“We Need Spaces That Get All of Us”: Community as a Mental Health Resource for Black Neurodiverse Women with Postsecondary Education

Abstract

Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education occupy an underexamined intersection of race, gender, and neurodiversity, yet little research has examined their access to affirming community support. This survey study (N = 53) examines community access and mental health among Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education. Findings reveal a 54.7 percentage-point gap between how many participants rated community support as important (96.2%) and how many had found it (41.5%). Participants also reported high rates of anxiety (90.6%), depression (79.2%), and masking (77.4%). Using qualitative reflexive thematic analysis, the following four themes were developed, defined, and named: (1) living at the intersection of race, gender, and neurodiversity; (2) structural barriers to access; (3) finding and building community; and (4) community as emotional validation and intersectional recognition. Framed through Black Feminist Disability Theory and intersectionality, these findings position access to affirming community as a structural health need and a health equity issue. Implications are drawn for campus mental health services, community organizations, and future research.

1. Introduction

Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education navigate institutions that were not designed to recognize them across the axes of race, gender, and neurodiversity simultaneously. Neurodiversity refers to natural variation in human cognitive functioning—encompassing variations such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other neurodevelopmental and mental health differences (see Section 4.1). They manage the structural demands of predominantly White institutions alongside the cognitive and emotional labor of neurodiversity—and they do so, in most cases, without access to community spaces that affirm their full intersectional identities. Community support is one of the most consistently documented protective factors for mental health: it buffers the psychological effects of discrimination, affirms identity, reduces isolation, and increases engagement with formal clinical care [1,2,3]. Yet the communities that exist were not built to hold both Blackness and neurodiversity at once. The result is a structural gap that this study names, documents, and analyzes.

Community support functions through specific pathways that shape stress exposure, coping capacity, and wellbeing. Thoits [1] identifies how social ties produce health benefits through belonging, companionship, self-esteem, a sense of control, and role-based meaning. Belonging—the sense of being socially accepted and valued by a group—is directly associated with reduced anxiety and depression and increased academic persistence [4]. Dutcher et al. [5] confirm that lower daily feelings of belonging predict higher depressive symptoms among college students, independent of loneliness and frequency of social contact. For marginalized groups navigating predominantly White institutions, belonging requires identity affirmation: being seen and recognized as a full person, including the dimensions of identity that institutions routinely render invisible. Counterspaces—social settings in which marginalized students resist deficit-oriented messages and affirm their identities—have been documented to support persistence, belonging, and mental health for students of color [6,7]. Quezada-Horne et al. [8] document how Black women undergraduates develop community-based coping strategies specifically because formal institutional supports fail to understand their intersectional experiences.

For Black women, community support carries functions that extend beyond general social belonging. Black women face disproportionate rates of depression and anxiety produced by the structural stressors of gendered racism—the cumulative intersectional experience of racial and gender-based discrimination [4,9]. Gendered racial microaggressions are significantly associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms across multiple studies [10,11,12]. Community spaces that validate these experiences and offer collective processing of gendered racism provide mental health protection that individual therapy cannot fully replicate. McCall et al. [13] find that Black women experience both hypervisibility and invisibility in mental health spaces, and that identity-affirming community connection is one of the most consistent sources of psychological recovery for Black women navigating racial microaggressions [14]. Ward, Clark, and Heidrich [2] establish that when formal clinical services are structurally exclusionary—through cost, institutional racism, stigma, and the absence of culturally competent providers—informal community networks become the primary mental health resource by necessity.

For neurodiverse individuals, community creates space to stop masking. Masking—the active suppression or camouflaging of neurodiverse traits (e.g., forcing eye contact, suppressing the urge to share extensive detail about topics of interest, often called ‘info dumping,’ or masking difficulty sustaining conversational engagement) in order to conform to neurotypical social expectations—is consistently associated with anxiety, depression, burnout, and identity confusion [15,16,17]. Community spaces where masking is not required serve as recovery environments.

Despite the documented importance of community for both Black women and neurodiverse individuals, Black neurodiverse women face a structural gap: the communities that exist do not hold both dimensions of identity. General neurodiversity communities have been documented to center White experiences and perspectives [18,19]. Black neurodiverse people’s specific experiences of racial misreading, late or missed diagnosis, racially compounded masking demands, and navigating predominantly White healthcare and educational institutions are not consistently represented in these spaces. Jones, Botha, and Sasson [20] capture this dynamic: Black autistic participants described feeling stuck in the middle, belonging fully to neither the Black community nor the autistic community, navigating intersectional stigma that neither space was structured to address. Botha and Gillespie-Lynch [21] document that neurodiversity was originally conceived as a category of intersectionality but has developed in practice around norms that render racially minoritized neurodiverse people systematically invisible. Giwa Onaiwu [22] names the racial dimension of this directly: the neurodiversity movement’s prominent voices, targets, and program participants are predominantly White, and neurodiverse people of color face racial microaggressions within the very movement that claims to center their neurological difference.

