This study examines the perspectives and intersectional lived experiences of sevenparticipants who all identify as autistic trans people. This has been accomplished through seven semi-structured interviews, a theoretical framework of critical autistic and transperspectives, and prior research on experiences of Swedish trans healthcare and international research on autistic trans peoples experiences. My aim has been to analyze the embodied experiences and perspectives regarding how the participants define and understand autism and trans; if they find that there exist important intersections between their autistic and trans identities and experiences; and what power structures and discourses that shape their view and experiences of the Swedish trans health care and how it treats autistic clients. The conclusions from my analysis were that the informants perceive autism to be aform of embodied subjectivity shaped by a neurodivergent cognitive perception that often leads to different kinds of norm-nonconforming behaviors, and that trans is an all-encompassing term that includes the lived experiences of people who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, and the empowering acts of regaining the control of one's own life narrative and one's body. The participants don't perceive there to be a intersectional medical link between autism and trans — that one causes the other — but rather that both experiences can help one in understanding the other. Several of the participants discuss how their autistic subjectivity and the societal experiences that come with it have been key in realizing and understanding their trans identities. The participants view that there are many societal prejudices, myths and false discourses regarding autism and trans that are prevalent in the Swedish trans health care system, and fear that the knowledge of them being autistic will negatively impact their prospects to be granted gender affirming care. They view the Swedish trans health care system not as a supporting societal function, but rather as a normative biopolitical function that control, regulate and disempower trans people and trans bodies through grueling evaluations. My suggestions for further research is researching experiences of socioeconomic inequality among autistic trans people, and interdisciplinary research on creating accommodating procedures and strategies for autistic trans clients in trans health caresystems.

Mémoire en recherche-création / Considérant le peu d’espace fait aux artistes s/Sourd-es et handicapé-es dans les milieux culturels (Leduc et al. 2020b) et le potentiel d’autodétermination de l’autogestion, cette recherche-création propose comme création le centre DC - Art Indisciplinaire (dc-art-indisciplinaire.com), autogéré par des artistes de la diversité capacitaire, et ce mémoire théorique réflexif des enjeux qui l’ont (in)formée. De ma posture autiste mad queer de classe ouvrière, j’aborde les signifiances dominantes de la création formant une culture d’exceptionnalité artistique hiérarchisée. Je démontre comment l’agentivité épistémique des personnes de la diversité capacitaire est décrédibilisée par les institutions culturelles et d’enseignement. Je définis ma pratique comme une méthodologie indisciplinaire et neuroqueer, des affordances always-in-the-making (Dokumaci 2017) afin de répondre à la question : Comment diriger nos énergies dépensées à performer des normes institutionnelles inatteignables et épuisantes, dans la création de possibilités émancipatrices collectives crip? A partir d'une réappropriation d'un mécanisme de survie connu des personnes autistes et queer, ma pratique de création de situations me permet de répondre à ces discriminations en imitant les normes capacitaires, neuronormatives et hétéro/homonormatives afin d’hacker les milieux dans lesquels j’évolue. Je soulève le « pour et par » comme insuffisant à l’émancipation de nos communautés, elles aussi régies par des rapports de pouvoirs multiples. Enfin, ce projet a cherché longtemps à faire ce que Remi Yergeau pointe comme l’impératif de pirater de manière « criptastique », un hack qui « […] s’insurge contre la normalisation forcée, celle qui passe de l’ajustement corporel à quelque chose de collectif, d’activiste et de systémique » (Yergeau 2012, ma traduction). / Considering little room given to d/Deaf and disabled artists in cultural circles (Leduc et al. 2020b) and the potential for self-determination in self-governance, this research-creation enables the creation of the disabled led artist-run center DC - Indisciplinary Art (dc-art-indisciplinaire.com). Furthermore, the following written essay constitutes a theoretical thought about the issues that have (in)formed the center’s creation. From a working-class queer mad and autistic perspective, I study the major meanings associated with the notion of creation and the way they form a hierarchical artistic exceptionality culture. I demonstrate how the epistemic agency of people from the ability diversity is discredited by cultural and educational institutions. I define my practice as an undisciplined and neuroqueer methodology, always-in-the-making affordances (Dokumaci 2017) to answer the question: How to redirect the energy spent performing unattainable and exhausting institutional standards, by creating possibilities for a crip collective emancipation? With the reappropriation of a known autistic and queer survival mechanism, my creation of situations practice allows me to respond to these discriminations by imitating able, neuronormative and hetero/homonormative norms in order to hack the environments in which I evolve. I question the “for us and by us” as insufficient for our communities’ emancipation because they are also governed by multiple power relations. Finally, this project has long sought to do what Remi Yergeau points out as the imperative to hack in a "criptastic" way, a hack that "[…] protests against forced normalization, that which goes from bodily adjustment to something collective, activist and systemic" (Yergeau 2012).

This sandwich thesis initiates a dialogue to examine connections and departures between new media studies, platform studies, critical digital race studies, critical disability studies, and feminist data studies. The manuscript presents four research papers that traverse issues regarding ableist platform governance, algorithmic visibility, and crip/neuroqueer digital cultural production. My theorizing of crip data seeks to interrupt hegemonic Western and Eurocentric conceptualizations of what is (not) valued and who (does not) holds power within platform spaces. Moreover, an intersectional focus on disability and race interrogates the ways technoableism (Shew, 2020) and algorithmic oppression (Noble, 2018) collectively animate the creation, development, and use of platforms and other new media technologies. I introduce crip data studies as an interdisciplinary academic and activist theoretical framework that counters the dominance of Western and Eurocentric ideologies that inform a digital platform’s algorithmic infrastructure, governance, and cultural production. I utilize the sandwich thesis model to examine the ways crip data can support critical/cultural investigations about platforms, power, disability, race, and culture through various case studies. In Chapter 1, I assess the relationship between race, disability, and bias in platform content moderation. Chapter 2 proposes neuroqueer practices for new media production and disability engagement that do not reproduce techno-solutionist measures in mediating neuroqueer self-expression and digital relationality. Chapters 3 and 4 communicate the generative departures of crip and neuroqueer platform use as a mode of hosting cultural production. In sum, this thesis engages with enmeshed inquiries regarding disability, race, and ideological value to respond to the following provocation: Is another platform– one beyond ableist, racist, and colonial bias– possible? / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis introduces crip data studies as a theoretical practice that challenges how dominant Western, Eurocentric conceptualizations of disability and race inform governance and cultural production on digital social platforms. I invoke crip, a subversive reclamation that reframes disability as a political and cultural identity, to disrupt the erasure and devaluation of disability within digital platforms. Through theorizing crip data, I reconfigure the disabled user and creator to investigate the significance of technological bias in shaping platform economies, politics, and creative engagement. The thesis project has two goals. First, crip data reveals how offline biases animate a platform’s algorithmic infrastructure and user interactions. Crip data also amplifies the creative, strategic practices shaping digital disability cultural production on social sharing and content creation platforms. In doing so, the manuscript demonstrates how crip data offers potentialities for intersectional readings beyond platformed mediations of ableism, racism, and coloniality.

No description available.

No description available.