The extended trailer/opening episode of Irregular Humans features your host, Jenn Wilson, sharing the ideas behind this podcast and their wider work as founder of the International Day of Consent and Irregular.
What is an 'irregular human'?
Is it about being neurodivergent, ADHD, autistic, queer, non-binary, trans, polyamorous, or some other identity that isn't 'normal'? What does 'normal' mean anyway?
Jenn extends an invitation to explore what it means to live by the maxim: 'Be the change you want to see in the world' - to challenge the status quo and make the world a kinder, fairer, safer place for everyone. Irregular Humans Podcast will explore this in more depth, including Jenn's solo episodes and guests who are also change-makers who live and work differently to challenge standard ways of doing and being, and shape a more irregular future.
Your personal rebellion starts here - we hope you'll join us.
Join The Irregular Membership for bonus content and to work with Jenn on your personal rebellion - details HERE
Transcripts
[:
It's a cliched phrase. We've all heard it, and a lot of us, I guess I certainly had before have dabbled with that idea as part of purpose driven, activist, creative work that we've been doing. But to actually live by that idea is something else, because the world we actually live in is a [00:01:00] world that's very unjust, that's very entitled, that's full of hierarchy and coercion and privilege.
It's a world that's been shaped by a concept of normal. An idea that there is some kind of standard for human beings to try to live up to that normalness or normativity, if you like, can take many forms. I was listing only today to someone who was talking about neuron normativity, so that's the opposite of neurodivergence and uh, and also is the system.
slexic, not et cetera brain, [:
Normativity can also be applied to things like gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, skin color. There are. Cultural definitions of what normal looks like, what the standard to meet is, and for the most part, structurally and systemically speaking, someone who is cisgender, IE, they were assigned a particular gender at birth and they still [00:03:00] live in that gender.
So. The, the, uh, doctor said it's a boy, and they have grown up to be a boy or a man. Cisgender, heterosexual, straight, white skinned, tall, attractive, slim, able-bodied, neurotypical, and conservative with a small c. In their outlook, willing to conform to what's expected of them, middle class, well educated, et cetera.
vilege and who are doing the [:
Acknowledging those learning from them, trying to unlearn the standard scripts that say that they're the best. Many of us don't fit into that particular category. Uh. You might be a woman, you might be transgender or non-binary. You might have be a person of color. You might be a person who experiences racism.
e I mean the social model of [:
So you are disabled by the world we've made. This is what is normal and it is what is harmful to most of us to quite a lot of us, those identities are just regular. They're just the standard. They're just what's expected. They're just what's taken for granted. So for me, using the word irregular is a kind of.
nces, and I would include in [:
All of those isms and phobias are part of what is normal and of, of a system that isn't just. Justice is not balanced. It is unfair. There are people who go without for no fault of their own, just by circumstances. There are people who are excluded. There are people who are lonely. There are people who are disrespected.
There [:
Then I become an US and everyone who's not in that group becomes a them. And wherever we have an us and a them, a binary system of people with, and people without power, privilege, access, [00:08:00] et cetera, we are compounding. A division that is socially constructed. Yes, there might be physical differences between us, but I don't believe that anyone, individual has less value as a human being than any other, but our societies and cultures do believe that.
So when I talk about being irregular. I want to challenge that paradigm. I want to challenge normal. I want to challenge the assumptions and beliefs that we've all inherited and grown up inside. Because being the change you want to see in the world is about working out what change is needed and not about hurling abuse at each other and telling each other that you are wrong because you're not like me.
elieve the same things I do, [:
So when I talk about being more irregular, being irregular, Jen, that's what I'm talking about. And this podcast is going to have some episodes where it's just me pontificating sharing my ideas, whittering on hopefully amusing and delighting and interesting some of you. With what I've learned in the process of trying [00:10:00] to be the change I want to see in the world, and many of the episodes are going to be conversations between me and someone else who identifies with the title of Irregular Human For me.
Those other irregular humans are people who've chosen to show up in the world as themselves. We bandy around the word authentic a lot, and it's overused, but authenticity is a real thing and you know it. When someone is truly being the most you, they can possibly be, they are being themself. They are being wholeheartedly themself.
hey should or had to or must [:
Irregular humans embrace their difference, celebrate their difference, and instead of trying to fit in. Shape the world around their own wibbly, wobbly, weird sense of self, their own irregular identities shaping a world that works for them. That's the world that they want and is the world I think that we all need.
kable lives, who are finding [:
New ways of conducting their relationships, then that's what you'll find here on the Irregular Humans Podcast. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you very soon.
