The Intersection Is the Point: Why Neurodiversity Justice Must Be Intersectional
Bridgette Hamstead
Neurodiversity justice cannot be separated from other forms of justice. Any advocacy that seeks to address the rights, needs, and liberation of neurodivergent people must be fundamentally intersectional, not only in language but in structure, leadership, and practice. Too often, neurodivergent advocacy is framed through a single-axis lens, centered around whiteness, cis-normativity, middle-class experience, and the voices of those whose neurodivergence aligns neatly with dominant narratives. Within this framing, race, gender, class, and queerness are treated as secondary considerations or identity “add-ons,” rather than as essential and interwoven elements of how neurodivergence is experienced, interpreted, and responded to in the world. This is not only inadequate, it is dangerous. It leaves the most vulnerable members of our community without representation, without resources, and without safety. It also fundamentally misrepresents the nature of oppression, which never operates along only one line at a time.
The lives of neurodivergent people are not neatly compartmentalized. We are not neurodivergent or Black, or disabled, or queer, or low-income, we are all of those things at once, and the systems we navigate respond accordingly. When a Black autistic student is criminalized in the classroom, when a trans ADHD adult is denied adequate healthcare, when an undocumented autistic person fears accessing support due to immigration enforcement, when a non-speaking person with an intellectual disability is excluded from policy conversations because they are assumed incapable of participating, these are not fringe experiences. These are the experiences that should be at the center of our frameworks. The most targeted members of our communities hold the clearest knowledge of where systems fail. If our advocacy does not start from their realities, then it is neither just nor complete.
Historically, neurodiversity movements have struggled to adequately account for these intersections. Early public narratives about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other forms of neurodivergence were dominated by white, cisgender, male, middle- and upper-class figures. The medical model reinforced this bias by centering research and diagnostic criteria around white boys, normalizing their developmental trajectories while ignoring or misinterpreting everyone else’s. As a result, generations of neurodivergent people, especially women, nonbinary people, Black and brown people, immigrants, and those from working-class backgrounds, were misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, or pathologized in ways that obscured their neurodivergence altogether. Today, even as public understanding begins to expand, many of the most visible neurodivergent advocacy spaces continue to center those same identities, often replicating the very exclusions they claim to oppose.
Intersectionality is not a branding strategy or a rhetorical flourish, it is a framework developed by Black feminist scholars and organizers to explain how systems of power interlock and compound. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality was never intended as a catchphrase. It was a legal and political tool for identifying the specific ways that Black women were excluded from both antiracist and feminist movements, despite being affected by both racism and sexism. When applied to neurodiversity justice, intersectionality asks us to look at how ableism interacts with other systems of oppression—to understand how being neurodivergent changes the experience of being Black, queer, or poor, and how being Black, queer, or poor changes the experience of being neurodivergent. This is not theoretical. It has real implications for access to education, housing, healthcare, employment, legal representation, and community care.
Centering intersectionality also means rethinking who we allow to lead. Neurodivergent spaces are too often dominated by those who are most palatable to institutional power, those who can speak in certain ways, present in certain ways, and translate their experience into a form legible to funders, policymakers, and media outlets. This kind of gatekeeping reinforces white supremacy, ableism, classism, and anti-Blackness. If your neurodivergent advocacy space is overwhelmingly white, cis, and verbally fluent, it is not because others are absent. It is because barriers remain unaddressed—barriers around communication, culture, cost, access, language, and safety. Intersectional neurodiversity work does not simply invite people in; it questions why they were ever excluded and begins redesigning the space to reflect their realities.
Furthermore, intersectionality helps us understand that the stakes are different depending on who we are. The same neurodivergent trait that is framed as quirky in a white child may be seen as threatening in a Black child. The same emotional dysregulation that is medicalized in a middle-class adult may be criminalized in a poor one. Masking may provide short-term protection for some, while posing unbearable psychological harm for others who are punished even when they conform. The consequences of being misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or unaccommodated are not evenly distributed. Without an intersectional lens, neurodiversity advocacy risks reinforcing a tiered system of legitimacy, one that validates some experiences while erasing others.
Intersectional neurodiversity justice also opens the door to coalition. The fights for racial justice, trans liberation, housing justice, reproductive autonomy, and disability rights are deeply connected to our work. We share common enemies: systems that prize control over care, conformity over access, productivity over rest, and profit over people. Neurodivergent people are already present in every one of these movements, not just as participants but as visionaries, organizers, artists, and architects of liberatory futures. Our frameworks must reflect that. When we silo neurodivergent advocacy from broader justice movements, we shrink its potential. When we root it in intersectional solidarity, we expand what becomes possible, not just for us, but for everyone pushed to the margins by systems of control.
The intersection is not an afterthought. It is the point. Neurodiversity justice that is not intersectional will always default to the most privileged, most legible voices, leaving those most affected by harm to advocate alone. But when we center those whose experiences sit at the sharpest edges of oppression, when we design around them, learn from them, and follow their lead, we move toward something truer, deeper, and more transformative. Intersectionality is not optional. It is the only way forward.
Reflection Questions:
When you think about neurodivergent advocacy, whose stories and identities first come to mind? Whose stories are absent? Why do you think that is?
In what ways have race, gender, class, or queerness shaped your own experience of being neurodivergent or shaped how others respond to your neurodivergence?
Have you ever been part of a neurodivergent space or support group that felt unsafe or inaccessible because of your other identities (racial, cultural, linguistic, gendered, etc.)? What made it feel that way?
How does whiteness show up in diagnostic criteria, research studies, treatment plans, or advocacy campaigns around neurodivergence?
What assumptions do you think clinicians, educators, or employers make about who is “really” autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, or intellectually disabled? How are those assumptions shaped by race, class, and perceived intelligence?
How have masking, scripting, or code-switching operated differently for you depending on which of your identities were being read or policed in a particular space?
What would it look like to design neurodivergent support systems around the people most often excluded, non-speaking people, people of color, trans and queer people, undocumented people, low-income people, and those with high support needs?
How can organizations move beyond surface-level DEI statements to truly embed intersectionality into the leadership, design, and evaluation of neurodiversity initiatives?
Have you ever witnessed a neurodivergent person being believed or disbelieved because of their race, gender, or socioeconomic status? What were the consequences?
What kinds of gatekeeping exist in your professional, clinical, or community environments when it comes to who is allowed to “represent” neurodivergence publicly?
Who are the intersectional leaders, past or present, whose work has helped you understand neurodivergence more fully? What have they taught you?
If your neurodivergent advocacy or workplace inclusion plan only “works” for white, middle-class, verbally fluent people, what needs to change?
What forms of solidarity can be built between neurodiversity justice and other movements for liberation? Where do your values or commitments overlap?
How are you actively challenging power structures in your neurodiversity work or where might you still be upholding them, even unintentionally?
What would a neurodivergent space rooted in intersectionality feel like, sound like, and look like? Who would be leading it? Who would feel at home?