What is Autistic Hazing?
Internalized Oppression, Dangerous Ideologies, and Parent-Child Relationships
Marginalized communities often face societal pressures that lead to internalized oppression and lateral oppression, where individuals turn against each other instead of confronting the systems that oppress them. Autistic hazing—where undiagnosed or masking autistic individuals project ableist attitudes onto openly neurodivergent people—illustrates this dynamic. This behavior is similar to internalized homophobia, where individuals suppress their true identities and project negative attitudes onto others who are openly gay.
Drawing from thinkers like Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill Collins, we can understand how internalized oppression operates within the neurodiverse community and why certain individuals are drawn into dangerous ideologies. These scholars provide a framework for understanding how unrecognized neurodivergence can lead to the adoption of toxic belief systems, which offer simple explanations or scapegoats for complex feelings of alienation. This essay explores how internalized oppression and delayed diagnosis trap autistic individuals in these ideologies and how solidarity and early recognition can provide an alternative path.
Autistic Hazing and Internalized Ableism
In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire describes how the oppressed internalize the values of their oppressors and, in turn, act as “sub-oppressors” within their own communities. Autistic hazing reflects this process, as undiagnosed or masking autistic individuals internalize ableism and project it onto those who express their neurodivergence more openly. This often manifests as dismissive attitudes toward autistic traits like stimming or seeking accommodations, which the masking individual has been conditioned to suppress in themselves.
Audre Lorde discusses how marginalized people can direct their anger and frustration inward or toward each other rather than challenging external systems of oppression. In the neurodiverse context, this leads to behaviors where those masking their autism may reject or criticize others who openly express their autistic identity. Rather than confronting societal ableism, they enforce neurotypical standards within their community.
The Allure of Dangerous Ideologies
Without a diagnosis or a clear understanding of their neurodivergence, autistic individuals are often left feeling isolated and misunderstood. This alienation can make them vulnerable to dangerous ideologies that offer easy answers or someone to blame for their struggles. One notable example is the rise of incel (involuntary celibate) ideology among some autistic men, who are drawn to online communities that provide a simple narrative: blaming women for their lack of romantic success. The rigid social norms and communication challenges many autistics face can exacerbate feelings of rejection, leading some to adopt these misogynistic beliefs as an explanation for their struggles.
Additionally, autistic individuals may be drawn into far-right extremism or white nationalism, where online groups provide a sense of belonging and offer clear, albeit harmful, narratives. These extremist ideologies prey on individuals who feel alienated by society, offering them a community that frames their struggles in terms of victimhood and conspiracy. Autistic individuals, who often struggle with social inclusion and ambiguity, can be particularly vulnerable to the black-and-white thinking promoted by these groups.
Frantz Fanon, in Black Skin, White Masks, explains how colonized people internalize the values of the colonizer and reject their own culture. Similarly, some autistic individuals internalize societal ableism and mask their traits, which leads them to seek out harmful ideologies that offer validation by scapegoating others. These ideologies, while appearing to offer answers, further entrench the individuals in patterns of exclusion and isolation.
The Impact of Delayed Diagnosis
Delayed diagnosis plays a significant role in the susceptibility to dangerous ideologies. Many autistic individuals grow up without understanding why they struggle socially or face difficulties with communication, leading them to internalize negative beliefs about themselves. Without a diagnosis, they lack the framework to interpret their experiences in a healthy way. Instead, they may interpret their struggles as personal failures, reinforcing feelings of defectiveness.
bell hooks and Angela Davis have extensively discussed the isolating effects of internalized oppression, showing how systemic forces can fracture individuals and communities. In the case of undiagnosed autistics, delayed diagnosis exacerbates this isolation, preventing them from accessing supportive networks that could help them make sense of their experiences. Instead, they are left vulnerable to harmful ideologies that offer simplistic explanations for their alienation.
By misinterpreting their struggles as personal shortcomings, many undiagnosed autistics find themselves drawn to communities that provide validation, even if that validation is rooted in exclusionary or extremist ideologies. These dangerous ideologies thrive on providing easy answers to complex feelings of alienation, framing societal failures as the fault of specific groups rather than addressing the larger structural issues of ableism, social isolation, or inequality.
Unmasking and Solidarity: Lessons from Internalized Homophobia
The LGBTQ+ community’s experience with internalized homophobia provides a valuable parallel for the neurodiverse community. Unmasking, the process of embracing and expressing one’s autistic traits, can be compared to coming out in the LGBTQ+ community. Both acts require rejecting internalized societal norms and finding power in self-acceptance.
Audre Lorde argued that embracing one’s identity is both a personal and political act, challenging the oppressive structures that demand conformity. For autistics, unmasking serves as a radical form of self-acceptance, rejecting the ableism they have internalized and confronting the pressures to conform to neurotypical standards. Unmasking also allows for building solidarity within the neurodiverse community, providing a counter-narrative to the dangerous ideologies that thrive on isolation and internalized oppression.
Resisting Dangerous Ideologies Through Community
Preventing autistic individuals from falling into dangerous ideologies requires fostering solidarity and supportive communities. As Patricia Hill Collins highlights in her work on intersectionality, systems of oppression—whether based on race, gender, or disability—interact in complex ways, making marginalized individuals more vulnerable to harmful ideologies. Addressing these intersections within the neurodiverse community can strengthen its resilience.
Early diagnosis plays a crucial role in providing individuals with the tools to understand their neurodivergence, reducing the likelihood that they will seek validation in exclusionary or extremist spaces. Creating environments where autistic individuals feel safe to unmask and explore their identity—without the fear of rejection or judgment—helps build a community based on acceptance rather than exclusion.
The neurodiverse community must also work to build bridges with other marginalized groups to challenge ableism and other forms of oppression. Angela Davis and Mia Mingus have argued for an intersectional approach to liberation, where communities work together to dismantle the structures that perpetuate oppression.
For the neurodiverse community, this means recognizing the shared roots of ableism, sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination, and building coalitions to fight for more inclusive and just systems.
The Broader Impact of Embracing Neurodiversity
By addressing internalized ableism and autistic hazing, the neurodiverse community has the potential to drive broader societal change. Just as the LGBTQ+ movement expanded societal acceptance of diverse sexual identities, the neurodiversity movement can challenge narrow definitions of what is considered "normal" behavior and cognition.
By advocating for early diagnosis, accommodations, and self-acceptance, the neurodiverse community can reshape institutions like schools and workplaces, making them more inclusive and supportive of neurodivergent individuals. This will reduce the isolation that fuels internalized oppression and prevent individuals from being drawn into harmful ideologies.
Moreover, as Angela Davis and Mia Mingus have emphasized, the struggle against ableism intersects with other social justice movements. Recognizing these intersections strengthens the neurodiverse community’s ability to resist lateral oppression and build a future rooted in equity and collective liberation.