General Black women’s wellness spaces, in turn, rarely address neurodiversity. The intersection of Blackness and neurodiversity is underrepresented in research [18,23], underrepresented in clinical services, and underrepresented in community organizations. Lovelace et al. [23] document through a seven-decade scoping review that the intersectional experiences of Black autistic women and girls have been systematically excluded from autism research—a finding that explains the absence of community spaces at this intersection. Davis et al. [24] find that informal social networks are critical in countering isolation and reducing stress among Black autistic individuals, identifying community as a primary resource precisely where institutional and clinical supports are absent or inadequate. Williams et al. [25] document that when community spaces reproduce pathologizing frameworks around neurodiverse traits, they replicate the same erasure that formal clinical settings produce. Davis, Solomon, and Belcher [26] establish that racial identity and autistic identity are experienced as simultaneously present and mutually compounding, producing distinct challenges that neither race-focused nor disability-focused frameworks alone can address.

Online communities have created new spaces where Black women discuss neurodiversity and share strategies for navigating higher education, yet these conversations are still emerging in the academic literature. Existing scholarship documents structural exclusion and epistemic neglect in neurodiversity research and discourse [18,19,23] as well as race-specific experiences of intersectional stigma among autistic adults [20]. Adjacent work shows that when formal mental health systems are experienced as inaccessible, informal networks and community-based coping become central supports for Black women [2]. No published study has directly examined the relationship between community access and mental health outcomes specifically among Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education. This gap in the literature is consequential: it means that the populations most likely to be navigating two incomplete pillars of community support are also the populations least represented in the research that would inform institutional response.

The current study addresses this gap by using an online survey design to examine community access and mental health among Black neurodiverse women who have completed at least an associate’s degree. This research investigates the following critical questions: (1) How do Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education experience the search for affirming community? (2) What structural conditions produce barriers to access? and (3) What does affirming community provide when it is found?

By centering the voices and lived experiences of Black neurodiverse women, this research offers important insights into the structural factors shaping community access and mental health outcomes within this population. Understanding these experiences is essential not only for improving access to support systems, but also for addressing the persistent health disparities affecting both Black women and neurodiverse individuals in the United States. By illuminating the barriers to and facilitators of affirming community connection, this study contributes to the development of more intentional community spaces, more equitable institutional policies, and more effective interventions aimed at advancing health equity for Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education.

2. Results

2.1. Participant Characteristics

This survey study integrated quantitative survey data with qualitative thematic analysis to capture both the scope and the lived dynamics of community access and mental health among Black neurodiverse women, and included 53 Black neurodiverse women with diverse demographic characteristics. The sample consisted of adults spanning a range of age groups, with the largest proportion aged 31 or older (30.2%), followed by participants aged 22–25 and 26–30 (each 28.3%), and participants aged 18–21 (13.2%). The majority of participants (75.5%) attended predominantly White institutions, with 24.5% attending community colleges and 11.3% attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Institution type categories were not mutually exclusive: participants could attend different types of institutions across different stages of their higher education (e.g., a participant may have completed an undergraduate degree at a PWI and a graduate degree at an HBCU); percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. Most participants had completed substantial post-secondary education, with 34.0% holding master’s degrees, 30.2% holding bachelor’s degrees, and 5.7% holding doctoral or professional degrees. Nearly half of participants (45.3%) identified as first-generation college students. With respect to neurodiversity identification, 58.5% reported a formal diagnosis, 26.4% self-identified as neurodiverse, 11.3% were unsure of their status, and 3.8% did not identify as neurodiverse. With respect to institutional experiences, only 17.0% of participants (n = 9) reported registering for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodations during college. Recognition of neurodiversity also frequently occurred late: 41.5% of participants (n = 22) were recognized or received a diagnosis during college, and 37.7% (n = 20) not until after college. Participant demographic characteristics and mental health and masking indicators are summarized in

Table 1. Participant demographic characteristics and mental health and masking indicators (N = 53).

Characteristic	n	%
Age (years)
18–21	7	13.2%
22–25	15	28.3%
26–30	15	28.3%
31+	16	30.2%
Gender Identity
Woman	52	98.1%
Non-binary	1	1.9%
Institution Type Attended
Predominantly White Institution (PWI)	40	75.5%
Community College	13	24.5%
Historically Black College or University (HBCU)	6	11.3%
Highest Education Completed
Some college	12	22.6%
Associate’s degree	4	7.5%
Bachelor’s degree	16	30.2%
Master’s degree	18	34.0%
Doctoral/professional degree	3	5.7%
First-Generation College Student
Yes	24	45.3%
Neurodiversity Identification
Formally diagnosed	31	58.5%
Self-identified	14	26.4%
Unsure	6	11.3%
No	2	3.8%
Masking and Mental Health
Masking	41	77.4%
Self-Reported Anxiety Related to Neurodiversity	48	90.6%
Self-Reported Depression Related to Neurodiversity	42	79.2%
Anxiety (GAD-7, moderate–severe: ≥10)	30	56.6%
Depression (CES-D, clinical threshold: ≥16)	38	71.7%

Institution type and race/ethnicity categories were not mutually exclusive, as participants could select more than one option; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%.

.

