I'm Not That Kind of Weirdo

I'll Take One for the Team. But Still...

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

I am a weirdo. I am Autistic, born and raised in an allistically biased society. I have been told my entire life that I need to get better at… blah, blah, blah, whatever “normal” people think is “normal.” But I am not normal, and never have been. Saying so is not self-deprecation; I don’t aspire to normal, and I don’t see any value in it. “Normal” is just a euphemism for “this is what makes me comfortable; this is familiar to me; this is what I expect; this is the default; this is what my culture has dictated as the best way to be.” I used to try to be normal, but the emotional, energetic, and physical cost of masking caused me to crash and burn over a decade ago, and I still haven’t recovered from it. So I have no use for “normal” any more. It’s not worth what it costs. It wasn’t until I could no longer afford the cost that I was diagnosed as Autistic. That was the most liberating discovery of my life. I began to interpret my life differently, reframing many of my bad memories in the context of intolerance to my neurotype, rather than an assumption that I needed to figure out how to fix my very broken self. It’s been no picnic, though. I came out as queer in Arizona in the 80s. That was no harder than coming out as Autistic in the 10s and 20s (it entertains me to no end to find out that these two attributes might actually be related in some as-yet unidentified way). “Normal” is the admission price to most of society’s privileges, so being unwilling or unable to purchase that facade is a heavy burden in its own right, and many Autistics choose to mask as much as they are able because they prefer the burden of masking to the burden of being an outcast. The bummer is that most of us, even when we put every ounce of energy we don’t even have into masking, it’s never enough. We are still frequently considered weird by allistics, and judged for all the ways we aren’t conveniently “normal.”

In spite of attempting to cosplay “normal,” I have been labeled a “weirdo,” or something similar, my entire life. Even before I knew why I am not “normal,” I knew that I was considered weird, or strange, or even creepy by people who knew nothing about me other than that there’s something about me that they find offputting, that invokes in them a vague sense of unease. I have lived my whole life in the uncanny valley (I suspect that one of the reasons why allistics tend to be so uncomfortable interacting with us is because we seem not-quite-human to them). This idea has fascinated me for a while, and I plan to write more about it later, but enough of that digression for now…

What I really meant to write about today is this: I want, with every fiber of my being, for Trump to never step foot in the White House again. If I really dream big, I imagine that not only will Harris win the election in November, but the Dems will take the House and keep the Senate, and they will collectively disrupt the rot that is consuming the current SCOTUS. Oh, and Trump will go to trial for all the crimes he’s committed both in and out of office. I know that’s entirely blue-sky but like I said, I’m dreaming big here. I’ll settle for Harris in the White House and the Dems in control of Congress (and thereby, able to fix SCOTUS, because as long as we don’t fix SCOTUS, we’re just going to have to go through roughly the same thing again in four years, and every time the rogues do their thing, they learn more about how to maybe make it stick next time). But I digress again...

My hopes for November notwithstanding, I’m not particularly a fan of the Democrats, either. Even the most progressive factions of the party are not particularly progressive. We in the US don’t own our past or easily acknowledge how it has followed us into the present, and we are unrealistically hopeful about our future, in which we collectively insist things will somehow be way, way, better without any of us actually having to change to make that happen. We have a tendency to believe that we are above all the crap we blame on the other side, but we’re all still human, after all, vulnerable to the worst we can be as much as to the best.

Case in point: The go-to campaign strategy that suddenly seems to appeal to voters on the left more than any others is to call the right “weirdos.” That’s not a fault of the Democratic party, particularly; it comes from a facet of US culture that the majority of people — regardless of party affiliation — don’t seem inclined to question.

Referring to the opposition as abnormal is considered a viable, reasonable, argument that justifies any manner of attack on their very humanity and right to exist. “Weirdo” means that not only are you wrong, you do not deserve a modicum of respect or human dignity, and anything we do to thwart you is fair game. The right excels at this strategy. As much as we don’t like to admit it, the left is pretty good at it, too.

