As an angel investor, Peter Shankman has made millions investing in startups, yet it wasn’t easy getting to the top of the ladder. He’s also a person with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and as such still bears the psychological scars of navigating a society that punishes people who aren’t neurotypical.
“Growing up, I spent my entire life being told I talked too much,” Shankman told Salon. “My middle name was ‘sit down, you're disrupting the class.’ I scraped by in school and college through the skin of my teeth, and have spent the last 25 years in therapy trying to undo the damage that constantly being told I was broken my entire childhood did to me as an adult.”
Despite starting five companies, selling three, and becoming quite successful, Shankman says “not a day goes by where I don't believe that it's all bulls**t, and I'm a complete fraud.”
While Shankman has put together a decent life for himself despite these stigmas, he is concerned that the policies being pushed by America’s newly-elected leaders will make life even harder for neurodiverse people today than it was for him growing up.
For every story of excellence in neurodiversity there are those that play into unflattering stereotypes — such as attorneys for alleged quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger considering introducing his autism into his defense. Systematic reviews in scientific journals repeatedly find that stigma against autistic people is prevalent and causes real-world harm, with one scholar concluding that policymakers who want to help neurodivergent people should start by “identifying active ingredients of interventions, measuring reliable changes in behaviors and attitudes, and targeting structural stigma.”
By contrast, President Donald Trump and his new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., are stirring controversy among disabled people through executive orders targeting supposed initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. They are also slashing social programs like Medicare and the Department of Education, which many disabled people require for health care and other important social services.
Kennedy has repeatedly mischaracterized autistic people by falsely claiming autism is caused by vaccines while attacking life-saving medications like antidepressants, insisting that instead force people with mental illness would benefit from “healing” farms.
“How dare RFK Jr. punish people for being different, instead of helping them understand that their differences are what make them better?” Shankman said. “It's the last thing we should be doing. ‘You're different, and that's wrong’ doesn't help people, doesn't help our country, and doesn't help us heal.”
According to experts who specialize in autism, ADHD and other neurodiverse conditions, the traditional, and invariably reactionary, approach to neurodiversity embraced by the administration reinforces and exacerbates pre-existing stigmas that have long made life painful for neurodivergent individuals. These stigmas are not simply harmful — they are also unscientific.
“Scientific evidence shows these conditions are not ‘threats’ but rather neurological differences that can lead to positive outcomes when given appropriate support,” Dr. Eliza Barach, a cognitive psychologist and ADHD coach and consultant, told Salon, adding that ADHD is one of the most easily treatable conditions in the DSM-5, the handbook for diagnosing psychological conditions approved by the American Psychiatric Association.
“While individuals with ADHD/autism face unique challenges, they can thrive when their traits are properly understood and supported,” Barach added. “The true threat is in failing to recognize and support neurodivergent folks,” especially as the scientific community moves toward viewing autism, ADHD and similar conditions as natural variations in human brain development. This means, inevitably, moving away from lenses that depict neurodivergent conditions as pathologies.
“A ‘clinical’ diagnosis typically occurs when someone experiences significant difficulties functioning in environments designed for neurotypical minds,” Barach said. “Research has revealed that these neurotypes often come with distinct strengths, including exceptional pattern recognition, hyperfocus abilities, creative problem-solving, and innovative thinking.”
By contrast, the reactionary approach to neurodivergent conditions seems destined to increase prejudices which downplay or ignore these nuances. This strategy highlights so-called “weaknesses” that (quite often) are nothing more than manifestations of societal intolerance. Dr. Monique Botha, a professor of psychology at Durham University, argued that people who advocate cutting services for neurodivergent people and removing legal protections usually doubt or deny the underlying reality of those disabilities.
“Autism and ADHD are heritable disabilities, and both communities do not pose a threat to anyone by virtue of being autistic or having ADHD,” Botha told Salon. “It is a group of people, however, who have been demonized and stigmatized, and RFK is clearly choosing to endorse some of the most reckless and negative beliefs about the group because they do not have easily recognizable disabilities. This means that it's a group where it's easier to doubt the veracity of the claims about disability, in favor of a narrative of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and ‘getting over it.’”
Botha explained that there is already extensive evidence demonstrating that by and large anti-depressants and ADHD medications are safe, that access to medication for ADHD can prevent early mortality for diagnosed patients and that vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, molecular biologists believe that neurodivergent conditions arise due to a combination of heritable and environmental factors.
