2. Underdiagnosing autism in minoritized demographics

Historically, the diagnostic category of autism has been too narrowly defined.Footnote ¹ Diagnostic criteria for autism were originally formulated based on autistic boys, thereby resulting in an androcentric bias in diagnostic processes. Because autistic traits typically manifest differently in girls, many autistic women go through life undiagnosed, as do many autistic AFAB, trans, non-binary, and BIPOC people, as illustrated by the therapist’s reaction in the opening story. Because autism is a different way of processing and navigating the world (e.g., social interactions, environmental stimuli, or executive functions), not knowing that you are autistic often creates a sense of confusion, inadequacy, or mismatch, as in the story. Knowing that you are autistic is therefore a very helpful thing to know, in terms of gaining both greater self-understanding and better access to relevant resources or specialized services. Yet the androcentric bias in diagnosing autism creates hermeneutical injustice for undiagnosed autistic women and other minoritized demographics. Indeed, a lack of diagnosis leaves autistic women and these other groups “in the dark” (Fricker Reference Fricker2007: 152) by “obscuring from understanding” (154) a part of their experience “which it is strongly in [their] interest to understand” (149). In the next section, I turn to the importance of knowing you are autistic for finding a sense of community and belonging, and thereby for building self-trust. This is not to say that belonging is always necessary for self-trust, whether in the context of late-identified autism or in other contexts, but rather that it can play an important role in fostering self-trust for late-identified autistics.

3. Knowing, belonging, and self-trust

Recall from the opening story how the sense of mismatch or of being an outsider further leads to a sense of lack of belonging and of self-doubt. This cascade of effects is due to neuronormativity, or “the prevalent, neurotypical set of assumptions, norms, and practices that construes neurotypicality as the sole acceptable or superior mode of cognition, and that stigmatizes attitudes, behaviors, or actions that reflect neuroatypical modes of cognition as deviant or inferior” (Catala et al. Reference Catala, Faucher and Poirier2021: 9016). Neuronormativity pervades most public or shared settings and imposes its standards upon everyone in these contexts. Neuronormative assumptions, norms, and practices thus dictate the way things work in all these contexts: what is “normal” or not, required or not, permissible or not, appropriate or not. In these contexts, neuronormativity structures everything from space and temporality to social interactions and communication. Neuronormativity structures space by, for example, imposing environments that are often brightly lit, loud, crowded, or excessively air-conditioned. It structures temporality by, for example, determining how much time it should take to accomplish various tasks, such as completing an assignment, a degree program, an application, an administrative form, or a conversation. Neuronormativity also structures social interactions and communication by, among other things, “uphold[ing] standards regarding, for example, (what is neurotypically considered) appropriate eye contact, facial expressions, prosody, conversational flow, processing, and responsiveness” (Catala et al. Reference Catala, Faucher and Poirier2021: 9016). Neuronormative standards of social interaction and communication also prohibit, discourage, penalize, or stigmatize embodied and affective practices such as stimming (e.g., playing with your hair; spinning a pen or a fidget) and flapping (e.g., repeated movements of the fingers, hands, arms, feet, or legs), which are embodied modes of emotional regulation and expression that are helpful to many autistics and harmless to others around them. Neuronormativity thus unduly marginalizes neurodivergent ways of being, doing, communicating, and processing. In the story, we see how neuronormative expectations and standards contribute to a sense of mismatch and otherness. Neuronormativity not only puts pressure on everyone to conform, but the sense of dissonance it creates for autistics often pushes them to distrust their own judgments and ways of knowing, doing, and being.

In what follows, I argue that, in sharp contrast to neuronormative mainstream society, the neurodiversity community fosters a sense of belonging that is conducive to self-trust. Several terminological clarifications should be noted upfront. I begin with a clarification regarding the neurodiversity community, allowing me to specify how I understand belonging; I then turn to a clarification regarding neurodiversity, allowing me to connect it to belonging and self-trust. First, it is important to note upfront, as will become clear below when unpacking the notion of neurodiversity, that being neurodivergent is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition to be part of the neurodiversity community. This is because the neurodiversity community is defined here by a certain epistemic stance (one that adopts the neurodiversity paradigm in theory and in practice), rather than in demographic terms (of being a neurodivergent neurotype). Indeed, the neurodiversity community comprises several demographic communities, accounting for the multiple social groups that intersect with the variety of neurotypes that make up neurodiversity: these groups might include women, LGBTQIA2S+, BIPOC, disabled, economically disadvantaged, immigrant, or linguistically minoritized people, for instance. Thinking about community intersectionally is important precisely when it comes to belonging.

