Neurobigotry and ageism

 Neurobigotry and ageism are closely linked, overlapping forms of oppression. A major component of neurobigotry is that neurodivergent people are never allowed to be real adults -- sometimes literally, in the form of guardianship, we're forever relegated to the status of children. A major component of ageism, especially American upper-middle-class ageism in the form of infantilizing teens and young adults, is rooted in neurobigotry (the biologically meaningless claim that "the brain doesn't fully mature until" some ever-increasing age).

So invoking ageism to combat neurobigotry, or vice versa, will always be a terrible idea.

Young people (whether neurotypical or neurodivergent) who commit acts of violence deserve to be held accountable as people who've made choices. Their violent actions should not be blamed on "mental illness," "immaturity," or any failed obligation to "get them help."

Young people deserve to be free to participate in public policy discourse and have their opinions and experiences taken seriously.

When young people's public policy advocacy is neurobigoted and oppressive, this should be called out like any other neurobigoted and oppressive public policy proposal. Young people who advocate oppressive policies should neither be excused as "just kids" nor cited as examples of "clueless children" who are inherently too young to be listened to.

This sounds like I'm talking about March for Our Lives discourse -- and I am -- but it applies to a lot of other issues, too. Some of the most stigmatized psychiatric disabilities tend to start to be evident to outsiders during adolescence and young adulthood, which is used as an argument for stripping rights from psychiatrically disabled people (because they're Just Kids who should still be under their parents' authority anyway, with their immature brains) and as an argument for stripping rights from young people (because they might spontaneously become psychiatrically disabled at any moment). It applies to culturally fraught issues like health, sexuality, relationships, and parenthood. Control of young people and neurodivergent people is heavily centered on preventing them from exercising sexuality, and especially on preventing them from having children. Neurodivergent young parents face a stigma that is greater than the sum of neurodivergent-parent stigma and young-parent stigma. Colleges are under pressure to police the "mental health" of their students, nearly all of whom are legal adults, on behalf of their students' parents. Neurodivergent young people aren't allowed to make their own choices in life because they're "too young, and they never get to be considered "old enough," because they're neurodivergent.

Short version: Don't use ageism to combat neurobigotry. Don't use neurobigotry to combat ageism.