commitments to structural change. Research on federated organizing models shows that national movements succeed when they balance cohesion with local autonomy. This balance is especially important for neurodivergent adults, who often need flexibility in participation, pacing, and communication.

Shared campaigns offer one of the most powerful paths to liberation because they translate solidarity into material change. They shift public policy, reshape institutions, and create new cultural norms. They demonstrate that neurodiversity justice is not an isolated project but an essential part of the larger struggle for collective liberation.

X. Culture, Art, Storytelling, and Public Imagination as Movement Infrastructure

Movements do not grow only through policy change. Movements grow through culture. Culture shapes collective imagination, and collective imagination shapes what communities believe is possible. Autistic and ADHD adults have always been cultural workers. Many of us are writers, artists, thinkers, musicians, designers, and builders whose creative practices emerge directly from the way our minds process the world. Research on neurodivergent creativity shows that divergent thinking, associative thinking, and pattern based perception contribute to unusually high rates of artistic production in autistic and ADHD communities. These strengths become vital to movement work because they expand the stories communities tell about themselves and about the world they are trying to build.

Art has always been a tool of liberation. Queer liberation was shaped by art in the streets, in bars, in ballrooms, and in underground communities that invented new ways of living when the world refused to accept them. Racial justice movements have relied on music, poetry, murals, and collective storytelling to preserve memory and ignite resistance. Disability justice has used art to challenge narratives of tragedy and to reveal the creativity, interdependence, and brilliance within disabled communities. Neurodiversity justice continues this lineage by celebrating sensory expression, non traditional communication, and the full range of human perception as sources of cultural power rather than as traits that require correction.

Public imagination is one of the most powerful forces in movement building because it determines whether people can envision a future that is different from the present. Research on social change shows that communities are more likely to mobilize when they can imagine themselves within the future they are fighting for. Neurodivergent artists contribute to this imagination by creating work that disrupts normative assumptions about emotion, communication, and identity. Our art challenges the idea that coherence must look a certain way or that language must follow a single path. It challenges the idea that sensory sensitivity is a weakness rather than a form of environmental awareness. It challenges the belief that regulation must be quiet, still, and invisible.

Storytelling is central to this work. When neurodivergent adults tell their stories, we redefine the meaning of our lives. We refuse narratives that reduce us to diagnostic categories or behavioral labels. We expose the structural conditions that shaped our experiences and the resilience we developed in response to misunderstanding, surveillance, and exclusion. Research on narrative identity shows that stories help people integrate past experiences and create frameworks for future action. For communities that have been systematically misrepresented or silenced, storytelling becomes a political act. It becomes the foundation for collective consciousness.

Movements need stories that speak to the complexity of lived experience. Stories that do not sanitize trauma or avoid structural analysis. Stories that expose the systems that harmed us while honoring the cultural wisdom that helped us survive. When neurodivergent adults create narratives that center sensory truth, relational difference, and nonlinear thinking, we expand the cultural understanding of what it means to be human. We challenge the assumption that only some forms of cognition and perception are legitimate. We create space for future generations to live more freely.

Cultural production also strengthens solidarity. When neurodivergent artists collaborate with queer, trans, and BIPOC artists, the result is not only aesthetic. The result is the formation of cultural memory that reflects shared struggle and shared imagination. These collaborations generate symbols, metaphors, and shared language that help movements move toward one another. They teach communities to see their liberation as connected rather than separate.

Public imagination is material. It influences policy, funding, institutional design, and collective behavior. A society that imagines neurodivergent adults as capable leaders is more likely to design accessible workplaces and invest in inclusive education. A society that imagines autonomy as a human right is more likely to protect gender affirming care and disability self determination. A society that imagines interdependence as a cultural value is more likely to reject punitive systems and build networks of mutual care.

For neurodiversity justice to advance, culture must be at the center of the movement. Art and storytelling give us the language to describe what has happened to us and the frameworks to imagine something better. They function as infrastructure because they make liberation feel possible, tangible, and within reach.