I understand belonging here as a sense of general alignment and acceptance (McLeod Reference McLeod2025), instead of mismatch or rejection, with respect to others. This is not to say that people who share a sense of belonging cannot differ in terms of personalities, interests, neurotypes, and other individual or demographic characteristics, even as they share a sense of general alignment in the context that brings them together (e.g., cultural, educational, professional, and familial); nor that they cannot offer each other constructive critical feedback, even as they share a sense of general acceptance by others in that context. Moreover, in contexts of oppression or social adversity, belonging as I understand it here also often involves mutual understanding and recognition of a shared lived reality and sensibility, at least to some extent. By a shared lived reality and sensibility, I mean that members of oppressed groups along various axes of social identity often run into similar obstacles and experiences when navigating the social world from their minoritized positions. Think, for instance, of the sexual harassment of women, or the racial profiling of BIPOC people, to cite just two common examples. Whether or not one actually experiences sexual harassment or racial profiling in virtue of one’s perceived gender or race, being perceived as a woman or a BIPOC person in an explicitly or implicitly sexist or racist society is sufficient to be vulnerable to such undue interferences and injustices, and hence to know what it’s like to navigate the world with the ever-present possibility of being subjected to them. These shared adverse circumstances can be the source of group consciousness raising, solidarity, and resistance, leading to shared concerns, values, and projects, as powerfully shown by Black feminist, Indigenous, standpoint, and epistemic injustice scholars (e.g., Alfred Reference Alfred2005; Allard-Tremblay Reference Allard-Tremblay2026; Catala Reference Catala2025; Collins Reference Collins2009; El Kassar Reference El Kassar2021; Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Medina Reference Medina2013; Russo and Ferraro Reference Russo and Ferraro2025; Wylie Reference Wylie and Sandra2004). The sense of general alignment and acceptance that characterizes belonging, however, need not stem from oppressive or otherwise challenging conditions, nor go hand in hand with such explicit and coordinated endeavors of resistance and consciousness raising. It might sometimes be felt more tacitly or organically in everyday contexts that are not necessarily marked by such social and epistemic friction or struggle and that implicitly and spontaneously take in or support a person or a group of people simply as they are, regardless of whether their social identity (e.g., neurodivergence) is explicitly known, named, or recognized as such (more on this below when expanding on the neurodiversity community).

Moreover, it is helpful to distinguish between at least two different ways in which belonging might be understood when it comes to neurodiversity: belonging within the neurodiversity community and belonging within the larger society. To explain what I mean by neurodiversity community, it will be useful to distinguish between three different aspects of neurodiversity (Catala Reference Catala2024). Empirically, neurodiversity is a part of biodiversity. As an empirical fact, neurodiversity corresponds to the set of neurocognitive profiles that result from naturally occurring neurocognitive variations across humanity. It therefore includes both people who are neurotypical and people who are neurodivergent, rather than only the latter, as is often mistakenly thought. Epistemically, the natural fact of neurodiversity has inspired the neurodiversity paradigm (Walker Reference Walker2021). The neurodiversity paradigm consists in a set of beliefs, theoretical assumptions, methodological commitments, and practical orientations that prioritize the needs and flourishing of neurodivergent people as they define these needs themselves. Examples of such beliefs, assumptions, commitments, and orientations in the context of autism include the belief that there is nothing inherently wrong with being autistic; the theoretical assumption that autism is not a disorder or a sign of “brokenness”; the methodological commitment that autistics’ first-person perspectives about their own experiences as autistics matter and therefore should be sought out, taken seriously, and effectively integrated in public policies and scholarly discourses regarding autism; and practical orientations such as welcoming stimming or supporting sensory sensitivities. The neurodiversity paradigm thus stands in stark contrast to the pathology paradigm, which stigmatizes neurodivergent individuals as deficient, defective, and in need of fixing or disciplining. According to the neurodiversity paradigm, neurodiversity, much like gender, racial, or linguistic diversity, is something to be valued and approached from first-person perspectives – here, the first-person perspectives of autistics.Footnote ² Politically, the neurodiversity movement uses the neurodiversity paradigm to advocate for the equal rights, recognition, and inclusion of neurodivergent people – thereby actively resisting and undermining the pathology paradigm and neuronormativity.

