I had a conversation last year where someone asked me about the impact of career progression on accessibility and inclusion. Separately, I was also asked whether being open about disability and neurodivergence had left me feeling like I could be more myself.
They were interesting and challenging prompts, especially since I work and research across several contexts. I didn’t have a solid answer on accessibility at the time as it heavily depends on the context. It did make me consider, however, how openness about disability and neurodivergence might also reinforce camouflaging.
Doesn’t everyone?
Masking (or camouflaging) has always been a big part of my professional life. If you’re not familiar with camouflaging in the autistic sense, it includes strategies used to hide autistic characteristics, assimilate, or compensate for challenges. 1 The concept of ‘passing’ overlaps with this and is something neurodivergent and disabled people will relate to alongside many marginalised groups and identities. 2
More and more, I’ve observed people remarking: ‘Well, doesn’t everyone mask?’
While perhaps an attempt to empathise, it doesn’t always go down well with Autistic folk as it diminishes the unique risks, challenges, and consequences that they experience. Additionally, research describes the difference between self-monitoring and masking/camouflaging. Self-monitoring may be what Allistic (non-autistic) people think of here.
I talk about masking with a pragmatic lens. It’s not something I actively endorse, though it’s often considered necessary to adopt as a survival or safety mechanism. I don’t believe it’s responsible to simply expect someone to ‘unmask’ if we still uphold the systems and norms that reproduce risk and harm for the person. It’s where leadership and organisational considerations come in, as well as other critical lenses.
I’ve personally held onto camouflaging tightly. It’s sometimes considered a privilege to be able to mask in a society where neuronormativity is valued, 3 and I’ve intensely felt the absence of that privilege during the times in my life I haven’t been able to mask.
Like an athlete
On the surface level, masking may appear at odds with someone who values being authentic and appreciates genuineness in other people. Yet, I haven’t personally experienced it like this. The implied inauthenticity has always been problematic to me. I’ve always felt my underlying values and intentions have come through, and that’s been the essential and genuine part (for me).
That doesn’t negate the adverse impact of masking, though. My partner once described my masking as like watching a performance – but not of an actor – of an athlete. Her observation was focused on how taxing it was.
More than anything, I’ve experienced masking as my being more palatable as a disabled person.
At times, and in specific settings, that experience can be heightened or become more vital to maintain. I don’t, however, believe we should be aspiring for palatability. While palatability has its time and place, it can also risk being a narrow and shallow approach (to anything).
I still exhibit vulnerability and authenticity when camouflaging. For many reasons, it feels impossible not to. Vulnerability has greatly impacted my work and leadership in ways I didn’t anticipate, and I hope the impact has gone beyond me as an individual.
In saying that, I do shy away from a lot of writing on vulnerability and authenticity and engage with them in a different way. In my experience, it can be discouraging to hear about concepts like vulnerability if they are disconnected from the challenges and consequences that can present for marginalised communities. Navigating vulnerability for some communities can look very different from the more palatable version we like to encourage in leadership.
It makes me think a little of the double empathy problem – where different experiences and interpretations of the world increase the chance of a mismatch in understanding.
Culture, courage, and change
One of the reasons I decided to be more open was because I’d positioned myself in such a way that it felt socially responsible (and freeing). I’m glad that I made that decision. 4 Yet, as I wrote in a social media post, “a risk … is that barriers become rationalised or minimised as an opportunity for courage. Rather than pursue systemic change, we celebrate individual courage.”
Reading through Bree Gorman’s writing on disability inclusion recently, I noticed a similar thread. They were spot-on about the well-meaning enthusiasm for accommodations and adjustments for individuals, while cultural and structural barriers, fear, and emotional labour are often neglected. 5
Bree’s focus on leadership also resonates, especially given there’s sometimes an implicit assumption that people from marginalised communities couldn’t possibly also exist in the room. This led me to think about how, even with openness about lived experience, that disconnect can prompt camouflaging that fulfils this implicit assumption and its expectations of palatability.
Even if support for adjustments exists, the cultural and structural barriers are some of the biggest challenges I’ve observed. There’s often a gap (or disconnect) between inclusive intentions and practices.
Navigating the ‘individual courage’ version of inclusion often requires a high level of exertion, and that exertion shouldn’t be the cost of inclusion.
- While I’m multiply neurodivergent and disabled, masking is often talked about in relation to autism, so for the sake of clarity, it’s what I’ve focused on here. ↩︎
- For example, see: Andersen (2024) – ‘Chronically Honest.’ ↩︎
- Neuronormativity is the dominant narrative about what an acceptable approach to thinking, feeling, learning, communicating, and functioning in society is. ↩︎
- From memory, I was very out of it with covid when I made the decision to write/publish the blog post about being autistic. With hindsight, I’m very glad my covid riddled brain was able to write and make that decision effectively. ↩︎
- Additional labour impacts many marginalised groups. Lately, I’ve been reading through ‘The Five Labours of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism Work by Racialized Academic Librarians.’ ↩︎