French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu once said "Our tastes are our disgust." There is a reaction between what we like and dislike. It's not as easy as we think and classes play a role. Riches buy expensive cars because of the disgust of the poor. It's over simplified, but it gives you an example.

Your class plays a role in what you're buying and what you like. I generally write here about neurodiversity, autism... This is still the case here with my citation of Pierre Bourdieu. In fact, this is very autistic. We can even say it's neurodivergent and so have to do with neuronormativity.

I began my journey with the medical model like most of us. It's everywhere when you search the internet. You need to dig deeper to find the social model. Read after reading, I find that autism isn't medical. It's social, and has to do with society. Our behavior is driven by society and not autism. We are different from what implies thinking, communicating, and learning differently. But, society is normative. It doesn't allow the differences. It's all about homogeneity.

In these circumstances, autistics behaves untypically. It triggers masking after traumas. It triggers internalized ableism to fit in, to be part of this society.

Back to Bourdieu's citation, the society has an influence on our taste, on what we like. If someone like an expensive item is by disgust of a class, a group of people. In our society, the lower classes are stigmatized, they are seen as of a lower value, as unintelligent. People seen as gross. All of this is wrong. It should not be the case. This has consequences. We can look at how lowering taxes for billionaires is popular even if we know that they should pay more taxes. The disgus of some built the taste of others.

Neurodivergents are stigmatized as well as the poorer. They are not seen as trustworthy in research. They are seen as second class citizens. Neurotypical knows better than neurodivergent. But, they don't live it.

We can see neurodivergent as a class. They are the victims of the same dynamics about tastes and disgust. The disgust of the non-normative creates the taste for the normativity. This influences why some parents will praise conversion therapies.

But, it goes further. It implies neurodivergents directly. Many of us have/had internalized ableism. Neurodivergent masks to fit in. These are reactions to what we see as disgusting. As the rich buy an expensive car in reaction to the lower class, neurodivergent will mask in reaction to what society doesn't like. Internalized ableism is what we like in reaction to what we disgus, our natural us.

We, as neurodivergents, have to liberate ourselves of the neuronormativity. We have to embrace our natural taste to stop hating ourselves. We see ourselves as so disgusting that our tastes are not our anymore.

#autism #neurodiversity #ableism #actuallyautistic @actuallyautistic