Because my focus will be on belonging within the neurodiversity community, I focus here on the epistemic sense of neurodiversity, or the neurodiversity paradigm, which fundamentally affirms and supports autistic ways of knowing, doing, and being.Footnote ³ Because, as we will see below, the neurodiversity paradigm is key for epistemic self-trust and epistemic repair, I will refer to this community as the neurodiversity community, rather than the neurodivergent community. In focusing on the epistemic sense of neurodiversity, which centers the neurodiversity paradigm, I understand the neurodiversity community as the community that embraces and enacts the neurodiversity paradigm in both theory and practice. Because the neurodiversity paradigm stems from the neurodivergent community (Walker Reference Walker2021), the neurodiversity community, as I understand it here, is largely comprised of neurodivergent people. However, as mentioned above, being neurodivergent is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to be part of the neurodiversity community. Indeed, not all neurodivergent people embrace or enact the neurodiversity paradigm – for example, because of neuronormative ignorance or internalized neuronormativity and neuroableism (Catala et al. Reference Catala, Faucher and Poirier2021: 9016–17), or because they may simply not (propositionally) know that they are neurodivergent. Conversely, some neurotypical people may adopt the neurodiversity paradigm. For these reasons, the neurodiversity community, defined in terms of embracing and enacting the neurodiversity paradigm, will include mostly neurodivergent people along with some neurotypical allies.Footnote ⁴

Moreover, because of the article’s focus on fostering a sense of belonging by affirming or supporting neurodivergent ways of being, I want to highlight that embracing and enacting the principles and values that underlie the neurodiversity paradigm is something that can also be done more or less tacitly – for example, by appreciating, encouraging, cherishing, or engaging with a neurodivergent person simply as they are, regardless of whether the neurodivergent person or the person who appreciates them explicitly knows that this person is neurodivergent. In other words, one need not be explicitly aware of the existence of the neurodiversity paradigm, nor have a theoretical understanding of neurodivergence or a practical ability to recognize it in people, in order to affirm and support neurodivergent ways of being, and therefore to tacitly embrace and enact the principles and values that form the core of the neurodiversity paradigm – in much the same way that one might practically foster epistemic justice without being theoretically aware of the concept, or fluently speak a language and automatically apply its basic grammar rules without being explicitly aware of them.

Finally, it is also worth noting that instantiations of the neurodiversity community thus understood might be found and experienced in several social contexts such as a workplace, a classroom, a friend group, or a family that tacitly or explicitly embraces and enacts the neurodiversity paradigm by being accepting and supportive of neurodivergent ways of being, with or without the knowledge that a person and their ways of being are neurodivergent. Otherwise put, the support of neurodivergent ways of being and the sense of belonging that such support fosters need not be identity-driven,Footnote ⁵ at least not explicitly. This, indeed, is in keeping with the above definition of belonging as a sense of general alignment and acceptance (McLeod 2025), instead of mismatch or rejection, with respect to others, and with the related point noted earlier that this general sense of alignment and acceptance – and hence belonging – may be more tacitly or organically felt in certain contexts that implicitly and spontaneously take in or support a person or a group of people simply as they are – even if their identity (here, their neurodivergent identity) is not explicitly known, named, or recognized as such.

Thus construed, the neurodiversity community promotes neuro-affirming or positive understandings of neurodivergence and of neurodivergent ways of knowing, doing, and being, including different ways of embracing, affirming, and exploring oneself, such as being more self-understanding and self-accepting, surrounding oneself with people who are similarly understanding and accepting, not forcing oneself to fit into the often harmful neuronormative mold, attending to one’s sensory, social, and communicative needs and preferences, allowing oneself to stim in safe contexts, spending time on specific interests, and so on. By doing so, neurodivergent people, including autistics, can learn to trust their neuro-affirming ways of being, doing, and knowing.