Participants reflected diversity across the Black diaspora: 77.4% identified as Black/African American, 15.1% as being of African descent (e.g., Nigerian, Ghanaian, Somali), 7.5% as Afro-Caribbean, 5.7% as multiracial including Black, and 1.9% as Afro-Latinx. Race/ethnicity categories were not mutually exclusive, as participants could select more than one option; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%.

In addition to demographic characteristics, participants completed two standardized mental health screening instruments: the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) [27] and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) [28]. Participants also provided self-reported information regarding anxiety and depressive symptoms they associated with their neurodiversity experiences. Overall, 90.6% of participants reported anxiety symptoms related to neurodiversity (n = 48), while 79.2% reported depressive symptoms related to neurodiversity (n = 42). Findings from the standardized screenings further indicated that 56.6% of participants scored within the moderate-to-severe range for anxiety on the GAD-7 (scores ≥ 10; n = 30), and 71.7% met the clinical threshold for depressive symptomatology on the CES-D (scores ≥ 16; n = 38). Although both screening instruments were scored and analyzed, these findings are presented here primarily as contextual descriptors of the sample’s mental health profile.

Beyond demographic characteristics, participants were asked directly about the importance of community support and their experience accessing it. When asked how important community support is for individuals with neurodiverse identities, 96.2% of participants (n = 51) rated it as either somewhat or very important, while only 41.5% (n = 22) reported having found supportive communities (online or offline) for Black neurodiverse women. To assess overall valuation of community support, responses of ‘Somewhat Important’ and ‘Very Important’ were aggregated into a single combined measure. This produced a 54.7 percentage-point gap between how participants rated the importance of community support and their actual access to it. Qualitative responses suggest this disparity reflects structural barriers to connection and understanding. As one participant described: ‘For myself, it’s being different yet having no choice but to fit in the structured mold. It was sink or swim with no other option. I realized my effort was enough so I unsubscribed from standard practice and winged it.’ Another participant located the barrier in institutional gaps: ‘the lack of understanding of the nuance between political-racial implications and being neurodivergent and black.’ These accounts locate the barrier in structural conditions; a pattern developed further in Theme 2 below.

2.2. Themes and Representative Quotes

Thematic analysis of qualitative responses revealed four overarching themes that capture the experiences of Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education as they relate to community access, structural barriers, and mental health. These themes are: (1) Living at the Intersection: The Mental Health Cost of Race, Gender, and Neurodiversity; (2) Structural Barriers to Access; (3) Finding and Building Community—How and Where; and (4) Community as Emotional Validation and Intersectional Recognition. Each theme is presented below with representative participant quotes.

• Theme 1: Living at the Intersection: The Mental Health Cost of Race, Gender, and Neurodiversity

This theme explores the unique, compounding experiences of navigating both higher education and daily life at the intersection of Black womanhood and neurodiversity. Participants detailed how the simultaneous hypervisibility of their race and gender, paired with the frequent invisibility of their neurodiverse needs, shapes their social interactions, requires exhaustive masking, and dictates how they advocate for themselves in spaces not designed for their intersecting identities.

Participants described what it means to live at the intersection of race, gender, and neurodiversity. Across responses, they named how their identities compound one another in institutional spaces, in community spaces, and in the weight of perception they carry daily. Participant 28 (age 31+, PWI/Community College) named the broader silence around gender and neurodiversity: “No one talks about how differently it affects women and girls.” Participant 31 (age 26–30, PWI) described how her ADHD presentation was filtered through racial stereotypes: “ADHD can show up many different ways and irritability is a big one for me. So my moods could come off as rude or distant which normally feeds into the ‘Angry Black Woman’ stereotype.”

Participant 11 (age 26–30, PWI/Community College) named the compounding burden of managing both identity and perception at the same time: “We aren’t just managing our neurodivergence. We’re managing perceptions.” Participant 34 (age 22–25, Community College) described the cumulative cost of being expected to perform strength across all dimensions at once: “As a Black woman, I feel like we’re the ‘angry Black woman’. We have to do so much, be so much in order to live in this world. Which causes overstimulation and burn out.”

These responses establish the foundation for understanding why community access matters so urgently for this population. Black neurodiverse women are not navigating separate systems. They are navigating one system that was built without them in mind at every intersection of their identity.

The compounding demands participants describe—such as managing neurodivergent traits, navigating racial stereotypes, and performing strength across every dimension of identity simultaneously—are precisely the conditions that research links to elevated anxiety, depression, burnout, and psychological exhaustion among Black women and neurodiverse individuals [10,11,15,16,17].

• Theme 2: Structural Barriers to Access

Building upon the intersectional experiences detailed in Theme 1, this theme outlines the specific systemic and institutional hurdles participants face when seeking support. Rather than viewing isolation as an individual failure, this theme highlights structural deficits that actively prevent Black neurodiverse women from securing equitable resources, including diagnostic biases, a lack of culturally competent care, and the inaccessibility of traditional support networks.

