The doors of perception: an intro to neuroqueer theory and love
Musings on the subjectivity of love and all things neuroqueer, via an interview with artist Laurie Green.
So much dating discourse seems centred on sameness, wrapped up in the guise of ‘compatibility’. Whether it’s looking for a partner with your exact copy-and-paste interests or choosing a date based on how well your aesthetics match, it’s an indictment of the ego-centric nature of our culture where everyone’s supposed soulmate seems to be, well, a version of themselves.
To me, it seems contrary to so much of what falling in love is about. See, we don’t step into love, it’s not intentional or calculated. We fall – it’s hazardous, random and at times painful. We jolt forwards without quite knowing where we’re headed. We surrender to the weird, transformative energy that beckons us to follow, but which doesn’t always provide the necessary 5G for Google Maps.
Love is the unknown – not just because we don’t know where it will take us, but because we never fully know the people we fall in love with. Sure, we can have a long shopping list of qualities, hobbies and preferred credit scores in an ideal partner but that stuff, well, it’s all surface. At a molecular level, we’re all different: we view things differently, think differently, move through the world differently, have different memories and tastes and quirks.
Relating is an exercise in encountering each other’s differences – by entering into communion with others, we’re confronted with the limits of our language, the bias of our own interpretation and, underneath it all, our earnest desire to connect. This is what attracts me to neuroqueer theory: a framework that rejects society’s dictates of what is ‘normal’ with regards to neurodiversity, gender and sexuality, instead centring individuals and their own experiences, wants and needs.
To me, it feels like a valuable reference point when approaching any kind of relationship – where person-by-person understanding and communication, rather than societal rules, should be the guide – but seems especially pertinent for queer relationships. After all, when you don’t have access to, or simply don’t want, a cis-hetero monogamous coupling and the ability to organically birth 2.5 kids, it’s vital to open up your thinking and expectations.
So, in order to learn more, I spoke to Laurie Green, an “autistic and trans writer and artist [who] offers deviant neuroqueer heresies — with love”.
[Editor’s note: the following has been edited and condensed for clarity]
When did you first come across neuroqueer theory and how does it apply to your individual experience?
During my twenties, which coincided with the decade between 2010 and 2020, I experienced a slow realisation that I was living in deep unalignment. The life that I had built for myself was largely disconnected from eros, my desires, and my dreams, which had been obscured by the desires and dreams of others offered in the form of a social script. I was pursuing the life I was supposed to lead according to the societal cues around me.
I spent years casting around me to try and find people who shared experiences and models of the world – to understand myself better, to make connection with myself, and ultimately to make connection with others who had overlapping desires. This self-exploration led me through a whole lot of reading, therapy (for body and mind), diagnoses of autism and ADHD, degendering, and at some point in the midst of a pandemic-encouraged breakdown into contact with neuroqueer theory.
The work of three people stand out as important early influences: Jesse Meadows, Nick Walker, and M Remi Yergeau. Jesse writes a brilliant substack called Sluggish, focusing on critical cultural readings of neurodivergence, and may have been the first person I read to use the term. Nick literally wrote the book on neuroqueer theory (Neuroqueer Heresies), and her peer M Remi’s Authoring Autism was the first thing I read which was more interested in autistic subjectivities than autism as a disorder.
Neurodivergence is a useful concept because it acknowledges the diversity of neurologies and therefore internal experiences amongst all living things, which is a self-evident reality. However, it also lends itself to the formation of fairly static identities based apparently on biologically-essentialist categories.
Neuroqueer theory encourages intentional interaction with identity. As I queerly chose to position myself outside of the binaries of gender and sexuality, following desire and influenced by trauma, neuroqueer theory offers a framework for choosing to position oneself outside of the normal more generally. It encompasses sexuality, gender, experience, perception, relation: in all of these domains, my position is abnormal. And importantly, I choose to be abnormal, after spending the first 25-ish years of my life desperately choosing to try to be normal. I desire abnormality. Because the constructed normal is dominating, extractive, uncomfortable, cruel – evil, even – and as much as anything else, really fucking boring. It’s the same story over and over again.
“The constructed normal is dominating, extractive, uncomfortable, cruel – evil, even – and as much as anything else, really fucking boring.” - Laurie Green
What is the Neuroqueering Network?
The Network, also referred to as Neuroqueering Humans, was set up in 2022 as a vehicle for the award of grants to those who were engaged in neuroqueering artistic practices. After three grants to Rebecca Jagoe, Theatre With Legs (Jess Murrain and Lua Bairstow), and Rrangwane, I realised that I was interested in exploring different forms of working relations with artists.
I believe totally in the power of love, and as a writer and collector of books the idea to curate an anthology of works about neuroqueering love came quite easily. Deliquescent Beings: A Neuroqueering Book of Love was conceived, gestated and birthed in 2024. To celebrate the launch, I curated an online event which saw artists from across the world come together to share their work and their ideas on love with ~100 people.
As you mention, the Network recently released a book on love, my favourite topic. Could you tell me more?
The book – Deliquescent Beings: A Neuroqueering Book of Love – is an anthology of beautiful text and image based works by Jess Murrain, Lua Bairstow, Georgia Holman, Axe Raulet, Rebecca Jagoe, Ila, Sef, Rrangwane, Sam Metz, V Westerman, and myself. It offers neuroqueering perspectives on love as a challenge to normative narratives that tend to focus on romantic love as an individualist fairytale, rather than love as a powerful affect and a revolutionary force for collective liberation. Like anything that powerful, love has the potential to harm and to cause pain: but it also offers a response to the hate and cruelty that prevails in the world today.
Deliquescent Beings is available now at Antenne Books
Follow Laurie on substack here.
FYI: I’m not neurodivergent and I’m by no means an expert on neurodivergence. However, for other people who want to learn more, I’d recommend supporting Laurie’s work and reading Autism Is Not A Disease, a guide to the politics of neurodiversity, written by Jodie Hare.