While not always explicitly connected to the notion of belonging, the idea that a lack of community support will lead to self-distrust, whereas, conversely, community support is conducive to self-trust, is one that is widely adopted and theorized in the literature (Borgwald Reference Borgwald2012; Casselot Reference Casselot2019; Daukas Reference Daukas2006; El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020; Reference El Kassar2021; Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Collins Reference Collins2009; Jones Reference Jones2012; Leefmann Reference Leefmann2022; McLeod Reference McLeod2002, 2025; Mikkola Reference Mikkola and Dormandy2020; Tanesini Reference Tanesini and Dormandy2020; Wright Reference Wright2021, Reference Wright, Engel and Campbell2025; Young Reference Young2005). This literature has insightfully shown how pervasive subjection to negative stereotypes or representations of one’s group and to the stigma, prejudice, dismissal, and even abuse they generate, or to persistent tacit or explicit feedback from others or society that we are (doing, saying, perceiving, remembering things) wrong, will tend to result in self-doubt and self-distrust regarding not only our competence and abilities in certain domains but also our own needs, preferences, desires, and very sense of who we are and who we can become (Borgwald Reference Borgwald2012; Catala Reference Catala2025: ch. 6; Edlich and Archer Reference Edlich and Archer2025; El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020; Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Young Reference Young2005; Zimmermann et al. Reference Zimmermann, Poirier and Catala2025). Illustrating this point in the context of patriarchy, for example:

Very similar dynamics are at play in the context of neuronormativity, as explained above, with neuronormative standards constantly questioning neurodivergent people’s needs and preferences, or their different ways of being, doing, and knowing – thereby problematically generating self-distrust. Conversely, as suggested above, community support can provide the sort of positive feedback, solidarity, and empowerment that characterize belonging as surveyed above and that are conducive to the development of self-trust. For example, “Patricia Hill Collins relates that Black women support other Black women by “affirm[ing] one another’s humanity, specialness, and right to exist” (Collins Reference Collins2009: 113),” which in turn fosters self-trust (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2021: 201, citing Collins Reference Collins2009). Similarly, the neurodiversity community, based on the neurodiversity paradigm, can play a key role in fostering neurodivergent people’s self-trust – and more specifically, self-trust plurally construed. Indeed, in the next section, I will develop a pluralist account of epistemic self-trust, identifying and centering its experiential (i.e., practical, tacit, embodied, and affective) dimensions, in addition to its propositional or intellectual ones. Before doing so, however, it will be useful to spell out the notion of epistemic self-trust.

Drawing on existing accounts of epistemic or intellectual self-trust offered in the literature, I will understand self-trust as an optimistic disposition toward one’s cognitive capacities that is reflected in one’s actions or behaviors. This conception of self-trust thus comprises affective, cognitive, and behavioral elements: one feels generally optimistic about one’s cognitive competence and acts accordingly (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020, Reference El Kassar2021; Jones Reference Jones2012; Leefmann Reference Leefmann2022), with a certain commitment, determination, or willpower (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020; Hawley Reference Hawley2019; Tanesini Reference Tanesini and Dormandy2020), whereby one not only expresses but also “maintains one’s beliefs” in the face of unwarranted criticisms (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020: 17) or “stays the course” despite possible challenges (Tanesini Reference Tanesini and Dormandy2020: 220). Moreover, as foreshadowed above, this disposition is relational (McLeod Reference McLeod2002) or “scaffolded” (Jones Reference Jones2012: 245): “Human beings can acquire and sustain intellectual self-trust if they live in a supportive community that respects, acknowledges, and values them and allows them to develop intellectual self-trust in their cognitive capacities” (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020: 19). Generally, this means that self-trust results from positive or supportive interactions with others; more specifically, self-trust depends on the respectful and truthful feedback a person receives from others in her environment (McLeod Reference McLeod2002). Furthermore, self-trust need not be explicitly or consciously articulated by the self-trusting person to herself; it can be pre-reflectively or tacitly endorsed or latently felt (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020: 17, El Kassar Reference El Kassar2021: 204, Spear Reference Spear2023: 77–78). Finally, self-trust comes in degrees; can be weaker or stronger in one domain and not others; can be justified or unjustified; and can be used toward good or bad ends (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2021: 205).Footnote ⁶ With this understanding of self-trust in place, let’s now turn to what I propose to call a pluralist conception of self-trust and to the role it can play in processes of epistemic repair.

4. Self-trust as plural and epistemic repair

In contrast to existing accounts of epistemic or intellectual self-trust that implicitly remain propositionally focused, I propose a pluralist conception of self-trust that explicitly identifies and emphasizes its practical, tacit, embodied, and affective dimensions, in addition to its propositional ones. I take this pluralist account to be complementary and compatible with existing accounts.

