I googled it and apparently they are considered neurodivergent? I want sources from here rather than searching it and going through an autism speaks kind of thing.
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I’m not sure what actually counts as neurodivergency but downs syndrome is a chromosomal disorder which is different from the standard form of neurodivergency I’m used to. However considering the basic definition of neurodivergency is brain work not normal I think they fit. Unfortunately I don’t have anything I can think of of the top of my head as a good source other than some academic papers or another
Neurodivergence isn’t a medical or legal term, it’s a social and political movement. Doctors and lawyers don’t have control of that word. So, frankly, it’s whatever we say it is - that’s the point, it’s demedicalized.
How I frame it is as you said, a relation to a particular enforced norm that we call neurotypical. If you deviate from that enforced norm and face consequences because of that, you’d be neurodivergent. This politically aligns down syndrome with, say, autism, in that there’s a lot of common political ground wrt eugenics, harassment, NT’s using us as a way to insult each other, loss of autonomy, and other forms of ableism. If you understand it as this, you can then differentiate something that’s explicitly medicalized and pathologized from, say, having yellow as your favorite color; the latter could be anything unusual about an individual, but it’s not something that society at large treats as aberrant and in some way in need of correction or prevention.
More broadly I see neurodivergence as also politically aligned with mad pride, which often has the same enemies as us and the same tired arguments lobbed against it.
So would you say that neurodivergency is anything that separates someone from the normal ability to function within our societal structure? I’m not exactly sure I understand what you are saying but that might be because I just woke up
Close, yeah. “Function” isn’t quite the word, the wealthiest men in tech are autistic after all, but rather divergence from an enforced norm for how people think. So while yellow is an uncommon favorite color, it’s not an enforced norm, nothing in society then is in some way trying to make blue your favorite color. Being punctual isn’t typically neurodivergent despite being uncommon because our society really values that trait; punctuality in the way autustics can be very literal about time however is a violation of norms that gets pushback. I’d probably also assume there must be some degree of pathologization, but that might just be the difference between being Neurodivergent and eveyone to some degree being pressured into fitting the mold of the ideal worker under capitalism. People like Musk and Zuckeeberg might get ableist responses about their facial expressions being off, but as caoitalists they are exempted from that worker mold and are more permittrd to be “eccentric.”