When asked about the most significant barriers Black neurodiverse students face while pursuing postsecondary education, participants named the layering of race, gender, and neurodiversity as producing a specific form of structural invisibility. Each identity carries its own barriers. At the intersection, those barriers compound. Participants described navigating institutions and communities that were not built to recognize them fully at any of those dimensions simultaneously.

Participant 45 (age 31+, PWI) named how racial identity dominates institutional perception, pushing neurodiversity out of view: “I think being Black is seen first and that comes with so many barriers on their own that being neurodivergent is overlooked and not thought of.” Participant 50 (age 26–30, PWI) described the specific layering of systems Black neurodiverse women navigate: “In my opinion it’s racism first, gender second, and ableism third. When you’re a Black neurodivergent woman you get the worst of these worlds.”

Participant 32 (age 18–21, PWI) named the institutional gatekeeping that compounds these barriers: “Racism that is difficult to prove in peers, faculty, and staff. They are often the barrier for people without proper documentation or diagnoses and make regular processes harder for those who do have documentation.” Participant 53 (age 18–21, PWI) named the consequence of navigating all of this without intersectional support: “I think the biggest impact that being neurodivergent as someone who is marginalized in other ways is that it leaves you incredibly lonely.”

These responses do not describe isolated incidents. They describe a structural pattern. Black neurodiverse women are navigating institutions that were not built to see them, in communities that were not built to hold them, carrying an isolation that is produced by that double absence.

• Theme 3: Finding and Building Community—How and Where

Despite the profound structural barriers identified in Theme 2, participants demonstrated a strong, persistent drive to seek out and cultivate their own networks of support. This theme highlights the active, intentional labor required to find or build safe spaces, contrasting the high valuation of community connection against the severe scarcity of pre-existing, accessible environments.

Among the 22 participants who reported finding supportive communities for Black neurodiverse women, digital platforms and informal peer networks emerged as the primary sites of community formation. Participants did not describe finding community through formal institutional channels. They built it through social media, peer relationships, and everyday connections with others who shared their intersecting identities.

Participant 38 (age 26–30, PWI) named specific digital platforms that served as community spaces: “Reddit and YouTube plus a group called adhd babes.” Participant 24 (age 31+, PWI) described how openness about her diagnosis led to organic community formation: “I’ve never openly sought anything from neurodiverse communities, but because I’m so open about my ADHD, I have formed community with so many other ADHDers that I’ve come across—through school, work, social circles, etc. I do enjoy finding people who just get it.”

Participant 22 (age 26–30, PWI) described building community through accountability partnerships: “Mostly tips on how to navigate situations. Or I will find someone who will be an accountability buddy and work on things at the same time.” Participant 43 (age 31+, Community College) described what community gave her once she found it: “Mostly validation. As I mentioned before, there were symptoms that I did not know and now hearing these experiences from other Black neurodivergent women makes it easier to understand.”

Across these accounts, formal institutional spaces were absent from participants’ descriptions of where they found affirming community. Community was found and built where participants created it—in digital spaces, peer networks, and everyday relationships that were not already built to exclude them.

• Theme 4: Community as Emotional Validation and Intersectional Recognition

The final theme examines the transformative impact of successfully accessing affirming community spaces. Participants described these networks as vital mental health resources that provide essential emotional validation. Within these spaces, participants reported the profound relief of being inherently understood and the freedom to unmask without needing to translate their intersectional reality for others.

Among participants who found or sought affirming community, the mental health function of that community was consistent and specific. Participants named validation, reduced isolation, and intersectional recognition as the most essential things community provides. They also named practical resources and strategies. But the emotional function came first.

Participant 51 (age 31+, Community College) described the core of what community provides: “I am not alone is the biggest.” Participant 29 (age 22–25, PWI) named what validation specifically makes possible: “I seek validation that there is nothing wrong with me at all. What I have is okay and normal.”

Participant 17 (age 26–30, PWI) named the freedom that comes from being around people who share one’s neurodiversity without needing to explain it: “Mostly I love being able to easily gather with my fellow NDs and yap about anything with no judgment.” Participant 46 (age 26–30, PWI) described what intersectional recognition made possible: “Universality, knowing I’m not the only one that experiences this. And being able to connect things I’ve always done back to a diagnosis has been freeing.”

Participant 11 (age 26–30, PWI/Community College) named both the emotional and practical dimensions of what she seeks:

“Knowing I’m not alone in my struggles, especially as a Black woman who masked for years, brings me comfort and clarity. Practical strategies, I appreciate tips on executive functioning, task management, and emotional regulation that are actually ADHD and sensory-friendly. … Resources that center intersectionality, I look for support that acknowledges how race, gender, and culture shape the neurodivergent experience. …”

Across these responses, participants named something specific. The experience of having an identity rendered invisible, finally recognized and confirmed, matters deeply. The resources help. The strategies are useful. But the foundation is intersectional validation. Being seen fully, without having to choose which part of yourself to leave at the door, is what makes community a mental health resource for Black neurodiverse women.