To introduce my proposed account of self-trust as plurally construed, I follow a critique of the propositional or logocentric focus in the literature on epistemic injustice developed in earlier work (Catala Reference Catala2020, Reference Catala2025, Reference Catala2026). In contrast to this focus, I suggest that if we grant that knowledge is plural and includes not only propositional knowledge (or knowing-that) but also practical knowledge (or knowing-how) as well as tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge (or knowing-what-it’s-like), then epistemic agency and injustice are also plural and have not only propositional but also experiential dimensions. This pluralist account of epistemic agency and injustice is in turn based on a pluralist taxonomy of knowledge that recognizes that knowledge is plural (Catala Reference Catala2020, Reference Catala2025: ch. 1; Shotwell Reference Shotwell2011). That is, the epistemic realm of what we know exceeds the prevailing conception of knowledge as propositional; it also includes experiential knowledge, such as practical, tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge. Propositional knowledge is often explicitly and verbally articulated in the form of propositions, whether orally, in writing, or privately to oneself; it is construed broadly to include justified true belief but also questions, hypotheses, and information. Practical knowledge is acquired through practice and refers to skills (e.g., technical, athletic, artistic, or everyday skills) that are not primarily nor necessarily gained or expressed propositionally. Tacit knowledge corresponds to common sense or what goes without saying, that is, any set of unarticulated and taken-for-granted norms and assumptions that underlie and structure a given context (e.g., social, cultural, professional, and familial), and that could be articulated propositionally, but often are not – such as neuronormativity. Embodied knowledge stems from the body, including the body as socially positioned. For example, the experience of a gendered or racialized body is the source of embodied knowledge of what it’s like to navigate the world with this kind of body, which is not primarily nor necessarily understood in a propositional but rather in an embodied way. Affective knowledge stems from affects – such as depression or anxiety – which likewise are the source of affective knowledge of what it’s like to experience such affects, which again is not primarily nor necessarily understood in a propositional but rather in an affective way. When we use, produce, or convey these various kinds of knowledge, we thereby exercise our epistemic agency along these corresponding dimensions: that is, we exercise our propositional, practical, tacit, embodied, and affective epistemic agency. And when certain types of biases – conscious or subconscious, individual or societal – unduly interfere with the exercise of our epistemic agency along these various dimensions, we thereby face propositional, practical, tacit, embodied, and affective kinds of epistemic injustice (Catala Reference Catala2020; Reference Catala2025: ch. 1, Catala Reference Catala2026; Legault et al. Reference Legault, Catala and Poirier2024; Zimmermann et al. Reference Zimmermann, Poirier and Catala2025).

Similarly with epistemic self-trust: we might trust our competence not only as propositional knowers but also as experiential knowers. To go back to the case of late-identified autism, autistics might (relearn to) trust both their propositional and their experiential knowledge. Trusting their propositional knowledge might consist in adopting the neurodiversity paradigm, which affirms their needs and values their flourishing, and in generally centering and valuing first-person perspectives on autism, including their own. Trusting their practical, embodied, and affective knowledge might take the form of engaging in practices such as avoiding eye contact (which autistics typically experience as deeply intrusive and unsettling), stimming when safe (as a way to regulate, process, and express emotions), limiting neuronormative social engagements (as a way to avoid overwhelm or collapse), and generally taking care of their sensory, social, and communicative needs and preferences. Indeed, these are all ways of trusting and acting on your experiential knowing: engaging in gaze avoidance, stimming, or alone time are all embodied and affective practices that reflect an autistic person’s knowing how to regulate her affects or nervous system, which centrally involves embodied and affective knowing of what it’s like to feel overwhelmed, saturated, or depleted, and, conversely, what it’s like to feel downregulated, balanced, or energized. When neuronormativity as a system or neuronormative people as individuals call into question, stigmatize, or put pressure on autistic reflexes or self-care practices by imposing neuronormative standards and expectations, they thereby dismiss autistics not only as propositional but also as experiential knowers. Autistics thereby face both propositional and experiential forms of epistemic injustice (Catala Reference Catala2024, Reference Catala2026; Legault et al. Reference Legault, Catala and Poirier2024). That is, autistics thereby experience pervasive dismissal of their different ways of knowing, doing, and being. This, in turn, often leads to self-distrust, induced by neuronormativity. These various forms of epistemic injustice and the self-distrust to which they give rise call for epistemic repair, which in this case involves cultivating self-trust, plurally construed as trusting and acting on one’s propositional and experiential knowledge, as described above. Although conceptually distinct, these different types of propositional and experiential knowing (knowing-that, knowing-how, and knowing-what-it’s-like) are often empirically intertwined. Focusing solely on propositional knowledge in discussions of epistemic injustice and agency, and by extension of epistemic self-trust and epistemic repair, therefore yields an incomplete picture and runs the risk of failing to achieve a genuine (pluralist, more complete and inclusive) process of epistemic repair, which, as we will now see, also requires rebuilding epistemic self-trust in both its propositional and experiential dimensions.

