Neuroqueer is a term that describes the deep entanglement between being neurodivergent and being queer, and the deliberate act of pushing back against the social pressure to appear “normal” in both domains. It was developed by Nick Walker, Athena Lynn Michaels-Dillon, and M. Remi Yergeau, and it functions simultaneously as a theoretical framework, an identity label, and an active practice. Unlike a simple compound of “neurodivergent + queer,” it carries a specific argument: that the cultural forces pushing people to act neurotypical and the forces pushing people to act straight and cisgender are deeply connected, and resisting one often means resisting both.
Where the Term Comes From
Neuroqueer draws directly from queer theory, which treats gender and sexuality as performances that society trains people into from infancy. In that framework, “queering” something means deliberately subverting, disrupting, or deviating from those expected performances. Walker and his co-creators applied the same logic to neurotypicality: society also trains people to perform a “normal” style of thinking, communicating, moving, and relating. Neuroqueering means subverting that performance too.
The key insight is that these two systems of social pressure aren’t separate. Gender norms and neurocognitive norms are co-constructed. The “right” way to make eye contact, the “right” way to express emotion, the “right” pace at which to do things, the “right” way to sit still in a classroom: these expectations are simultaneously about neurotypicality and about conforming to gendered, heteronormative standards of behavior. Neuroqueer names that overlap and treats it as a single thing to push against, rather than two separate fights.
Three Ways “Neuroqueer” Gets Used
A scoping review in the British Journal of Social Work found that across academic research, neuroqueer resists a single fixed definition but consistently appears in three forms.
First, it’s a theoretical framework for understanding that queerness and neurodivergence are inseparable rather than two separate identity categories that occasionally overlap. Under this lens, a person’s internal experience of gender, sexuality, and cognitive difference can’t be cleanly sorted into separate boxes. They shape each other.
Second, it’s a verb. “Neuroqueering” refers to creative, sometimes messy practices that actively disrupt neuronormativity. This can look like making art that explores the intersection of neurodivergence and gender, refusing to mask autistic traits in social settings, or rethinking how schools and workplaces define acceptable behavior. Researchers have described acts of creativity, messiness, failure, resistance, and “being unapologetically neurodivergent” as central to neuroqueering as a practice.
Third, it describes an embodied experience. Some people use “neuroqueer” to name what it feels like to live at the intersection of queerness and neurodivergence, where the two aren’t additive but intertwined in their daily, bodily reality.
What Neuroqueering Looks Like in Practice
In educational settings, neuroqueering challenges some deeply embedded assumptions. It rejects the idea that a calm, still body is the ideal state for learning, and instead treats stimming (repetitive movements like rocking, hand-flapping, or fidgeting) as a valid and complex form of expression rather than a symptom to manage. It questions the concept of linear time in schools, recognizing that rigid academic timelines are a social construct that doesn’t match how many neurodivergent people actually learn best. Some educators working from this framework prioritize letting students follow deep, focused interests at their own pace rather than forcing uniform schedules.
Neuroqueering also rethinks conflict. Rather than defaulting to a framework where one student is right and one is wrong, it tries to appreciate that different neurological styles produce genuinely different perspectives on what just happened. One researcher, Antillón, has described “neuroclowning,” the practice of embracing social faux pas and using humor and play as creative tools, drawing a parallel to clowning traditions in Black culture that tear down oppressive norms through mockery and roasting.
On a personal level, neuroqueering can be as straightforward as recognizing that your neurodivergent identity and your queer identity interact and refusing to treat them as unrelated. If you’re neurodivergent and choose to represent your gender in an intentionally non-normative way, understanding that your neurotype shapes how you experience and express gender, that’s neuroqueering.
The Overlap Between Neurodivergence and Queerness
The neuroqueer framework isn’t just theoretical. There’s a well-documented statistical overlap between neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ populations. A recent meta-analysis found that roughly 11% of transgender individuals are autistic, a rate many times higher than in the general population. In one cohort study of trans children and adolescents seeking clinical care, nearly half (45.8%) exhibited elevated autistic traits. People in queer, trans, and kink communities have long noticed the heavy presence of neurodivergent people in those spaces.
Neuroqueer theory argues this overlap isn’t coincidental. If the social systems enforcing “normal” gender and “normal” cognition are intertwined, it makes sense that people who deviate from one set of norms frequently deviate from the other. The framework gives language to an experience many people already recognize: that their queerness and their neurodivergence aren’t separate facts about themselves but facets of the same lived reality.
How It Differs From the Neurodiversity Movement
The neurodiversity movement broadly argues that neurological differences like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and others are natural human variation rather than disorders to be cured. Neuroqueer theory shares that foundation but goes further in two specific ways.
First, it explicitly connects the politics of neurological difference to the politics of gender and sexuality. The neurodiversity movement can operate without reference to queerness. Neuroqueer theory insists the two are linked at the root.
Second, it borrows queer theory’s emphasis on active subversion. The neurodiversity movement often focuses on acceptance, accommodation, and inclusion within existing systems. Neuroqueer theory is more interested in disrupting those systems. It doesn’t just ask for a seat at the table; it questions why the table is shaped the way it is. Where neurodiversity might advocate for sensory-friendly workplaces, neuroqueering asks why workplaces are built around neurotypical sensory norms in the first place, and what it would look like to stop treating those norms as the default that needs to be accommodated around.
Neuroqueer as an Identity
Despite its roots in academic theory, neuroqueer has spread as a personal identity label, particularly in online neurodivergent and queer communities. For many people, it fills a gap that other labels don’t. One person described discovering the term after an autism diagnosis at age 37 and finding that it suddenly connected their experiences of gender, sexuality, and neurotype into a coherent whole. Another described it as unlocking “that part of myself that wanted to call forth the notions of my own gender and sexuality.”
The term is intentionally open-ended. Its creators have described it as alive and growing, shaped by the people who adopt it. It’s not a fixed diagnostic category or a rigid political identity. What it means to be neuroqueer varies from person to person, and that flexibility is considered a feature, not a limitation. For some, it’s primarily about the intersection of their autism and their transness. For others, it’s a political stance toward institutions. For others still, it’s a way of making art or building community. The common thread is the refusal to separate the experience of thinking differently from the experience of being queer, and the commitment to not performing “normal” in either domain.