XI. The Emotional Labor of Solidarity: Care, Exhaustion, and Sustainability

Every movement is sustained by emotional labor that remains largely invisible to the outside world. Neurodivergent adults carry an especially heavy share of this labor because many of us have spent our entire lives managing misattunement, masking for safety, and navigating systems that dismiss or misinterpret our needs. When we enter solidarity work, we bring both the strengths and the exhaustion shaped by these histories. We bring the ability to detect environmental threat quickly, the capacity to perceive patterns others miss, and the resilience forged through years of surviving systems that treated our differences as deficits. We also bring the fatigue that accumulates when every space requires translation, negotiation, and self regulation.

Research on activist burnout shows that marginalized communities face higher rates of chronic stress, health decline, and emotional exhaustion when they engage in movement work. This is because they are fighting not only for structural change but also for their own survival. Neurodivergent adults experience elevated rates of burnout across the lifespan, and these rates increase when people also belong to queer, trans, or racialized communities. Minority stress research demonstrates that the cumulative impact of discrimination, vigilance, and social exclusion creates physiological strain that cannot be relieved through individual coping. These findings reflect what neurodivergent communities already know. We live in bodies that carry the imprint of environmental hostility, and solidarity work requires energy that many of us have been spending since childhood.

Yet emotional labor is not only a burden. It is also a source of connection. Neurodivergent adults often support one another through communication styles that center honesty, intensity, and depth. Many of us understand each other’s sensory patterns almost instinctively. We notice when someone is overloaded or fading. We offer regulation without needing translation. These forms of relational care are some of the most overlooked contributions neurodivergent communities make to solidarity movements. They teach coalitions how to build cultures of attunement instead of cultures of performance.

Sustainability becomes possible when emotional labor is shared rather than concentrated. Movements fail when they rely on a few individuals to carry the weight of organizing, educating, mediating, and caring for others. Movements succeed when they distribute responsibility through structures that honor different capacities and different forms of contribution. Research on community based organizing shows that groups with flexible participation models retain members longer and experience less burnout. This is especially important for neurodivergent adults whose energy levels fluctuate with sensory load, executive functioning demands, emotional cycles, and environmental context. A sustainable movement does not require people to contribute consistently. It requires structures that allow people to contribute in ways that are aligned with their natural rhythms.

Care must be built into the architecture of solidarity. This means creating spaces where people can regulate without stigma. It means respecting communication variation without framing it as a barrier. It means understanding that grief, anger, and hope often coexist. It means recognizing that trauma responses are not failures of character but outcomes of hostile environments. Movements that incorporate care into their organizing practices become more resilient because they create conditions where members can return after rest rather than being forced out by overwhelm.

Sustainability also requires honesty about limits. Neurodivergent adults often push ourselves beyond capacity because we believe the movement needs us or because we fear that stepping back will lead to collapse. Solidarity demands a different approach. It requires a cultural shift where rest is seen as part of the work rather than an interruption of it. It requires communities to recognize that liberation is a long project and that no one can sustain continuous output without harm. Research on organizational health shows that groups that build rest cycles into their work plans experience higher creativity, stronger retention, and more durable progress.

The emotional labor of solidarity is both heavy and beautiful. It reflects the cost of living in a world that has consistently misunderstood us and the power of building a world that will not. When neurodivergent adults participate in solidarity movements, we bring ways of feeling, perceiving, and caring that expand what the movement can hold. Sustainability becomes possible not when we push harder, but when we build structures that make our survival part of the movement’s design.

XII. Building Future Movements: What Solidarity Makes Possible

The purpose of solidarity is not only to confront the systems that harm us. The purpose of solidarity is to build the world that will replace them. Neurodiversity justice, disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice are all movements that emerged because communities realized that the existing order could not be repaired. It had to be transformed. Solidarity offers the possibility of creating institutions, cultural norms, and public infrastructures that reflect the needs, values, and wisdom of the people who have been most harmed by the world’s current design. This is not a symbolic project. This is material. Research on social transformation shows that movements succeed when they articulate clear visions of the future alongside the structural strategies needed to achieve them. Imagination and implementation must move together.