I get what the “weirdo” thing is all about. At its core, it comes from an insightful awareness that pushes back against the right-wing rhetoric that claims that their version of morality is singularly the best, that it’s what is “normal,” and should therefore be mandated by the government. It’s only normal in the sense that it has been normalized — that it used to be the status quo, and is still considered legitimate, even by many who don’t agree with it. So sure, what a great idea to reframe that in a visceral, succinct way be saying “No, that’s not normal, it’s weird! It’s not what most of us want, and it is not strange or immoral that we want something more inclusive and expansive, more accepting and compassionate.” That it invokes a more primal, disgust-based reaction, rather than relying on people’s willingness to learn about and engage with the actual issues and policies of the right, is why it is so popular and accessible. Saying that the right is weird is working, at least for now. It’s energizing and inspiring people who weren’t otherwise engaged. I’m encouraged by the groundswell of enthusiasm on the left, and also, it breaks my heart. I am deeply saddened because of all the collateral damage the “weirdo” strategy will inevitably cause, and from personal experience, I know how vociferously a whole lot of supposedly compassionate, progressive people will defend the righteousness of lobbing all manner of dehumanizing, broad-brush insults because “they” deserve it. To hell with the collateral damage. It’s too important to worry about trivial things like how many people who don’t consent to being collateral damage will nonetheless be just that. It’s in their best interest in the long run, so they should be thankful we don’t treat them like the other side does.

There’s this thing that non-disabled and/or neurotypical people tend not to understand (and as far as I can tell, most have no interest in understanding): When ableist slurs are used, it doesn’t matter if, or how much, the person they are lobbed at deserves ridicule. Pejorative language that is based on systemic bias inevitably perpetuates that bias. Full stop. That is inevitable. Systemic ableism is the status quo in this country, just like racism, anti-queer rhetoric, sexism, misogyny, etc. The biases that systemic oppression are based on are unconsciously assumed to be accurate and true for anyone who doesn’t intentionally unlearn them. Therefore, using ableist language implicitly endorses and perpetuates the systemic bias against disabled people. There is no way around this. These types of insults are not magically benign just because the person they are thrown at deserves criticism.

To be clear, “weird” and “weirdo” are not automatically ableist words. What is ableist, however, is the cultural norm that equates “weird” with “not normal,” and “abnormal” with less-than, crazy, broken, or inherently dangerous. “Weird” can be a badge of honor. It can even be reclaimed, like “queer” has been. But the context in which it is being used by the Democratic campaign is ableist. It is othering because it implies that not being “normal” is bad, and worthy in and of itself of ridicule and contempt.

But I really, really, don’t want Trump to win the election. So for now, all I can say is that I am grudgingly willing to “take one for the team,” but it breaks my heart to have to do it, and it’s depressing as hell. I will try to step back from my habit of wailing into the void about how even progressives tend to be cavalier as hell about ableism even in situations where they would not tolerate any other form of blatant marginalization, and that is even more true when the disability in question has to do with the workings of brains and minds. Plenty of people who pride themselves on identifying even the most subtle racial, anti-queer, anti-immigrant, misogynist dogwhistles and calling them out, often think nothing of using ableist slurs as a way of demonstrating their disgust for their bigoted targets. But I digress. Again. I am again wailing into the void I just promised to step away from. Oops. Sorry, not sorry!

OK. Reset. So. I am grudgingly willing to “take one for the team” because I believe this next election will determine whether we ever have another election at all. I do not want to live in the Christofascist hellscape defined by Project 2025. As much as this society marginalizes me right now, I am well aware that it can get much, much, worse. I take no comfort in the possibility that a much greater percentage of the population will learn what it feels like to live in the constant harm and precarity that is already a daily reality for me and other marginalized people — people whose plight is willingly ignored by those who have access to a more privileged, non-disabled reality. I don’t want that for anybody, so I am making a conscious choice to try to step back. To not get on the soapbox about how much it costs me to accept that I am labeled with the same words that people on the left use to describe the horrifically hateful ideology of the right. I will try to bite down on the tongue that wants to explain how perpetuating an assumed link between “crazy” or “insane” or “weird” and hateful, oppressive ideologies will inevitably harm crazy, insane, and weird people. It does, because across the board, US culture assumes it is justifiable to categorize “weirdos” as less-than. Oops, I said I wouldn’t go there right now. But still…

But still. I just hope that when all of this is over, whichever way it falls, those on the left — the people who pride themselves on their dedication to equity, and inclusion, and compassion, and fairness — will be willing to pause and openly discuss how maybe we should have found another way. I hope they will examine their own internal landscapes and ask the question of not others, but themselves: Why is “weird” what resonated for me? What is it about the way I perceive people I don’t understand that makes me want to criticize them, assume they are wrong, or broken? Why am I more energized by calling the other side “weirdos” than by focusing on their oppressive, dangerous plans and rhetoric? Can we grow from this? Can we learn anything from it? Can we take ownership of how we benefited from the harm others suffered in order for us to win (if we win)? What can we do — no, what can I do — to repair some of the damage that was caused by the way we, collectively, framed this most recent battle?

I’m not known for my optimism. I have no confidence that this will happen, regardless of how the election goes. Please, I beg of you. Prove me wrong.

This song, one of my all-time favorites, seems appropriate in this context: