The internet did not create neurodivergent community — it removed the barriers
Before InLv and Autistics.org, many neurodivergent people lived in deep isolation and the true population ratio was simply unknown.
In the pre-internet era many neurodivergent individuals lived in deep isolation, and the actual size of the population was completely unknown — you cannot count a community that has no way to assemble. Martijn Dekker's InLv list and Autistics.org changed that in the 1990s: authentic support, global community building, and a space that eliminated a whole set of highly stressful physical expectations. Eye contact demands. Decoding facial expressions. Spontaneous spoken conversation. Interpreting subtle auditory tones. Delivering rapid social responses. Forced physical proximity.
That list is, to me, an accidental audit of my own classrooms. Every barrier text removed is a barrier a school day still requires.
Temple Grandin's Emergence: Labeled Autistic (1986) and Donna Williams's Nobody Nowhere (1992) established lived-experience literature. Harvey Blume wrote about neurological pluralism in 1998; Judy Singer used neurodiversity again in 1999. Which leaves the question I ended the section on: what is missing from the broad narrative so far, and who is writing this history? Neurodivergent voices. Minority voices. Diverse scientific voices.