Let’s turn, then, to how this pluralist account of epistemic self-trust fits into a framework of epistemic repair – and more precisely, how epistemic self-trust can serve as a mechanism of epistemic repair. Here, I follow the systematic account of epistemic repair formulated in earlier work (Catala Reference Catala2026), namely a pluralist account of epistemic repair, based on the pluralist account of epistemic agency and injustice just surveyed. This pluralist account of epistemic repair aims to foster greater epistemic agency, plurally construed (i.e., our ability to use, produce, or convey both propositional and experiential knowledge) and avoid epistemic injustice, again plurally construed (i.e., being unduly undermined in the exercise of our propositional and experiential epistemic agency).

This systematic account offers a framework based on five questions that can guide us as we consider and embark on various projects of epistemic repair across different contexts:

1. (i) the goal of epistemic repair, or why undertake such a process: if the purpose is by definition to cultivate greater epistemic justice and agency for minoritized groups, this requires addressing questions (ii)–(v);

2. (ii) the agents of epistemic repair, or who should be involved in carrying out this process in a given context: individuals (Boult Reference Boult2024), groups (Catala Reference Catala2026), institutions (Anderson Reference Anderson2012, Fricker Reference Fricker, Gendler and Hawthorne2010, Medina Reference Medina2013); on the minoritized and/or dominant side;

3. (iii) the objects of epistemic repair, or what is being repaired in such a process: epistemic goods such as public apologies or memorials (Lackey Reference Lackey2022), or epistemic relations between individuals at the interpersonal level (Boult Reference Boult2024), between members of non-dominant and dominant groups at the societal level (Catala Reference Catala2026), or between a person and herself (e.g., based on community support, as this article suggests);

4. (iv) the sites of epistemic repair, or where to intervene to cultivate greater epistemic agency and justice: namely, the various definitional elements of epistemic agency identified in earlier work (Catala Reference Catala2020, Reference Catala2025: ch. 1), including centering experiential knowledge in addition to propositional knowledge; nonverbal modes of expression in addition to verbal ones; and factors, internal and external to the agent (e.g., individual dispositions, social interactions, institutions, and opportunities, material resources and infrastructures) that facilitate the agent’s successful exercise of their epistemic agency (meaning that the agent reaches their aim, such as gaining propositional uptake or improved know-how, and so on);

5. (v) the mechanisms of epistemic repair, or how to intervene: for example, the normative and epistemic role of individual and structural mechanisms such as epistemic friction (Medina Reference Medina2013), discomfort (Allard-Tremblay Reference Allard-Tremblay2025; Applebaum Reference Applebaum2017; Boudreau Morris Reference Boudreau Morris2017; Catala Reference Catala2026; Gilson Reference Gilson2011), cultural safety (Curtis et al. Reference Curtis, Loring, Jones, Tipene-Leach, Walker, Paine and Reid2025; Power Wiradjuri et al. Reference Power Wiradjuri, Bwgcolman, Ngāti Tahinga (Tainui) and Clark Ngāpuhi2022; Torris-Hedlund et al. Reference Torris-Hedlund, Palakiko and Komene2025; Williams Reference Williams1999), or trust and self-trust (as discussed here).

Going back to our case of finding out that you are autistic in adulthood, we saw that neuronormativity tends to undermine autistics’ self-trust and to generate self-distrust, and that, conversely, the neurodiversity community can foster a sense of belonging that is conducive to self-trust, plurally construed. We can now see how the foregoing analysis of this case fits into a broader framework of epistemic repair. The goal in this particular instance, as with projects of epistemic repair in general, is to foster epistemic agency and avoid epistemic injustice for minoritized people – here, autistics. The object of epistemic repair or what is being repaired is the relationship of the late-identified autistic person to herself, building on the supportive new relation that she has developed with the neurodiversity community.Footnote ⁷ Accordingly, the agents of epistemic repair in this case are the late-identified autistic person and the neurodiversity community. In this instance, the above analysis has centered self-trust, plurally construed, as an important mechanism of epistemic repair: that is, self-trust serves as a key tool for the autistic person to repair her relationship with herself as a plural epistemic agent, honoring both her neuro-affirming propositional and experiential (practical, tacit, embodied, and affective) knowledge.

