This edited collection of contributions explores non-normative genders, sexualities, and relationality among Autistic people. Written within an explicitly neuro-affirmative frame, the collection celebrates the diversity and richness of Autistic identity, sexuality, gender, and relationships, exploring areas such as consent, embodiment, ink, kink, sex education, and therapeutic work. All editors and contributors are neurodivergent and members of the communities that the book focuses on, providing an authentic and unique exploration of gender, sexuality, and relationality in Autistic people by Autistic/other neurodivergent authors. The book is primarily intended for postgraduate students and academics across disciplines including sociology, social work, psychology, disability studies, inclusive and special education, and sexual education. Mental health professionals and educators will also find it a useful resource to support their Autistic clients as well as developing their own understanding about how to support Autistic people in a neurodiversity-affirming, kink-affirming, LGBTQ+, and gender-variant way.

This handbook highlights the growing tensions surrounding the current dominant ethical clearance model which is increasingly being questioned, particularly in critical research. It draws on stories from the field in critical research conducted in a range of contexts and countries and on an array of topics. The authors involved in this collection encountered dilemmas, contradictions and surprises that brought about a change in their understanding of ethics. Throughout the book they discuss how ethics is an ongoing and situated struggle that requires researchers, at times, to traverse traditional ethical imperatives. Four sections lead readers through the complexities of grounded ethical practice: encountering systems, including Ethics Committees and institutions; blurring boundaries within research; the politics of voice, anonymity and confidentiality; and power relations in researching ‘down’, ‘up’, and ‘alongside’. This handbook is a resource for social science researchers using critical methodologies across a range of disciplines, as well as for students and teachers of ethics, in navigating the quandaries of ‘doing good’ while doing good research.

Sports are ubiquitous in American society, and given their prominence in the culture, it is easy to understand how most youth in the United States face pressure to participate in organized sports. But what does this mean for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who live with one or more physical disabilities and, in particular, those in powered wheelchairs? Located at the intersection of sports and disability, this book tells the story of power soccer - the first competitive team sport specifically designed for electric wheelchair users. Beginning in France in the 1970s, today, over sixty teams compete within the United States Power Soccer Association (USPSA) and the sport is actively played in over thirty countries. Using ethnographic research conducted while attending practices, games, and social functions of teams from across the nation, Jeffress builds a strong case that electric wheelchair users deserve more opportunity to play sports. They deserve it because they need the same physical and psychosocial benefits from participation as their peers, who have full use of their arms and legs. It challenges the social constructions and barriers that currently stand in the way. Most importantly, this book tells the story of some amazing power soccer athletes. It is a moving, first-hand account of what power soccer means to them and the implications this has for society.

Increasingly, voices in the growing neurodiversity movement are alleging that individuals who are neurologically divergent, such as those with conditions related to bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia, and depression, must struggle for their civil rights. This movement therefore raises questions of interest to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as to concerned members of the general public. These questions have to do with such matters as the accessibility of knowledge about mental health; autonomy and community within the realm of the mentally ill; and accommodation in civil society and its institutions. The contributors to Ethics and Neurodiversity explore these questions, and the traditional philosophical questions related to them. The authors pay special attention to the need to examine the policies and practices of institutions, such as higher education, social support, and healthcare.

Building on work in feminist studies, queer studies and critical race theory, this volume challenges the universality of propositions about human nature, by questioning the boundaries between predominant neurotypes and ‘others’, including dyslexics, autistics and ADHDers. This is the first work of its kind to bring cutting-edge research across disciplines to the concept of neurodiversity. It offers in-depth explorations of the themes of cure/prevention/eugenics; neurodivergent wellbeing; cross-neurotype communication; neurodiversity at work; and challenging brain-bound cognition. It analyses the role of neuro-normativity in theorising agency, and a proposal for a new alliance between the Hearing Voices Movement and neurodiversity. In doing so, we contribute to a cultural imperative to redefine what it means to be human. To this end, we propose a new field of enquiry that finds ways to support the inclusion of neurodivergent perspectives in knowledge production, and which questions the theoretical and mythological assumptions that produce the idea of the neurotypical. Working at the crossroads between sociology, critical psychology, medical humanities, critical disability studies, and critical autism studies, and sharing theoretical ground with critical race studies and critical queer studies, the proposed new field – neurodiversity studies – will be of interest to people working in all these areas. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This open access book marks the first historical overview of the autism rights branch of the neurodiversity movement, describing the activities and rationales of key leaders in their own words since it organized into a unique community in 1992. Sandwiched by editorial chapters that include critical analysis, the book contains 19 chapters by 21 authors about the forming of the autistic community and neurodiversity movement, progress in their influence on the broader autism community and field, and their possible threshold of the advocacy establishment. The actions covered are legendary in the autistic community, including manifestos such as “Don’t Mourn for Us”, mailing lists, websites or webpages, conferences, issue campaigns, academic project and journal, a book, and advisory roles. These actions have shifted the landscape toward viewing autism in social terms of human rights and identity to accept, rather than as a medical collection of deficits and symptoms to cure.