3. Discussion

The 54.7-point gap between how many participants rated community support as important (96.2%) and how many had actually found it (41.5%), established in Section 2.1, is the central empirical finding of this study. Consistent with Theme 2 (Structural Barriers to Access), this gap does not reflect an individual shortcoming; it is the measurable consequence of structural siloing. Two conditions documented in the literature and confirmed by the data produce it: general neurodiversity communities center Whiteness [18,19,21], and general Black women’s wellness spaces do not hold neurodiversity [29]. When both primary sites of community formation systematically exclude one dimension of identity, the population at that intersection has nowhere to go. The themes developed from the data are consistent with this structural analysis. Participants did not describe the absence of community as a personal failure to connect; they described navigating institutions and community spaces that were not designed to recognize them at the intersection of race, gender, and neurodiversity simultaneously.

The qualitative findings deepen this structural account. Theme 1, living at the intersection, documents the compounding mental health cost of navigating race, gender, and neurodiversity in institutional environments not designed to hold that combination. Participants described how neurodiverse traits were filtered through racial stereotypes, how the expectation of strength was applied across all dimensions of identity at once, and how the absence of recognition produced both cognitive overload and emotional exhaustion. This is consistent with research on gendered racial microaggressions [10,11] and with documentation of how masking compounds these costs by demanding sustained suppression of neurodiverse traits on top of the existing performance demands of racialized and gendered institutional environments [15,17].

Theme 2, structural barriers to access, confirms the structural nature of the community access gap. Participants named racism, gendered racism, and ableism as layered and mutually compounding forces, not separate barriers to address sequentially. This is consistent with Davis, Solomon, and Belcher’s finding [26] that racial identity and autistic identity are simultaneously present and mutually compounding, producing distinct challenges that neither race-focused nor disability-focused frameworks alone can address. The low rate of ADA accommodation registration (17%) signals a systemic failure: participants were navigating institutions without formal support at disproportionate rates, and the barriers participants described—institutional gatekeeping, difficulty proving racism, the invisibility of neurodiversity behind racial identity—explain why. Furthermore, these structural barriers extend beyond individual experiences while pursuing postsecondary education, reflecting broader systemic inequalities that must be addressed to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [30]. The mental health burden documented in this study, including elevated anxiety, depression, and masking-related burnout, directly implicates SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), while persistent barriers to completing and navigating postsecondary education implicate SDG 4 (Quality Education). Dismantling the institutional ableism and lack of culturally competent care that restrict access for Black neurodiverse women is essential for advancing SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality).

Themes 3 and 4 together document both the structural adaptation participants developed in the absence of institutional support and the specific mental health functions of community when it was found. Digital platforms and informal peer networks were the primary sites of community formation, not formal institutional channels. This is consistent with the literature documenting digital community as a primary site of identity formation for neurodiverse adults [31] and with Ward, Clark, and Heidrich’s finding [2] that when formal services are structurally exclusionary, informal community networks become the primary mental health resource by necessity. The mental health functions participants named when community was found—validation, reduced isolation, intersectional recognition, and the freedom to stop masking—are precisely the functions that the literature identifies as community’s most significant health-protective mechanisms for both Black women [3,14] and neurodiverse individuals [32,33].

Turner, Harrell, and Bryant-Davis [3] formalize community’s role through the Black Love, Activism, and Community (BLAC) model, which positions social connection as a primary healing structure in its own right. Neal-Barnett et al. [29] provide empirical documentation of the sister circle model as a formal mental health intervention for professional Black women, establishing that culturally grounded group spaces carry significantly lower stigma than clinical settings and create environments where the cultural expectation of strength is collectively recognized and named. The Strong Black Woman Schema directly suppresses help-seeking from formal clinical services by marking need as weakness [34,35,36,37,38]. Community spaces that affirm identity function as lower-barrier entry points to support, spaces where the cultural script of strength does not require the same performance because the community itself recognizes and names the burden. Inniss-Thompson, Leath, and Harris [39] document that psychological safety for Black women requires intentional centering of their identities; general community spaces do not produce it automatically.

Digital neurodiversity communities have become particularly important sites of identity formation for neurodiverse people, especially those who reached self-recognition in adulthood [31]. Peer support models for neurodiverse individuals have been associated with reduced stigma, increased self-advocacy, and improved mental health outcomes [40]. Cooper et al. [32] provide direct empirical evidence that autistic community solidarity reduces social anxiety and improves psychological wellbeing. Childress [33], in a study centering Black college women with autism, finds that intersecting racism, sexism, and ableism suppress self-advocacy in institutional settings, and that structured peer community becomes the primary environment where advocacy capacity is built and sustained.

Taken together, these findings reframe the 54.7-point gap not as a wellness deficit but as a health equity issue. Understood through Black Feminist Disability Theory, the absence of affirming community emerges as a structural absence with measurable mental health consequences. Participants reported high levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms related to their neurodiversity experiences, with 90.6% reporting anxiety symptoms and 79.2% reporting depressive symptoms. These self-reports were further contextualized by standardized mental health screenings, in which 56.6% scored within the moderate-to-severe anxiety range on the GAD-7 and 71.7% met the clinical threshold for depressive symptomatology on the CES-D. Participants also reported a 77.4% masking rate, underscoring the psychological burden associated with navigating non-affirming environments. Bailey and Mobley [41] position access to affirming community as a structural health need. This study provides empirical grounding for that theoretical claim. The implications are direct: building intersectional community spaces is not a supplemental wellness initiative; it is a health equity intervention.