This process of epistemic repair through the rebuilding of self-trust, plurally construed, involves several sites of epistemic repair, corresponding to various definitional elements of epistemic agency (Catala Reference Catala2026). This is to be expected: if the goal of epistemic repair is to foster greater epistemic agency, then it makes sense that the sites of epistemic repair would correspond to the core components of epistemic agency. These components include the various kinds of knowledge that we can use, produce, or convey, namely propositional, practical, tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge – as illustrated in the example of the autistic person’s knowing how to regulate her affects or nervous system by avoiding eye gaze, limiting neuronormative gatherings, or safely engaging in stimming, which are all practices that centrally involve embodied and affective knowing of what it’s like to feel saturated or balanced. Moreover, these embodied and affective practices that use experiential kinds of knowing rely largely on nonverbal modes of expression – here, looking away when avoiding eye contact, stepping aside when limiting neuronormative interactions, or soothingly moving parts of one’s body when stimming. These practices can be relearned thanks to the factors, internal and external to the person, that foster the exercise of her epistemic agency – here, the support of the neurodiversity community and the internal sense of belonging and resolve it fosters in the late-identified autistic person. Finally, when engaged in in a supportive environment that facilitates rather than hampers the autistic person’s epistemic agency, these practices allow the autistic person to successfully exercise her epistemic agency, plurally construed as using, producing, or conveying both propositional and experiential kinds of knowing. In other words, these practices directly serve to counteract the propositional and experiential forms of epistemic injustice identified above, and thereby to contribute to the process of epistemic repair. Specifically, to review, what is being repaired here (i.e., the object of epistemic repair) is the relationship of the autistic person to herself, thanks to the supportive community and the sense of belonging that foster both propositional and experiential self-trust as well as the successful exercise of propositional and experiential epistemic agency – hence meeting the goal of epistemic repair, namely to foster greater epistemic agency and justice.Footnote ⁸

Before closing, it will be useful to go back to existing accounts of self-trust to further spell out the pluralist account of self-trust proposed above. Specifically, I want to turn to four elements that existing accounts mention and that bring out important aspects of the process of rebuilding self-trust and of epistemic repair in the context of neurodiversity: namely, the feedback, moral, and vulnerability dimensions of self-trust (McLeod Reference McLeod2002) and the determination, steadfastness, or commitment dimension of self-trust (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020; Hawley Reference Hawley2019; Tanesini Reference Tanesini and Dormandy2020).

Recall that epistemic injustice undermines our epistemic self-trust, that is, our trust in our own capacities as knowers (Fricker Reference Fricker2007; El Kassar Reference El Kassar2021; Wright Reference Wright2021, Reference Wright, Engel and Campbell2025), not only as propositional but also as experiential epistemic agents – that is, as people who use, produce, and convey not only propositional but also practical, tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge (Catala Reference Catala2020, Reference Catala2025: ch. 1). Neuronormativity leads to self-distrust because it constantly questions autistics’ practical, tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge regarding their sensory, social, and communicative needs and preferences. Think back to the example of the autistic person who knows how to regulate her nervous system by engaging in embodied and affective practices such as avoiding eye contact or stimming, but who is repeatedly “told” in a neuronormative society that her ways of knowing, doing, and being are wrong and nonsensical. As Sarah Wright (Reference Wright, Engel and Campbell2025: 12) aptly puts it: “When others see someone as unintelligible, this gives them potentially persuasive evidence that they should not trust themselves.” The kind of propositional and experiential self-distrust that neuronormativity generates for this autistic person will in turn become imprinted through tacit, embodied, and affective experiences and their corresponding kinds of knowledge, much as is often the case for women living under patriarchy or for BIPOC folks under white supremacy (Al-Saji Reference Al-Saji and Emily2014; Casselot Reference Casselot2019; Catala Reference Catala and Tremain2023; Legault et al. Reference Legault, Catala and Poirier2024; Young Reference Young2005; Zimmermann et al. Reference Zimmermann, Poirier and Catala2025). Indeed, when autistics are forced into the neuronormative mold, they often experience various forms of embodied and affective collapse, such as autistic meltdowns (i.e., hyperreactivity due to saturation from environmental stimuli), autistic shutdowns (i.e., hyporeactivity due to saturation from environmental stimuli), or autistic burnout (i.e., the sheer exhaustion that results from living in a world that is not made for you). These various forms of collapse in turn come with their own forms of tacit, embodied, and affective knowledge of what it’s like to live as an autistic person in a neuronormative world.

