The Ableist Construct of “Camouflage”

Update: When I say here that “I now tend to believe that masking does not really exist,” I am specifically referring to “masking” or “camouflage” as a conceptual and communicative framework, and to the ideas built around it. This is not a vague claim; it comes out of a personal trajectory and has a precise meaning that has been developed across the blog posts. I am not dismissing lived experience—on the contrary, I am trying to define it more clearly by seeking more fitting frameworks of perception and communication, and by pointing out problematic aspects of dominant narratives that ultimately weaken the expression of inner experience. In this post, “camouflage” is situated at an external level—not as an experience in itself, but as a construct, and as something that is often instrumentalized through the narratives built around it. Read the full position: Does “Masking” Exist? – A Series of Posts.

As I explain in my recent posts and videos, I now tend to believe that “camouflage” or “masking” does not really exist (see Update). It is a myth of invisibility that we have been charged with — and which we have accepted. A “level” of invisibility has been constructed and labeled as “high functioning,” serving as a goal, as treatment.

But it is nothing more than an oppressive ableist myth.

They play with our trauma, our oppression, and our internalized ableism, as a psychological defense, as I wrote in a previous post. This is how we end up accepting this myth, along with the dominant and oppressive interpretations about who we are and what we do, our existence, visibility, access, social relationships, our place in society, our “usefulness,” even our basic human rights.

“Camouflage” is conveniently charged to us as something we do — a personal act of invisibility that some of us are supposedly “capable” of. A false status that maintains our lack of access and our oppression. And those who are seen as “not capable” are expected to try harder — or to achieve it through conversion therapies. A massive industry and system built on the promise of this false status, with long, exhausting conversion therapies that are traumatic and destructive. These practices can cause PTSD, while also making people — especially the children targeted — vulnerable to abuse and unable to assert their own will. This exposes children to numerous dangers and undermines their boundaries and self-respect.

Below are some key quotes from the new Highlights and Quotes page, organized in categories that reveal the ableist construction of “camouflage.” More quotes are available in the original blog post.

Masking – Camouflage

(Behavioralization – Psychologization)

The construct of “camouflage” as a goal of elimination and invisibility within dominant medical-model approaches.

• Denial of difference in functioning
• Camouflage as a level of functioning
• Camouflage is constructed as a personal act of invisibility that autistic people are charged with
• The separation of “behavior” as an independent entity
• The construction of an invisible “functioning level”

If the person themselves “achieves” camouflage, they supposedly do not need anything; they are normal. Or they have mental health issues, trauma, personality disorders, and other diagnoses for which they must seek therapy or “manage” individually. 

Dominant approaches shape social understandings of camouflage.

• Internalized ableism
• The idea that camouflage magically allows someone to transcend their own functioning and gain access.
• Camouflage as a social skill or an art
• Denial of difference, behavioral and psychological framing (negative or romanticised traits), personality type, level of functioning
• Acceptance of allistic functioning as superior and of the pathologization of autism
• Acceptance of camouflage as an act of invisibility charged to autistic people

As long as we keep talking about “masking,” or focusing on “traits” and “behaviors” that need to be accepted, we remain in the wrong framework. We remain within a behavioral framework — focused on individual behaviors.

We talk about it as if it were a matter of etiquette.

Why do we typecast autism?

And why do we separate something called “autistic behavior”? What is it that we are covering when we say masking or camouflage? Something that exists somewhere else, without us?

At its core, all of this is a denial of difference in functioning.

Video

The Ableist Construct of "Camouflage"

Original post (Greek) / Πρωτότυπη ανάρτηση (ελληνικά) 

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