A Black feminist disability framework grounds this analysis by positioning community as a health equity issue. Bailey and Mobley [41] define a good life not as productivity under ableist conditions but as a life characterized by rest, community, and the freedom to exist as you are. Schalk [42] documents how Black disability activism has always been grounded in community health, mutual aid, and collective resistance. Schalk and Kim [43] identify community and activism as core domains of feminist-of-color disability studies, arguing that building community is itself a health practice. Collins’s outsider-within framework is directly applicable [44,45]: Black women in White institutional spaces are physically present but never fully recognized as belonging. Community spaces that center Black neurodiverse experience invert this dynamic, creating environments where the intersection is the norm. Crenshaw [46,47] provides the intersectional theoretical foundation: the experiences of Black neurodiverse women cannot be understood by adding the race experience to the neurodiversity experience. The intersection produces a specific set of needs, barriers, and community support requirements that single-axis frameworks will systematically miss.

3.1. Limitations

Several limitations of this study merit attention. The sample size (N = 53) limits generalizability; findings are exploratory and descriptive. Recruitment through social media and Reddit introduces self-selection bias, and participants may be more digitally engaged or more connected to online neurodiversity communities than the broader population of Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality between community access and mental health outcomes. In addition, all eligibility criteria were self-attested and could not be independently verified within the anonymous design. Twelve participants (22.6%) reported “some college, no degree” as their highest completed education, a pattern consistent with the structural barriers under study. Eight participants (15.1%) reported being unsure of (n = 6) or not identifying with (n = 2) a neurodiverse identity on the identification item. Relatedly, the absence of confirmed diagnostic status remains a limitation. As an early-career researcher studying a community to which she belongs, the first author brought both insider knowledge and inevitable blind spots to survey design, recruitment, and analysis. The umbrella term “neurodiverse” was deliberately chosen to allow participants to self-identify in whatever way felt accurate and comfortable to them, consistent with the neurodiversity paradigm and responsive to the diagnostic access barriers many Black women face. At the same time, this breadth means the data do not disaggregate between specific neurodiverse identities (e.g., ADHD, autism, and other forms of neurodivergence may be experienced differently), which future research could examine more closely. More broadly, future research would benefit from iterative, community-informed instrument design. Finally, qualitative coding was conducted solely by the first author; while the second author reviewed the coding structure and thematic interpretations, the absence of independent parallel coding or intercoder reliability assessment is a limitation of the study. Future research should employ multiple coders or formal reliability procedures to strengthen analytic rigor.

3.2. Implications

The findings carry implications for campus mental health services, community organizations, higher education institutions, and future research. Campus mental health offices must be both culturally competent and neurodiverse-affirming simultaneously—not sequentially. The 17.0% ADA accommodation registration rate signals a systemic awareness and access failure that requires institutional intervention, not individual outreach. Community organizations serving Black women or neurodiverse individuals must move toward intentional, intersectional design: spaces and programs that center the full combination of identities. Digital community must be recognized as a primary support structure, and institutions should invest in supporting and amplifying digital community infrastructure for populations underserved by in-person options.

Higher education institutions must confront the late and missed diagnosis patterns documented in this study—41.5% of participants were recognized or received a diagnosis during college, and 37.7% not until after college —as evidence that institutions are not identifying or supporting Black neurodiverse women proactively. Neurodiversity-affirming advising, culturally informed screening, and proactive outreach are structural interventions that institutions can implement without waiting for the research literature to catch up. Future research should pursue longitudinal designs to examine community access and mental health outcomes over time, develop and test community-based interventions specifically designed for Black neurodiverse women, and create measurement tools that do not default to White neurotypical baselines.

4. Materials and Methods

4.1. Reflexive Positionality Stance

Both authors are Black women who approached this research from a critical Black feminist perspective, centering the lived experiences of Black neurodiverse women as legitimate and authoritative forms of knowledge. This positionality informed every stage of the research process—from study design and instrument development to data analysis and interpretation. Rather than treating the authors’ racial and gender identities as sources of bias to be neutralized, this study follows a Black feminist epistemological tradition [44,45] that positions shared social location as a resource for producing more accountable and culturally grounded scholarship. The first author additionally identifies as a Black neurodiverse woman, providing an insider standpoint that shaped the depth and specificity of the inquiry. Both authors were committed to ensuring that participant voices were centered throughout the analytic process, and that findings were interpreted in ways that honor the complexity and dignity of participants’ experiences.

