Today’s episode argues that conventional neurotypical politeness functions as a system of social control that actively protects those who cause harm whilst punishing the clarity and directness often characteristic of autistic communication. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, contends that politeness is often a “social technology” built on strategic ambiguity, which manipulators exploit to maintain power and deflect accountability. Furthermore, Dr. Hoerricks explains that autistic directness is mislabeled as rudeness or a “failure” of social skills when it is actually a form of resistance and self-preservation that disrupts coercive etiquette by eliminating the fog of ambiguity. Mechanisms like tone policing, accusations of rudeness, and claims of “overreaction” are described as tools used to enforce compliance and silence those who speak plainly, forcing autistic people to choose between truth and safety. Ultimately, she advocates for a shift from compliance-based politeness to ethics rooted in clarity and transparency, arguing that autistic communication is not broken but dangerous to systems built on performance and distortion.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/politeness-as-weapon-how-neurotypical

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Today’s episode argues against the pervasive societal belief that autistic individuals fail to mature beyond childhood. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, asserts that this “infantilising gaze” is upheld by institutions and research that focus only on early intervention, effectively erasing the adult autistic experience from policy and recognition. Dr. Hoerricks contends that autistic development is a lifelong, spiraling process and that play is a mature and crucial form of learning and communication—a “praxis”—that the non-autistic world misinterprets as mere immaturity or regression. Ultimately, she calls for the reclamation of autistic adulthood and autonomy, defined by complex forms of connection, self-knowledge, and resistance through play.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-myth-of-peter-pan-on-autistic

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Today’s episode provides an overview and meditation on Sarinah O’Donoghue’s 2023 essay, “Thinking with Sticks.” The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, emphasises a posthumanist perspective on autistic narrative, arguing that communication and meaning extend beyond verbal language and are co-authored by bodies, objects, movement, and sensory life. Dr. Hoerricks examines two foundational works in autistic self-advocacy, Mel Baggs’ In My Language and Adam Wolfond & Estée Klar’s S/Pace, to illustrate how material components, such as sticks or stones, function as thinking partners and communicative elements. This framework challenges the notion that intelligence is housed solely in the brain, instead proposing that cognition is distributed and relational, which validates non-traditional forms of expression like stimming and facilitated communication (FC). Ultimately, she advocates for recognising autistic experience as a valid and complex form of human patterning where the world actively participates in storytelling.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/in-my-language-in-my-space-autistic

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Today’s episode explores the lived experience of being an autistic-trans self, focusing on the concept of emergence and the societal “fog” that obscures self-recognition. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes how autistic and gender masking are survival mechanisms built to manage others’ limited perceptions, forcing the individual to live within the visible, often misinterpreted, portion of their truth. Dr. Hoerricks powerfully critiques epistemic violence—the way external projections and systemic discourses (psychiatrisation, repressive protection, medical management) attempt to define, pathologise, and control autistic trans identities at micro, meso, and macro levels. Ultimately, she argues for reclaiming authorship and establishing a community-led truth-making that insists on the clarity and self-sovereignty found when the oppressive societal fog finally lifts.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-fog-the-landscape-and-the-autistictrans

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Today’s episode explores the historical and technological continuity of systematic harm. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that texts like the Malleus Maleficarum (Witch’s Hammer), an early instrument of standardised persecution made widely accessible by the printing press, established an architecture of violence that has persisted through the ages. This architecture of defining and eliminating deviation moved from theological justifications in witch hunts to medical and psychiatric diagnoses used against queer and neurodivergent individuals, and now manifests in modern algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs). The core claim is that new technologies, like AI, merely automate and scale old prejudices by ingesting and reproducing archives shaped by historical biases, transforming old hierarchies into new, hard-to-contest forms of procedural violence, such as risk-scoring and predictive policing. Ultimately, Dr. Hoerricks calls for recognition and disruption of this recurring pattern of standardised harm before it becomes inevitable within the algorithmic state.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/from-the-malleus-maleficarum-to-algorithmic

