Episode 432: Politeness as Weapon—Neurotypical Norms and Coercion
Today’s episode argues that conventional neurotypical politeness functions as a system of social control that actively protects those who cause harm whilst punishing the clarity and directness often characteristic of autistic communication. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, contends that politeness is often a “social technology” built on strategic ambiguity, which manipulators exploit to maintain power and deflect accountability. Furthermore, Dr. Hoerricks explains that autistic directness is mislabeled as rudeness or a “failure” of social skills when it is actually a form of resistance and self-preservation that disrupts coercive etiquette by eliminating the fog of ambiguity. Mechanisms like tone policing, accusations of rudeness, and claims of “overreaction” are described as tools used to enforce compliance and silence those who speak plainly, forcing autistic people to choose between truth and safety. Ultimately, she advocates for a shift from compliance-based politeness to ethics rooted in clarity and transparency, arguing that autistic communication is not broken but dangerous to systems built on performance and distortion.Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/politeness-as-weapon-how-neurotypicalLet me know what you think.The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe
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Episode 431: The Myth of Peter Pan—Autistic Adulthood and Sovereign Play
Today’s episode argues against the pervasive societal belief that autistic individuals fail to mature beyond childhood. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, asserts that this “infantilising gaze” is upheld by institutions and research that focus only on early intervention, effectively erasing the adult autistic experience from policy and recognition. Dr. Hoerricks contends that autistic development is a lifelong, spiraling process and that play is a mature and crucial form of learning and communication—a “praxis”—that the non-autistic world misinterprets as mere immaturity or regression. Ultimately, she calls for the reclamation of autistic adulthood and autonomy, defined by complex forms of connection, self-knowledge, and resistance through play.Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-myth-of-peter-pan-on-autisticLet me know what you think.The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe
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Episode 430: Autistic Storytelling—Bodies, Objects, and Distributed Narrative
Today’s episode provides an overview and meditation on Sarinah O’Donoghue’s 2023 essay, “Thinking with Sticks.” The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, emphasises a posthumanist perspective on autistic narrative, arguing that communication and meaning extend beyond verbal language and are co-authored by bodies, objects, movement, and sensory life. Dr. Hoerricks examines two foundational works in autistic self-advocacy, Mel Baggs’ In My Language and Adam Wolfond & Estée Klar’s S/Pace, to illustrate how material components, such as sticks or stones, function as thinking partners and communicative elements. This framework challenges the notion that intelligence is housed solely in the brain, instead proposing that cognition is distributed and relational, which validates non-traditional forms of expression like stimming and facilitated communication (FC). Ultimately, she advocates for recognising autistic experience as a valid and complex form of human patterning where the world actively participates in storytelling.Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/in-my-language-in-my-space-autisticLet me know what you think.The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe
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Episode 429: The Fog, the Landscape, and the Autistic–Trans Self
Today’s episode explores the lived experience of being an autistic-trans self, focusing on the concept of emergence and the societal “fog” that obscures self-recognition. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes how autistic and gender masking are survival mechanisms built to manage others’ limited perceptions, forcing the individual to live within the visible, often misinterpreted, portion of their truth. Dr. Hoerricks powerfully critiques epistemic violence—the way external projections and systemic discourses (psychiatrisation, repressive protection, medical management) attempt to define, pathologise, and control autistic trans identities at micro, meso, and macro levels. Ultimately, she argues for reclaiming authorship and establishing a community-led truth-making that insists on the clarity and self-sovereignty found when the oppressive societal fog finally lifts.Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-fog-the-landscape-and-the-autistictransLet me know what you think.The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe
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Episode 428: From Malleus to Algorithm—Standardising Systemic Violence
Today’s episode explores the historical and technological continuity of systematic harm. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that texts like the Malleus Maleficarum (Witch’s Hammer), an early instrument of standardised persecution made widely accessible by the printing press, established an architecture of violence that has persisted through the ages. This architecture of defining and eliminating deviation moved from theological justifications in witch hunts to medical and psychiatric diagnoses used against queer and neurodivergent individuals, and now manifests in modern algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs). The core claim is that new technologies, like AI, merely automate and scale old prejudices by ingesting and reproducing archives shaped by historical biases, transforming old hierarchies into new, hard-to-contest forms of procedural violence, such as risk-scoring and predictive policing. Ultimately, Dr. Hoerricks calls for recognition and disruption of this recurring pattern of standardised harm before it becomes inevitable within the algorithmic state.Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/from-the-malleus-maleficarum-to-algorithmicLet me know what you think.The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe
AutSide: A podcast from an autistic trans woman that explores critical issues at the intersection of autism, neurodiversity, gender, and social justice. Dive deep into the realities of living as an autistic adult, critiques of education systems, and the power of storytelling to reshape public narratives. With a unique blend of snark, sharp analysis, and personal experience, each episode challenges societal norms, from the failures of standardized testing to the complexities of identity and revolution. Join the conversation on AutSide, where lived experience and critical theory meet for change. autside.substack.com
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