A future shaped by solidarity begins with redesigned institutions. Schools would no longer function as environments that reward conformity and punish difference. They would become spaces where sensory variation, communicative diversity, and nonlinear learning are recognized as forms of intelligence rather than barriers to success. Healthcare systems would no longer rely on gatekeeping or suspicion to determine who deserves care. They would be guided by trust, informed consent, and the understanding that marginalized communities are the experts of their own bodies. Workplaces would abandon productivity norms that treat humans as replaceable units and instead build environments where regulation, pacing, and autonomy are core components of performance. These changes are not speculative. They are already emerging in small pockets where coalition led policy reform and community based design have taken hold.

Solidarity also makes possible new models of public safety that do not rely on punishment. Research on community based crisis response shows that when support teams replace police in responding to mental health and sensory related emergencies, harm decreases and trust increases. These models align with disability justice principles that reject carceral logic and with racial justice demands to end state sanctioned violence. For neurodivergent adults who experience high rates of police misinterpretation, these reforms can be lifesaving. When queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC communities work together, they create safety systems rooted in care rather than control.

Housing and community infrastructure would also transform under a solidarity framework. Instead of isolating disabled people in segregated facilities or forcing queer and trans youth into unsafe living conditions, communities could build cooperative housing models grounded in interdependence and autonomy. Research on co housing and community based care shows that shared living models reduce loneliness, improve health outcomes, and distribute labor in ways that prevent burnout. Neurodivergent adults who thrive in environments with predictable sensory patterns and relational proximity would finally have access to structures that honor those needs rather than dismissing them as unrealistic.

Solidarity also reshapes national policy. When movements align, they can mobilize data, stories, and political power to influence legislation on education, healthcare, labor rights, social services, anti discrimination protections, and public funding. A national neurodiversity justice framework is far more powerful when it stands alongside disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice demands. These alliances create pressure that institutions cannot ignore. Research on coalition led policy success shows that cross movement organizing is one of the strongest predictors of durable legislative change.

The cultural transformation enabled by solidarity may be the most profound. When society begins to imagine neurodivergent, queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC lives as central rather than peripheral, the stories we tell about humanity shift. Creativity, sensory awareness, emotional depth, and divergent communication become normalized rather than pathologized. Children grow up seeing people like themselves reflected in leadership, art, science, and public life. Adults experience environments that do not require them to fight their own bodies in order to belong. Families learn that difference is not a threat but a source of collective strength. These cultural shifts are measurable. Studies on representation and belonging show that when marginalized identities are integrated into public life, mental health improves, institutional trust increases, and civic participation grows.

Solidarity movements make possible futures that none of us could build alone. They make possible a world where neurodivergent adults are not forced to navigate environments that treat their sensory or cognitive differences as interruptions. They make possible a world where racialized communities do not live under the threat of constant surveillance. They make possible a world where queer and trans adults can live without performing legitimacy for access to care. They make possible a world where disability is not framed as an individual problem but as a natural expression of human diversity that deserves respect and support.

The future of neurodiversity justice is inseparable from the future of these movements. Solidarity is not a strategy we employ for convenience. It is the condition through which collective liberation becomes imaginable and achievable. When communities come together with clarity, alignment, and shared purpose, the world that once seemed immovable begins to shift. What solidarity makes possible is nothing less than the transformation of the systems that govern our lives and the creation of a future where all of us can exist fully.

Closing

Solidarity is not an abstract idea. Solidarity is a lived practice that reshapes how we understand one another and how we understand the systems that structure our lives. Neurodivergent adults have always existed within the broader struggles for disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice even when our presence was unnamed or misunderstood. Our futures are intertwined not through accident but through the shared realities of misinterpretation, exclusion, and surveillance that have shaped our experiences across every major institution. When we choose solidarity, we are choosing to refuse isolation as a political strategy. We are choosing to build movements that are strong enough to confront the systems that harm us and imaginative enough to create the worlds that will replace them.

This guide has traced the histories, frameworks, and practices that make cross movement solidarity necessary and possible. It has shown that neurodiversity justice cannot stand alone because the forces that shape neurodivergent oppression are the same forces that shape the oppression of queer communities, trans communities, disabled communities, and racialized communities. These forces rely on narrow definitions of normalcy, productivity, safety, and legitimacy. Solidarity becomes the method through which we dismantle these definitions and build something more expansive in their place.