4.2. Study Design and Participants

The neurodiversity paradigm reframes cognitive differences, including ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other neurodiverse variations, as natural forms of human variation. Sociologist Judy Singer coined the term in her 1998 honours thesis, describing neurodiversity as ‘the uniqueness of all brains’ and arguing that neurodiversity may be as vital to cultural stability as biodiversity is to ecosystems [48]. Singer explicitly anticipated the framework’s relevance to intersectional analysis, suggesting neurodiversity could extend existing analytical categories such as class, disability, ethnicity, and gender. This study builds directly on that invitation, examining how neurodiversity intersects with race and gender for Black women navigating higher education. Botha and Gillespie-Lynch [21], building on this foundation, reframe conditions such as autism as valuable minority identities. For the purposes of this study, neurodiversity was defined inclusively to encompass ADHD, autism, dyslexia, sensory processing differences, and other self-identified neurodiverse variations, consistent with the paradigm’s emphasis on self-determined identity over exclusively clinical diagnosis [49].

This study employed an online survey methodology using an asynchronous survey administered through Microsoft Forms (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) (IRB Protocol 2083, Texas Southern University). Data collection took place over a three-month period from June to August 2025. The survey instrument was designed to capture both breadth and depth: closed-ended items (including multiple-choice, checkbox, and Likert-scale formats, and the standardized GAD-7 and CES-D measures) captured prevalence and patterns across the sample, while open-ended narrative questions generated the rich, participant-centered accounts necessary to understand how structural conditions are experienced and navigated in everyday life. Closed-ended items included demographic measures (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, income bracket, institution type), binary yes/no items assessing formal diagnosis status and masking behavior, frequency-based Likert scales, and the standardized GAD-7 and CES-D symptom checklists tracking mental health impacts over the preceding two weeks. Open-ended items included short-answer prompts about diagnostic challenges, situational narratives describing specific instances where masking affected wellbeing, open institutional recommendations, and peer-to-peer advice for future Black neurodiverse students.

The survey instrument comprised 40 closed-ended items (including the GAD-7 and CES-D standardized measures) and 15 open-ended questions. Closed-ended items assessed community access and community importance ratings, masking frequency, mental health diagnoses, and institutional experiences including accommodation registration and diagnosis timing. Sample items included: (1) “Have you found supportive communities (online or offline) for Black neurodiverse women?”; (2) “How important is community support for individuals with neurodiverse identities?”; and (3) “Did you experience racial or gender-based discrimination in college related to your neurodiversity?” The open-ended questions were designed to be nonleading, inviting participants to narrate their experiences in their own words without constraining responses to predetermined categories.

Participants were recruited through purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling. The survey was distributed via the first author’s personal Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn accounts and a Reddit thread for Black women with ADHD. Word of mouth and professional networks from previous colleges and internships extended reach. Black neurodiverse women who have completed college constitute a hidden population with no institutional registry or sampling frame; digital community-based recruitment was therefore the methodologically right approach. For the purposes of this study, ‘Black neurodiverse women’ was operationally defined through three inclusion criteria based on self-identification and educational attainment. First, racial and gender identity was defined as self-identification as a Black woman or an individual of African descent within the Black diaspora (e.g., Black/African American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, or multiracial including Black); gender identity was defined inclusively through self-expression, encompassing both women and non-binary participants who identify with or navigate higher education as Black women. Second, neurodiverse identity was defined as self-identification as neurodiverse (e.g., ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or other neurodiverse variations), inclusive of participants with a formal clinical diagnosis (58.5%) as well as those who self-identified without one (26.4%) or were unsure (11.3%), reflecting the study’s critique of systemic diagnostic barriers. Third, educational attainment was defined as completion of at least an associate’s degree from an accredited U.S. institution. Consistent with the neurodiversity paradigm’s emphasis on the diversity of brains and minds over categorical labeling, the neurodiversity identification item intentionally centered self-determined identity and diagnosis status. The umbrella term ‘neurodiverse’ was understood inclusively to encompass ADHD, autism, dyslexia, OCD, anxiety, mood disorders, and other neurodiverse variations. This framing served two purposes central to the study’s community-building aims: it aligned with the reality that diagnostic pathways for Black women are frequently non-linear and shaped by well-documented barriers to accurate and timely diagnosis, and it allowed participants to identify as neurodiverse without disclosing a specific, often more heavily stigmatized diagnosis—a layer of protection particularly important for Black women and other marginalized groups navigating compounded stigma around mental health and neurological difference. Specific condition type was therefore not captured as a separate quantifiable field. What mattered was not which label a participant held, but that her voice and experience of navigating higher education as a neurodiverse Black woman be heard. This design choice is supported empirically by the sample itself: 98.1% of participants (n = 52) believed structural barriers prevent Black women from receiving accurate diagnoses, and 86.8% (n = 46) believed self-diagnosis is an effective way to understand oneself, together underscoring both the necessity and the legitimacy of self-determined identification within this population. Consistent with a commitment to inclusive research practice, this study employed identity-first language (e.g., ‘neurodiverse women’) to recognize neurodiversity, including conditions such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, OCD, and anxiety, as an aspect of human variation. The term ‘neurodiverse’ was intentionally chosen over ‘neurodivergent’ because language that frames non-neurotypical individuals as ‘diverging’ or ‘deviating’ implicitly treats neurotypicality as the default standard. ‘Neurodiverse’ centers variation itself as valid, consistent with Singer’s original framing of neurodiversity as a natural, biological form of variation [48]. While individual participants occasionally used the term ‘neurodivergent’ in open-ended responses describing their own experiences, and their original language is preserved verbatim in direct quotations, the study’s analytic and theoretical framing intentionally centers ‘neurodiverse’ throughout. Eligibility was self-attested through anonymous recruitment; 12 participants (22.6%) who reported “some college, no degree” as their highest completed education were retained because they met all other criteria and had direct experience navigating higher education as Black neurodiverse women. The final sample was N = 53.