In the context of the neuronormative undermining of autistics’ epistemic self-trust, respectful and truthful feedback (McLeod Reference McLeod2002) comes from the neuro-affirming stance of the neurodiversity paradigm that the neurodiversity community embraces and enacts, in both theory and practice. On a pluralist conception of self-trust, this means that the neurodiversity paradigm is adopted not just propositionally but also experientially. The neurodiversity paradigm and community invite autistics and their allies to unlearn neuronormative reflexes or habits of thought, practice, embodiment, and affectivity and to reconnect with their own neuro-affirming ones, by recovering or rediscovering the experiential knowledge that neuronormativity has too often knocked out of them, or buried deep inside of them – thereby generating a form of tacit, practical, embodied, and affective smothering or silencing (Catala Reference Catala2025: ch. 1, 72–73, adapting Dotson’s (Reference Dotson2011) propositional conception of smothering and silencing). Because neuronormativity typically has long been deeply ingrained and internalized for late-identified autistics, the process of unlearning neuronormativity and self-distrust while embracing and enacting neurodiversity and developing valuable epistemic self-trust can sometimes be slow and bumpy, involving moments of doubt and hesitation (Al Saji Reference Al-Saji and Emily2014, Casselot Reference Casselot2019, Young Reference Young2005), albeit ultimately of a beneficial, transformative, and emancipatory kind (Medina Reference Medina2013).

This brings us to two further dimensions of self-trust that pick out important aspects of the process of rebuilding self-trust and of epistemic repair in the face of neuronormativity: a moral dimension and a vulnerability dimension (which distinguish self-trust respectively from self-confidence and from self-respect: McLeod Reference McLeod2002). In the case of neurodiversity, the normative dimension of self-trust plurally construed is more specifically political and emancipatory: for an autistic person to rebuild her epistemic self-trust plurally construed is to fundamentally resist neuronormativity by embracing and enacting the neurodiversity paradigm both propositionally and experientially, in theory and in practice, as described above. While one might feel some vulnerability in this process of self-trust building – perhaps phenomenologically akin to the kind of vulnerability one might experience when trying to speak in another language or to ice-skate for the first time – it is at its core a positive, chosen kind of vulnerability, in contrast to a harmful, imposed kind of vulnerability (Dryden and Catala Reference Dryden and Catala2026, Gilson Reference Gilson2011).

This latter point, finally, points to the importance of the determination, steadfastness, or commitment dimension of self-trust (El Kassar Reference El Kassar2020, Hawley Reference Hawley2019, Tanesini Reference Tanesini and Dormandy2020). Because unlearning neuronormativity in adulthood can paradoxically feel vulnerable and uncomfortable and is not always a straightforward or smooth process in a neuronormative world that constantly pushes us back in the opposite direction, it is important for autistics to steadfastly anchor themselves in the neurodiversity paradigm that allows them to hang on and keep developing their epistemic self-trust in the face of challenges, doubts, or hesitation. Relatedly, a neurodivergent person who has managed to rebuild her self-trust thanks to the sense of belonging and acceptance that the neurodiversity community and paradigm offer may still encounter epistemic injustice when navigating neuronormative environments. Yet the self-trust, belonging, and acceptance that she experiences thanks to the neurodiversity community and paradigm may make her more resilient when confronted with neuronormative epistemic injustice, by helping her remain steadfast in the face of such challenges. To recognize this resilience, however, is not to minimize the wrongness of the many types of epistemic injustice that neuronormativity generates (Catala Reference Catala and Tremain2023, Reference Catala2024, Reference Catala2025: ch. 6, Legault et al. Reference Legault, Catala and Poirier2024), nor therefore to deny the need for additional, complementary work of epistemic repair that focuses on repairing the epistemic relations between the neurodivergent and neurotypical groups, to address both the propositional and experiential forms of epistemic injustice that these neuronormative relations otherwise produce (Catala Reference Catala2026).