Each movement brings its own wisdom. Disability justice teaches us that liberation requires interdependence and collective access. Racial justice teaches us that structural harm must be confronted with structural analysis. Queer and trans movements teach us that autonomy, self naming, and embodied truth are non negotiable. Neurodiversity justice brings the knowledge that cognitive and sensory difference are integral parts of human diversity and that environments must be redesigned to honor them. Together, these movements form a foundation strong enough to support broad transformation.

The work ahead is both challenging and hopeful. It will require the courage to name structural harm without flinching, the humility to learn from one another, and the commitment to build communities where everyone can participate according to their capacity. It will require solutions that are creative, flexible, and rooted in care rather than punishment. It will require trust building, conflict navigation, and the willingness to repair relationships when rupture occurs. It will require a sustained investment in cultural work that expands public imagination and a long term strategy for political and institutional redesign.

But the promise of solidarity is profound. It promises a world where neurodivergent adults are not forced to endure environments that work against their bodies. It promises a world where disabled people are not treated as burdens. It promises a world where queer and trans people do not have to justify their existence. It promises a world where racialized communities can live without constant threat. These futures do not emerge by chance. They emerge through collective effort, shared vision, and the belief that liberation is not only possible but already in motion.

Solidarity is how we honor the people who came before us and how we protect the people who will come after. It is how we transform survival into belonging and belonging into power. It is how we build movements capable of creating a world where all of us can exist fully, with freedom, dignity, and the assurance that our lives matter.

Reflection Questions

How have your own identities shaped the way institutions interpret your body and mind, and what patterns emerge when you examine those interpretations through the lens of ableism, racism, cisheteronormativity, and productivity norms?
When you think about your earliest experiences of misattunement or misunderstanding, how do you see structural forces shaping those moments rather than individual failures or personal deficits?
What stories have you been taught about normalcy, stability, intelligence, or professionalism, and how have those stories influenced your understanding of yourself, your community, and your place within larger social systems?
In what ways has collective trauma shaped your sense of belonging, and how does this trauma connect you to the histories of other movements that have resisted assimilation, pathologization, and state control?
Which principles from disability justice resonate most deeply with your lived experience, and how might these principles transform your relationships, your work, or your participation in community life?
How does your understanding of cognitive and sensory oppression shift when you consider how often neurodivergent distress is read as defiance, instability, or threat, especially when combined with racialized or gendered assumptions?
What kinds of coalition structures would allow you to participate fully without masking your needs or performing a version of yourself that is easier for others to understand?
How do you respond to conflict within movement spaces, and how might non punitive accountability practices create safer and more honest environments for community members, including those with neurodivergent communication styles?
Where do you see opportunities for shared campaigns in your local context, and how might these campaigns benefit from the strengths and strategies of multiple movements working together?
Which cultural narratives about neurodivergent, queer, disabled, or racialized people do you want to challenge or rewrite, and how might art, storytelling, or collective memory contribute to that work?
What forms of emotional labor do you carry in solidarity spaces, and how might you redistribute or share this labor so that it supports sustainability rather than exhaustion?
How does your imagination shift when you envision a world where institutions, public infrastructure, and cultural norms are designed with neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized bodies in mind from the beginning?
What fears or internalized narratives come up when you consider stepping back or resting within movement work, and how might you reframe rest as part of collective strategy rather than a withdrawal from responsibility?
How do you understand your place within the long arc of movement history, and in what ways do you feel connected to the people whose resistance made your life possible?
What would liberation look like in your daily life, and what collective steps would be necessary to bring that vision into being within your community, your institutions, or your movement work?

