Jonathan Mooney

Dyslexic writer & activist. One of the foremost leaders in LD/ADHD, disabilities and alternative education. My new book, "Normal Sucks" is now out!

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Normal has got to go.

‍I partnered with an award winning director to make a short documentary about the tyranny of "normal" & the power of different to kickstart the #NormalSucks movement

Head to https://t.co/s02SDe8Ybs to watch the full video and to #ShareYourDifferent

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

We can't really make difference normal, because normal doesn't exist. It has been and will always be statistical fiction.R etweet if you agree!

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Normal can and does change and I believe this shapeshift.

This is evidence that over time we can continue to create views that embrace more difference and variation.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

No one has taught me more than my partner, no one has loved me as I am no more than her either. Having an atypical body or mind does not disqualify you from finding a partner in this life if you choose to do so.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

I want you to know that I did not and do not have a disability, but rather I experienced disability in environments that could not or would not embrace my differences.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

I've come to realize that one is not born a persona with a disability, one is made into one. Normality, ability, and disability are not features or facts inside a human being, but a relationship between human variability and the social environment that surrounds the differences.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

The categories of abnormality, like disability, are not real, like air, but real like taxes or money.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

The narrative of "overcoming" can be highly problematic, however. It puts pressure on the person to change versus pressure on the environment to accept.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Resisting normal begins with your refusal to hide, to cover, to deny parts of yourself that don't fit normal's story for you.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

It's time we begin to seriously look at our schools and our general population for ways to reform how those with different minds and bodies are treated.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

This is not an individual problem, but a systematic problem at its core.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

The idea of normal says that if someone doesn't quite fit into a category that we've somehow collectively deemed right, they stand out and are subject to persecution, ridicule, not being understood.

However, what happens when you search for the square holes instead?

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Anthropometry involves the systematic measurement of the physical properties of the human body, mostly descriptions of the body size and shape. This was an early tool used to help understand human variation.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Differences can be differences without the labeling of them as less-than.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

We started to link normal with science and in doing so, we vilified difference and labeled it as abnormality.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

What does it look like if we decide to teach kids from a young age that normal is subjective, that differences don't mean someone is better than or less than them?

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Pretty much anyone who deviated from the normal bell curve was categorized as sick or less than.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

We seem to praise diversity, when we want it, and vilify it when it presents at an inopportune time — such as when someone is different than us.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Normal is statistical fiction, nothing more or less.

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Heard the term "new normal" being tossed around lately? Where we once walked around mask-less in public, we're now wearing masks and distancing from one another — it's a whole new world, a whole new "normal".

[Jonathan Mooney @_JonathanMooney]

Did you know that the first study or normal people ever done was a study of white men at a university that, at the time, only admitted white men?