Distinctly Different: On Autism and Gender, a Black Feminist Theory

Named for Toni Morrison’s description of Sula, Distinctly Different brings Black feminist theory and neurodiversity studies together to challenge conventional ideas about autism and gender. Danielle Procope Bell examines neuronormativity—the cultural system enforcing “correct” ways to think, feel, and move through the world—with particular attention to its pernicious consequences for Black women.

Procope Bell draws on literature, memoirs, media, and lived experience to consider gender when untethered from social performance. She reframes autism as a distinct and meaningful way of being, centering internal felt life over external directives. Thinking alongside figures from Sojourner Truth and Anna Julia Cooper to Megan Thee Stallion and Caster Semenya, Procope Bell establishes autigendering as a methodology for defining gender from within.

Distinctly Different maps what becomes possible when interiority and attunement, rather than conformity, guide understanding of the self. Procope Bell develops a Black feminist reading of autism that refuses to equate well-being with normativity, offering new directions for gender, care, and disability.