Community Reflection Questions

What shared experiences of misinterpretation, exclusion, or surveillance do we notice across our neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized communities, and what does this reveal about the systems shaping those experiences?
How has our community learned to survive environments that were not built for us, and which survival strategies are we ready to transform into sources of collective strength rather than private coping?
In what ways do we already practice solidarity in our daily relationships, and how might we deepen those practices into intentional structures that support long term organizing?
What patterns of harm or conflict show up repeatedly in our community spaces, and how can we address them through non punitive accountability rather than through silence or avoidance?
Which forms of knowledge do we feel are undervalued or dismissed by institutions, and how can we elevate neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and BIPOC expertise within our collective work?
How do sensory, cognitive, and communication differences shape the way our community interacts, and what structural adjustments would allow more people to participate fully without masking?
What local issues affect multiple marginalized groups at once, and how might a shared campaign or project allow us to challenge those issues more effectively than isolated efforts?
How can we create community agreements that honor difference, support regulation, and provide clear expectations for communication and care?
Where do we see cultural narratives that limit our ability to imagine liberation, and what stories, art, or collective memories might help us break through those constraints?
How can we balance the emotional labor required to build movements with the need for rest, sustainability, and long term participation from everyone involved?
What relationships or partnerships across movements feel promising, and what concrete steps can we take to build trust and mutual support with those groups?
How do we understand power within our community, and what practices can we put in place to redistribute power so that leadership reflects those most impacted by structural harm?
What would it look like for our community to design environments, policies, or practices that center neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized needs from the beginning rather than as later adjustments?
How do we want to be remembered as a movement, and what legacy do we hope to create for the next generation of neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and BIPOC youth?
What commitments can we make together today that will move us closer to the world we are trying to build, and what support do we need from each other to honor those commitments?

Organizational Reflection Questions

How does our organization currently define normalcy, professionalism, and stability, and whose bodies and minds are centered or marginalized by these definitions?
In what ways do our policies and practices reflect the influence of ableism, racism, cisheteronormativity, and productivity norms, even if unintentionally?
How does our organization interpret neurodivergent communication, sensory needs, and pacing differences, and what structural changes would allow neurodivergent people to participate without masking or self suppression?
Who holds power within our organization, and how do race, disability, gender identity, and neurodivergent embodiment shape access to leadership roles, influence, and decision making?
How do we currently respond to conflict, and do our responses rely on punitive or exclusionary practices that reflect carceral thinking rather than collective repair?
What accountability structures exist in our organization, and do they truly support those harmed, especially neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized members, or do they focus on protecting the institution?
How do we compensate labor within our organization, and whose labor is most likely to go unrecognized, unpaid, or taken for granted, particularly emotional labor and access labor?
How do sensory environments in our physical and virtual spaces impact regulation, participation, and safety for neurodivergent, disabled, queer, and racialized people?
What assumptions guide our hiring practices, evaluations, and performance expectations, and how do these assumptions reinforce inequity for neurodivergent and multiply marginalized applicants?
How do we incorporate community expertise into our decision making, and what barriers prevent autistic, ADHD, disabled, queer, trans, and BIPOC leaders from shaping organizational direction?
How does our organization currently communicate internally and externally, and what changes are needed to align our communication practices with access, autonomy, and cultural safety?
Which institutional partners do we collaborate with, and how do those relationships reflect or contradict our stated commitments to justice and liberation?
What investments are we making in staff training, education, and political development, and do these investments meaningfully deepen structural understanding rather than offering superficial awareness?
How do we understand sustainability within our organization, and what practices are in place to prevent burnout among neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and racialized team members?
What long term changes must we commit to in order to align our organization with disability justice, neurodiversity justice, queer justice, and racial justice, and what resources, time, and accountability will be required to make those changes real?