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Today’s episode outlines how ableist systems create an architecture of impunity that allows abusers to flourish in institutional settings. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that abusers succeed not because of exceptional skill, but because organisational structures—in schools, workplaces, and medicine—are designed to reward superficial charm and strategic ambiguity whilst punishing autistic clarity and truth-telling. This dynamic, which Dr. Hoerricks traces back to historical governance and industrial capitalism, causes institutions to consistently misidentify honesty as a threat and smooth performance as safety, leading to the systemic scapegoating of autistic people who name the harm. She concludes by advocating for a structural dismantling of these ableist systems to prioritize clarity, care, and accountability over hierarchical control and “forced politeness.”

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-architecture-of-impunity-why

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Today’s episode discusses gestalt processing in autistic individuals, describing it as a primary mode of perception that registers the emotional atmosphere or “field” of a situation before verbal content. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, explains how this atmospheric attunement allows Gestalt Language Processors (GLPs) to instantly sense danger, like the presence of a narcissist or manipulator, who exploit the GLP’s drive for coherence by creating unsettling environments that are subtly inconsistent. Dr. Hoerricks reframes the “Double Empathy Problem” to suggest that harm arises because GLPs read the full, discordant reality of a situation too honestly, only to be gaslighted by neurotypical (NT) social systems that prioritise ambiguity and performance over truth. Ultimately, she advocates for epistemic justice and encourages GLPs to trust their instinctual, embodied literacy of atmosphere as the most critical form of self-protection.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/when-gestalts-meet-manipulators-the

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Today’s episode focuses on autistic self-protection and reclaiming personal perception against abusive dynamics. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, asserts that autistic individuals are often targeted for exploitation because systems train them to doubt their own senses and override their recognition of harm. Dr. Hoerricks frames the advice as a “grimoire” or collection of spells—such as the Spell of Naming and the Spell of Boundaries—to restore authority, trust first signals, and establish limits without apology. She emphasises that protection is a collective inheritance, encouraging the creation of supportive micro-communities and reinforcing that autistic traits are powerful forms of relational clarity, not vulnerabilities. Ultimately, she seeks to restore the inner witness and guide autistic people toward safety by validating their inherent precision and truthfulness.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/protective-spells-for-autistic-people

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Today’s episode argues that Marge Blanc’s Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) framework constitutes legitimate published science despite being ignored by academia. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, defines a scientific workflow as a reliably repeatable pattern of documented activity, asserting that Blanc’s method meets this standard through its five pillars: reliability, repeatability, systematic organization, documentation, and learnability. Using the rigorous forensic evidentiary standards (like Rule 702 and Daubert) that prioritise transparency and reproducibility over institutional prestige, Dr. Hoerricks claims Blanc’s work stands as methodologically sound and globally replicated. The refusal of academic institutions to validate NLA is framed as a political act of gatekeeping that discounts “practitioner science” and a care-based counter-archive. Ultimately, she insists that validity is earned through function and widespread community replication, not conferred by academic journals.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-workflow-as-evidence-how-blanc

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Today’s episode provides an autistic critique of sex education research, specifically focusing on a study by Panagiotakopoulou and colleagues, arguing that the neurotypical frameworks employed render autistic sexuality and experience unthinkable or absent. The author of the source document, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, contends that the research fails due to its ontological assumptions, which incorrectly treat sexuality as information rather than embodiment, assume understanding is verbal rather than sensory, and prioritize compliance over connection. Crucially, she highlights the erasure of the autistic body, GLP (gestalt language processing) communication styles, queer identities (including asexual and queerplatonic experiences), and autistic parents who are often better equipped to teach due to shared experience. She calls for a translation, not simplification, of sex education into a framework that honors autistic ways of knowing, sensory processing, and diverse sexual trajectories.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/whats-missing-is-the-body-an-autistic

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The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.