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Creative! Storied! Intentional! Resistance! Celebratory!

Re-Storying Autism & Femme: Rich and storied sites of resistance, joy, struggle, survival (Douglas, 2019; Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018; Yergeau, 2017)

Political! Transgressive! Neurodivergent! Disabled!

Disability justice - push back against colonial logics, racist conceptualizations of disability, gender, including queerphobia, transphobia, femmephobia (Brown, Ashkenazy, & Onaiwu, 2017; Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018; Hoskin, 2021)

Collective action! Cross-movement solidarity! Community care!

Community, collective action, solidarity, crip kinship (Dahl, 2011; Dahl, 2012; Kafai, 2021; Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018)

Femme as:

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FEMME SHARKS WILL RECLAIM THE POWER AND DIGNITY OF FEMALENESS BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

WE’RE GIRLS BLOWN UP, TURNED INSIDE OUT AND REMIXED.

FEMME SHARKS ARE OVER WHITE QUEERS OBLIVIOUSNESS TO QUEER OF COLOR, TWO SPIRIT AND TRANS OF COLOR LIVES.

WE KNOW THAT WE ARE A CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

WE’RE OVER WHITE FEMMES AND BUTCHES WHO THINK THAT FEMME ONLY COMES IN THE COLOR OF BARBIE.

WE’RE OVER BUTCHES AND BOYS AND OTHER FEMMES TELLING US WHAT WE NEED TO DO, WEAR OR BE IN ORDER TO BE “REALLY FEMME.”

FEMME SHARKS RECOGNIZE THAT FEMMES, BUTCHES, GENDERQUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE

HAVE BEEN IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR SINCE FOREVER.

THAT BEFORE COLONIZATION WE WERE SEEN AS SACRED

AND WE WERE SOME OF THE FIRST FOLKS MOST VIOLENTLY ATTACKED

WHEN OUR LANDS WERE INVADED AND COLONIZED.

FEMME SHARKS WON’T REST UNTIL WE RECLAIM OUR POSITIONS

AS BELOVED FAMILY WITHIN OUR COMMUNITIES.

FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO!

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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“

“I feel left out, alone, erased from the sociopolitical discourses of what it means to be autistic/disabled, what it sociopolitically means to be femme and autistic/disabled, and what it sociopolitically means to be femme, autistic/disabled and Black... Am I really asking for too much? To see affirmation, narratives and research about what it means to be Autistic, (let alone, in addition to chronic neurological and psychiatric disability,) Femme and Black?”

Being Autistic, Black and Femme Highlights

the Experience of Living Intersectionally

ChrisTiana ObeySumner

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1) How do diverse autistic femmes understand and embody femme identities and knowledges?

2) How do those who self-identify as autistic and femme address and resist femmephobia and other discrimination in social contexts most significant for them?

3) What priorities and visions for disability justice do these participants bring that can transform social responses to autistic femmes in our full diversity?

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A BEGINNING: STORYTELLING METHODS FOR AUTISTIC FEMME CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, COMMUNITY-BUILDING AND ACTION

Focus groups/storytelling circles (in-person)

Discussions, creative outputs, making food together, etc.

Virtual community space

Artifact sharing, writing, other digital creations

Dreaming together & world-building

Knowledge mobilization and community action: websites, zines, exhibits, community storytelling events

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OVERALL GOALS & CONTRIBUTIONS:

Radical centering & valuing of diverse autistic femme ways of being and knowing
Contribute to emerging field of critical femininities by engaging crucial, absented, undervalued knowledges of diverse autistic femmes
Push back against compulsory cisheteronormativity, queerphobic, femmephobic, racist, ableist logics - including within ABA - historical and ongoing legacies in autism research and practitioner communities
Refiguring feminisms through femme-inist understandings and approaches to collaborative research and knowledge production (Dahl, 2011)
Deepen understandings of diverse autistic femme becomings and visions for disability justice; collective action and keeping ourselves whole!

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References

Brown, L. X. Z., Ashkenazy, E., & Onaiwu, M. G. (Eds.). (2017). All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism. DragonBee Press.

Dahl, U. (2011). Femme on femme: Reflections on collaborative methods and queer femme-inist ethnography. In K. Browne & C. J. Nash (Eds.), Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research (pp. 143-166). Routledge.

Dahl, U. (2012). Turning like a Femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies. NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 20(1), 57-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2011.650708

Douglas, P., Rice, C., Runswick-Cole, K., Easton, A., Gibson, M. F., Gruson-Wood, J., Klar, E., & Shields, R. (2019). Re-storying autism: a body becoming disability studies in education approach. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 25(5), 605-622.

Hoskin, R. A. (2021). Introduction: Can Femme be Theory? Exploring the Epistemological and Methodological Possibilities of Femme. In Feminizing theory: Making space for femme theory (pp. 1-17). Routledge.

Kafai, S. (2021). Storytelling as Activism, As Crip-Centric Strategy. In Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice Art and Activism of Sins Invalid. Arsenal Pulp Press.

ObeySumner, C. (2018). Being autistic, black and femme highlights the experience of living intersectionally. The Seattle Globalist. Retrieved from: https://seattleglobalist.com/2018/12/07/black-autistics-exist-an-argument-for-intersectional-disability-justice/79083

Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2011). FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO! In I. Coyote & Z. Sharman (Eds.), Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Arsenal Pulp Press.

Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2018). Care work: Dreaming disability justice. Arsenal Pulp Press.

Yergeau, M. R. (2017). Authoring autism: On rhetoric and neurological queerness. Duke University Press.

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