Policy Reflection Questions

What assumptions about bodies, minds, communication, and behavior are embedded in our current policies, and how do these assumptions privilege neurotypical, cisgender, white, and able bodied norms?
Which policies rely on punitive or compliance based frameworks, and how do these frameworks disproportionately harm neurodivergent, disabled, queer, trans, and racialized people?
How do our policies define safety, and whose safety is prioritized or ignored within that definition?
Which policies require individuals to mask, perform, or suppress sensory or cognitive needs in order to receive services, remain employed, or participate fully?
How does our organization collect data when making policy decisions, and are neurodivergent, disabled, queer, trans, and BIPOC communities meaningfully represented in that data?
Where do our policies rely on medical gatekeeping, and how does that reliance restrict autonomy for neurodivergent, queer, trans, and disabled people?
How do our policies handle communication differences, and do they assume that legitimacy is tied to speech, eye contact, tone, or linear narrative coherence?
Which of our policies depend on narrow productivity standards, and how do these standards reinforce structural inequality for neurodivergent people whose energy, pacing, and regulation needs differ from dominant expectations?
How do our policies address sensory accessibility, and do they frame sensory needs as optional accommodations or as essential components of equitable design?
In what ways do our discipline, grievance, or conduct policies reflect carceral logic, and how might non punitive, restorative, or transformative frameworks offer safer and more just alternatives?
How do our policies determine who is authorized to make decisions, and what structural barriers prevent neurodivergent, disabled, queer, trans, or racialized people from being part of policy formation?
What financial policies shape pay equity, benefits, scheduling, and leave, and how do these policies support or undermine the wellbeing of employees with chronic stress, fluctuating capacity, or high care burdens?
How do our policies handle remote participation, flexible work, or asynchronous communication, and do they reflect an understanding of diverse cognitive and sensory needs?
Which policies address healthcare access, mental health support, and crisis response, and how do those policies perpetuate or disrupt harmful patterns of medical dismissal, police involvement, or forced institutionalization?
How do our policies engage with external systems such as law enforcement, public health agencies, or educational authorities, and what risks do these relationships pose to neurodivergent, disabled, queer, trans, and racialized communities?
What accountability mechanisms exist when policies cause harm, and do those mechanisms center the people most affected or protect institutional reputation?
How often are our policies reviewed, revised, or audited, and who is included in that process?
What long term policy changes are needed to align our institution with a neurodiversity justice vision, and what resources, timelines, and accountability structures will be required to make those changes real?

Author’s Note

This guide was born from years of listening to neurodivergent communities describe the reality of surviving systems that were never built for our bodies or minds. It was shaped by the voices of autistic and ADHD adults who have spent a lifetime navigating misinterpretation, sensory overwhelm, vigilance, and the quiet grief of being consistently misunderstood. It was also shaped by the long lineages of disability justice, queer justice, and racial justice movements that have taught us that liberation is a collective project and that no single community can transform the conditions of our lives alone.

As a neurodivergent writer and advocate, I have spent much of my life watching institutions respond to neurodivergent distress as disruption, neurodivergent communication as instability, and neurodivergent needs as inconvenience. I have also watched the same institutions pathologize queer identity, police gender expression, criminalize racialized bodies, and frame disability as an individual burden rather than a social responsibility. These patterns are not separate. They are expressions of the same systems of control, and they shape the lives of neurodivergent people who are also queer, trans, Black, brown, disabled, or otherwise marginalized.

Solidarity is not a slogan. It is a recognition that our harms are connected because the structures that produce them are connected. It is a recognition that our futures are intertwined whether institutions acknowledge that truth or not. The movements that came before us have already shown what becomes possible when communities refuse to remain isolated. Disability justice taught us that interdependence is a strength. Racial justice taught us that structural violence must be confronted with structural analysis. Queer and trans liberation taught us that autonomy is non negotiable. Neurodiversity justice builds on these lessons by naming sensory oppression, cognitive oppression, and compliance culture as forms of violence that are often hidden in plain sight.

This guide is an invitation to understand solidarity not as an act of charity or empathy but as an act of shared survival and shared possibility. It is an invitation to examine the policies, environments, and cultural narratives that shape our institutions and to imagine what becomes possible when those structures are redesigned with all of us in mind. It is an invitation to see neurodivergent futures as inseparable from queer futures, disabled futures, and racial justice futures.

I wrote this guide because I believe that movements become stronger when they recognize the brilliance and resilience within each other’s communities. I wrote it because neurodivergent people deserve to live in a world where their sensory truths, cognitive patterns, and relational rhythms are understood rather than punished. I wrote it because the world we live in now is not inevitable, and the world we are building together has already begun to take shape.

Thank you for reading, for questioning, for imagining, and for joining in the work of building a future where all of us can exist fully.

Bridgette Hamstead

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