“We are coming to terms with the wide variation amongst autistic people, the fact that more than white boys can be autistic,” Botha said. “To pretend that we've been held back by a lack of funding on biological research ignores the reality of the vast majority going on it (as per actual research on this topic) and it ignores that autistic people and their families couldn't often care about the biology of it all — they want access to evidence-based care and support, both of which are drastically underfunded.”
In addition to studying autism and ADHD, Barach has ADHD and Botha has both conditions. Each of them reflected on how the new government’s philosophy toward neurodiversity intersects with their own lived experiences.
“My own research tackles the disparities facing neurodivergent people,” Botha told Salon. “Both disabilities run in my family. I've worked with teams in the U.S. and attend a big autism conference that is most years, held in the U.S.” Instead of being able to tout her country as a forerunner in research or practice, the anti-science resurgence has forced Botha to ask whether it is even safe to attend American conferences.
“Personally, as someone who is both a researcher, and neurodivergent, I also wonder about it,” Botha said. She observed that autistic people are an easy group to stigmatize, and “are more likely to have negative judgments made about them based on small interactions.”
Barach, who has a PhD in psychology, told Salon that the revival of anti-ADHD stigmas has caused her and other patients with ADHD to feel as if they must “mask” their behavior in public.
“Myself and my clients have often walked through life hiding and masking our neurodivergence in order to fit in and avoid exclusion and judgment,” Barach said. “It's exhausting to wear a mask all the time and be told that who you are is not enough — that you need to fundamentally change in order to be accepted. While it's understandable to make modifications to behavior to promote success, it's entirely different when we're asking people to modify their entire being and self, instead of offering environmental accommodations in conjunction with behavioral adaptations.”
Becca Lory Hector, an autistic speaker and researcher and author of "Always Bring Your Sunglasses,” told Salon that her work bringing belonging and equality to the lives of neurodivergent individuals has been directly undermined by Kennedy’s efforts.
“I’ve seen how rhetoric like this leads to harmful policies, whether in education, employment, or healthcare, where support is cut, services are denied, and Autistic people are further marginalized,” Hector said. “His statement isn't just offensive; it's a call to action for those of us fighting for the right to exist without being treated as a threat.”
Sol Smith coaches people with both autism and ADHD, running support groups for them and is the author of the upcoming book “Autistic’s Guide to Self- Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult.” He said that the current culture of contempt for autistic individuals directly and negatively impacts their lives.
“My whole job is to increase the public’s education about autism and ADHD, to reduce stigma, and to help autistics and ADHDers find themselves in this society,” Smith said. “How ADHDers and autistics feel about themselves is downright awful; they’ve lost touch with themselves as they’ve tried to hide in a society not made for them. They struggle with the very social constructs that define our culture — and that’s without politicians suggesting they be wiped out as some kind of internal threat.”
IngerShaye Colzie, an ADHD executive leadership coach and founder of the ADHD Black Professionals Alliance, observed that as a Black woman with ADHD, she knows that prejudices against people with disabilities can easily intersect with other forms of bigotry, including racism and misogyny.
“For years, I internalized the idea that my brain was ‘wrong’ and that I had to work twice as hard, overcompensate and mask my symptoms to be taken seriously in professional spaces,” Colzie said. “This led to burnout, imposter syndrome, and deep self-doubt.” People already held her to a higher standard because of her race and sex; when her ADHD caused her to struggle with basic organization and time management, people wrote her off as lazy and unprofessional regardless of the creative solutions she brought to the table.
“I found myself in a confusing situation where my ideas were celebrated, still my work style was criticized, leaving me feeling simultaneously valued and deeply flawed until I finally understood what was really going on,” Colzie said. “Masking is exhausting. It means constantly monitoring yourself, trying to fit into a world that wasn’t built for you, and hiding your struggles, even when it’s costing you your mental and physical health.”
If America wants to help its neurodivergent citizens, advocates like Smith believe they need to accept that the disabilities are social, not medical — that is, “we are disabled by our social climate and the expectations that we will think and work in the same ways that neurotypicals do.”
Instead of encouraging society to broaden its perspective about acceptable behavior, Smith believes the current trend is to move in the opposite direction, with “people kindling our ancient fears is a powerful political move that distracts us from real social reforms that we should be addressing.”
This is in stark contrast to the RFK Jr. approach.
“Why the hell is a non-doctor unilaterally deciding to rip this lifeline away from people who rely on it to thrive?” Shankman asked. “It’s mind-boggling, reckless and if enacted, will devastate countless lives — many of whom will never fully recover.”