The first author identifies as a Black neurodiverse woman who has completed both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Following completion of this study, she founded the Black Neurodiverse Queens Collective in April 2026, a community space created by and for Black neurodiverse women, extending this research’s findings into community practice. Drawing on Collins’s outsider-within framework [44], she occupies an insider position through shared intersecting identities with participants and an outsider role as a researcher in academia. Her standpoint was not treated as bias to eliminate but as a foundation for ethical, informed, and culturally grounded inquiry.

4.3. Data Management

This study received exempt approval from the Institutional Review Board at Texas Southern University (Protocol #2083), determined to meet the exemption criteria under 45 CFR 46.104(d)(2). Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection via a consent confirmation item at the start of the survey, which 100% of participants (N = 53) affirmed. All data were collected, stored, and managed in compliance with IRB Protocol 2083 (Texas Southern University). Survey responses were collected through a password-protected Microsoft Forms account accessible only to the first author. Following data collection, all raw data were exported and stored on a password-protected personal device used exclusively by the first author. No identifying information was retained in the dataset; participants were assigned numerical identifiers (e.g., Participant 1, Participant 2) to protect confidentiality. Digital files containing participant data were not shared via cloud platforms or open networks. The second author accessed de-identified data files for the purposes of manuscript development. Data will be retained in accordance with Texas Southern University’s data retention policy for the duration specified by the IRB protocol.

4.4. Data Analysis

Qualitative data were collected through open-ended, free-text survey questions embedded within the same online instrument. Data collection did not involve focus group discussions or in-depth interviews; rather, participants responded asynchronously and independently. Quantitative items, including community access ratings, masking frequency, and symptom screening data, were analyzed descriptively to document prevalence and patterns across the sample. Qualitative data from the 15 open-ended survey questions were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) [50]. An inductive coding approach was used, in which codes and themes were derived directly from participant responses. Codes were not imposed from an existing theoretical framework. To maintain close proximity to participants’ narratives, coding was conducted manually, without specialized qualitative software, consistent with Braun and Clarke’s emphasis on sustained, reflexive immersion in the data as an analytic process in itself. In Phase 1, the first author familiarized herself with the data by reviewing the word clouds generated by the Microsoft Forms platform, which visually emphasize the most frequently occurring words in participant responses, and through repeated close reading of all participant responses, noting initial impressions and documenting observations in reflexive memos. In Phase 2, initial codes were generated systematically across the full dataset, capturing both semantic and latent content in participant language. In Phase 3, codes were sorted and grouped into candidate themes, with attention to patterns across participants. In Phase 4, candidate themes were reviewed against the coded data extracts and the full dataset to assess internal coherence and external differentiation. In Phase 5, themes were defined and named, with analytic narratives developed to capture the essence of each theme and its relationship to the study’s research questions. In Phase 6, the analysis was refined and integrated into the findings reported here.

Throughout the process, reflexive analytic memos were maintained to document the first author’s interpretive decisions, manage positionality, and support auditability. The second author reviewed the first author’s coding structure, thematic development, and analytic interpretations for scholarly rigor and conceptual coherence; however, independent parallel coding was not conducted.

5. Conclusions

This study is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first to directly examine community access and its relationship to mental health among Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education. The findings document a 54.7-point gap between how many participants rated community support as important and how many had found it, and they locate that gap in structural conditions: general neurodiversity communities were not built to hold Black women, and general Black women’s wellness spaces were not built to hold neurodiversity. The result is a population navigating two incomplete pillars of support, neither of which holds them fully.

The four themes together document the mental health costs of managing compounded institutional and community exclusion and the specific protective functions of community when it is found. Participants named validation, reduced isolation, intersectional recognition, and the freedom to stop masking as the most essential things community provides. These are not peripheral social benefits. They are core mental health resources for a population whose members reported, respectively, anxiety symptoms (90.6%), depressive symptoms (79.2%), and masking behaviors (77.4%) related to their neurodiversity—each a contextual indicator of the ongoing cost of navigating institutions and communities that were not designed for them.

Framed through Black Feminist Disability Theory and intersectionality, these findings position access to affirming community as a structural health need and a health equity issue. Building intersectional community spaces—whether physical, digital, or institutional—is therefore a critical health equity intervention, and spaces that fully recognize and affirm intersecting identities should be a fundamental right.

This research fills an empirical gap the literature has named but not yet addressed, contributing original data at the intersection of race, gender, and neurodiversity. The study supports intentional community design, institutional policy change, and continued research that centers intersectionality as foundational. Future scholarship should build on these findings to develop, test, and scale community-based models that are explicitly designed for Black neurodiverse women with postsecondary education.