Meg Fereday

A selfie of Meg, a white person in their late twenties, wearing a teal black and white stripy top, square glasses and a gold star sticker on each cheekbone. Meg is smiling happily at the camera as they’ve just left an amazing panel discussion on neuroqueer performance at the Critical Neurodiversity Conference.

Never felt such solidarity + belonging in conference space than at the first ever Critical Neurodiversity Studies conf this week @durhamimh.bsky.social, amongst the many incredible independent scholars, artists and activists building up this field.
so tired! so inspired! longer reflections to come!!

oh hey! If only I could attend yours too! Well if you see me around before your panel, pls do come say hi :)

the Critical Neurodiversity Studies Conference @durhamimh.bsky.social starts tomorrow! Wishing I could attend literally every talk/panel/workshop.

I’ll be speaking about why critical media studies is essential to a critical turn in neurodiversity studies - catch me on the Digital panel tomorrow 🤸!

Do this! Couldn't be a way to make it easier!

Meg (they/them) is standing at a lectern looking down at their notes and laughing. They're wearing a short-sleeved black turtleneck and iridescent-pink blue jeans. Behind them is a PowerPoint slide showing a close-up of some network graph data. A person with mid-length turquoise hair sits in front of the camera to the left of Meg, watching their presentation.

got a room full of people laughing about network graphs last week at the @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social Queer Data Showcase - who knew!

Thanks to @kevinguyan.bsky.social @sj-bennett.bsky.social @mystikaglamoor.bsky.social and all my co-presenters for a fantastic evening ☺️

📸Daniel McGowan Photography

en route Edinburgh to share my work on ✨neuroqueer network analysis✨ at @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social Queer Data Showcase tomorrow night!

Tickets here 👇
www.ai-ethics.org/queer-data-s...

Can’t wait to read this!

🥰 So great to share my experience in the scheme! Thanks #NNMHR :)

NDHums encourages mutual support between neurodivergent mentors and mentees at different stages in their careers - a really rare, empowering opportunity for both.
ndhumanities.com/mentorship-s...

A vital look into the digital, collective origins of 'neuroqueer' - stretching all the way back to autistic Usenet forums in the early 00s.
Internet history is so crucial to critical neurodiversity studies!

Asks: what might a neuroqueer citation politics look like?

Papers, videos, visual art, zines! - this is gonna be something special

CFP Neurodiversity special issue -
Towards a Critical Turn in Neurodiversity Studies:
Bridging the Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences

Abstracts deadline 3rd Aug 25
journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cm...

Triggers to claiming Personal Independence Payment

Governments own research on whats triggered the increase in PIP claims found its mainly from health deterioration and needing more support, with many told about it by health professionals or the dwp itself - not social media

www.gov.uk/government/p...

Support resources for our trans friends and allies | Good Law Project At a time when anti-trans discrimination is rife and hate crime has reached record levels, it’s important to know what support is out there for trans, non-binary or gender-questioning individuals and ...

On what is a really difficult day, here are some resources for our trans friends and allies.

Solidarity 💜
goodlawproject.org/resource/sup...

Affiliates — DISCO Network

I'm a member of the @disconetwork.bsky.social Affiliate Program 2025! So far loving being part of such a radical and fun group of researchers - meet us here 👇
www.disconetwork.org/affiliates

We’ve literally JUST had Neurodiversity Celebration Week. To raise awareness, to celebrate difference, to help make neurodivergent lives better

And then we get this from a national newspaper. Wow, just wow

Page 28 of Technoskepticism by DISCO Network. Highlighted passages read “we must rethink digital self-diagnosis as a bodily necessity. Precarious people self-diagnose in the face of rampant misdiagnosis and non-diagnosis. We need self-diagnosis. What might it mean to rethink self-diagnosis as a nourishing refusal of the digital clinic?” and “Self-diagnosis provides a means for becoming: it can offer a transitory, just-for-now space that enables people to grapple with the complexities of their bodyminds.”

