Neuroqueering as Practice: How it Shows up in the Daily Texture of Life

Part 3 of the Neuroqueer Series

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If Part 2 was the theory - layered, interwoven, and meant to prod the brain - this one’s more like me in my jams, cross-legged on the floor, ice cream in one hand, favorite spoon in the other.

What does neuroqueering look like when it’s not a concept, but a life?

How does it show up in the quiet, weird, beautiful ways we move through our days?

Here’s the thing: most neurodivergent and/or queer people I know have been neuroqueering long before we had a word to call it. We just didn’t always know that’s what we were doing.

I could probably trace most of my childhood punishments back to some pint-sized version of me quietly neuroqueering her way through the '80s. Rewriting social scripts. Mixing softness and defiance. Dressing weird. Refusing to play the part.

We’ve been dodging norms, bending binaries, refusing to hide our stims or our sparkle, and rebuilding around what actually feels right - even when it didn’t make sense to anyone else.

So again: what does it mean to live neuroqueer? This isn’t a checklist. It’s a lens.

You might see yourself here and think, “Oh… so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

You might not. That’s okay too.

This isn’t about passing some kind of test.

It’s about recognizing the parts of you that were always quietly right.”

Unmasking as resistance

Unmasking gets a lot of airtime in neurodivergent spaces, usually framed as a personal mental health decision. But when I look at it through a neuroqueer lens, it feels like even more than that - it starts to look like resistance. It starts to look like reclamation.

Not just “take off the mask,” but: Why was I ever told I needed one?

Who benefits from me hiding?

Neuroqueering asks different questions - and gives you room to live the answers.

It might look like:

• Choosing silence over small talk

• No longer "going along" for things that drain you

• Reclaiming your natural speaking rhythm, tone, or volume

• Letting your emotions show, even when they make other people squirm

It’s not always comfortable. But it’s real.

And that’s the point.

Deconstructing gender

I don’t know many neurodivergents who haven't at some point, side-eyed gender. It’s hard not to when your brain is wired to question norms and you’ve spent your life decoding social rules that seem arbitrary at best.

Neuroqueering gender might look like:

• Dressing for texture, safety, or joy - not gender performance

• Letting your pronouns shift to match your sensory or emotional state

• Feeling outside the binary and not needing a label for it

• Wearing lipstick with a buzzcut and boots, just because Tuesday asked for it

Sometimes, neurodivergence cracks the door open to queerness.

Sometimes queerness helps you stop masking your brain.

Either way, it’s saying yes to yourself. We all need to do lots more of that.

Rejecting productivity myths

Modern culture celebrates the people who are easy to schedule, quick to recover, and always productive.

Neuroqueering work means stepping away from that story - sometimes tiptoeing, sometimes slamming the door.

For me, this started with noticing when I actually felt like working. What hours. What sensory inputs helped. When and how could I rest that it was restorative and didn't feel like punishment.

You might notice it too, in ways like:

• Building rest-first routines

• Working at night because that’s when your brain lights up

• Letting your own flow & rhythm of energy dictate your to-do list

• Reframing “I did one thing” as enough

This isn’t laziness. It really is just finally believing your own mind and self. Then choosing to trust that those parts and all your others know what you need to live healthy and whole.

That can not be too much to ask for ourselves. It can't be.

Letting your communication be weird and true

For most of my life, I thought I had to say things the “right” way or not at all.

Neuroqueering communication is helping me stop performing fluency and start trusting resonance.

So far, that's showing up in a few main ways:

• Using memes and gifs because they "say it the way I mean it."

• Sending long messages because I've been misunderstood too many times to risk being vague.

• Skipping eye contact because I’m more present when I do - & what better reason is there?

• Letting silence be part of the conversation because it feels right to hate "filler words" - and now I can

This is not about being difficult. None of these things makes a person difficult. This is about being the very real, very intentional, existing, feeling human being that you are. No apologies are needed.

Building relationships from scratch

Neuroqueering reshapes how we relate - romantically, platonically, communally.

It helps us let go of relationship templates that were never designed with us in mind.

That might look like:

• Friendship contracts or care agreements

• Romantic relationships that don’t follow a typical arc

• Making space for sensory differences without apology

• Prioritizing chosen family over inherited roles

Basically, everyone gets to build what works.

It’s the point.

This isn’t about arriving - it’s about living

To neuroqueer your life is to move through the world like a prism instead of a mirror.

You don’t reflect what people expect. You refract it.

You shift it.

You make something new.

And it doesn’t have to be loud to be radical.

Quiet neuroqueering is still neuroqueering.

Soft reclamation is still reclamation.

-Elle

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The Neuroqueer Series

This series isn’t here to hand you a single definition - it’s here to offer multiple doorways, so you can step through the ones that feel most alive for you.

• Part 1: Neuroqueer Meaning: More Than Just a Word - is neuroqueer an identity? A practice? A theory? A vibe? The short answer is yes. That’s part of its magic.

• Part 2: The History of Neuroqueer - how queer theory, disability studies, and the neurodiversity paradigm braided together to create the term, and how it has evolved since Nick Walker first introduced it.

• Part 3: Neuroqueering as Practice - bringing theory into the texture of daily life: relationships, creative work, language, masking and unmasking, and all the subtle, radical acts that make up living neuroqueer.

• Part 4: The Cultural Conversation - looking at the excitement, critiques, misunderstandings, and what’s at stake when communities embrace - or reject - this language.

• Part 5: Neuroqueer Futures - imagining the worlds we could build when we let queerness and neurodivergence fully shape our communities, our care, and our creative work.

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Want to keep exploring beyond neuroqueering as practice?

This space is still new, but it’s already full of big questions, half-formed truths, and stories that might sound a little like yours.

If you’re curious where to go next, here are a few places to wander:

• Safety Nets I've Stitched for Myself: Why Autistic Safety Systems Matter

  For me, safety is about understanding how easily the world can misread me, how quickly my own brain can work against me if I push too hard, and how I’ve had to become both my own advocate and my own accommodation just to navigate the supposedly “ordinary” parts of life.

  
  

• When Narcissists Target Neurodivergent People

  Being tangled up with someone who twists your words, rewrites your memories, and makes you doubt what’s real is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse of neurodivergent people - and you are not imagining it.

  
  

• The Queer Neurodivergent Life Map Quickstart (free download)

  A gentle, self-paced journal for autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, queer or otherwise neurodivergent women who are ready to unmask, unlearn, and rewrite their story from the inside out.

Or, if you just want to be here quietly, you can join the list and I’ll send new things your way when they’re ready. No pressure. No performance.

I love that you’re here.