First chapter of @disconetwork.bsky.social’s Technoskepticism offers the clearest, most radically compassionate articulation of “TikTok diagnoses” I’ve read so far

Dare to diagnose yourself, again and again; brazenly say what your bodymind tells you; afford yourself space to be believed + cared for

labour’s benefit cuts look to be explicitly targeted at neurodivergent folk - despite the long-touted statistic that ~80% of diagnosed UK autistic adults are unemployed.

neurodiversity is a class issue, now more than ever

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

two seated people holding microphones

event info for trans technologies book event that is currently happening as i am posting this. event was hosted by UMSI, featuring a photo of oliver haimson and the cover of this book, trans technologies

kishonna gray and @haimson.bsky.social in conversation about trans technologies -- tech that is made by & for the trans community to serve their needs! oliver is talking abt how queer & trans & gnc folks are, often, AI haters and prioritize tech that foregrounds care, community, and liberation

More excited than ever to get my hands on a copy of Trans Technologies after @haimson.bsky.social’s talk today. Thanks for answering my question, and for letting those of us outside the US dial in!

(brb thinking about how technological trans care might be entangled w/ neuroqueer digital practices…)

I’ve had such a warm welcome to @unisouthampton.bsky.social this month!
Highlight had to be this zine-making workshop for LGBT PGRs, surrounded by the brilliantly curated Glitchy Kinship exhibition from @lizziereed.bsky.social and @miloustella.bsky.social at WSA Gallery ⛓️‍💥✨

Currently searching for organisations/support groups/outreach initiatives/networks for young people in the UK who are both queer and neurodivergent - and I'm coming up empty!

bluesky hivemind, any recommendations?

task-switching from literally anything into writing mode, the boss level of my adhd experience

Myself & @rachelbayer.bsky.social are organising an @rgsibg.bsky.social panel session on Asexual Geographies!

Read the Call for Papers and submit an abstract here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The Internet’s Future Is Looking Bleaker By the Day While Meta enacts the X playbook, TikTok is on the verge of being declared illegal. Who wins? Probably not internet users.

With the looming TikTok ban and Meta axing fact-checking, the internet's future is looking bleaker by the day.

Wrote about it and more in this week's #WIREDPoliticsLab newsletter
www.wired.com/story/the-in...

The image is from a "Transparency Center" document and lists guidelines regarding acceptable and prohibited content for insults. It mentions: 1. Insults about: Character, such as cowardice, dishonesty, criminality, and sexual promiscuity or immorality. Mental characteristics, including but not limited to accusations of stupidity, intellectual capacity, and mental illness, as well as unsupported comparisons among politically correct (PC) groups based on inherent intellectual traits. 2. Highlighted section: The document allows allegations of mental illness or abnormality when tied to gender or sexual orientation, referencing political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality. It also acknowledges the non-serious use of terms like "weird."

Meta literally created a LGBTQ exception for calling someone mentally ill as an insult. You can't do it for any other group except LGBTQ people.

What a dream of a CFP @ndhumanities.bsky.social!
ndhumanities.com/2024/12/17/c...

Instagram blocked teens from searching LGBTQ-related content for months Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags were hidden under Meta's “sensitive content” policy which restricts "sexually suggestive content"

SCOOP: Instagram blocked teens from searching LGBTQ-related content for months.

Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags were hidden under Meta's “sensitive content” policy which restricts "sexually suggestive content", Meta said they are fixing this “error” after I reached out for comment.

the perfume department is the eighth

airport security is the ninth circle of autistic hell

Congratulations!! 🤩

#BIPOC voices are often missing from autistic spaces, so here is a BIPOC starter pack! 😊

go.bsky.app/TtXfpAt

#racialequality #antiracism

The image of autism as “only white boys” leads to underdiagnosis, discrimination & isolation for many

Our autistic community is much more diverse than that! ❤️