The Myth of the Default Human by Julie Bjelland, LMFT

One of the most powerful myths in our society is the belief that there is a “default human.”

It is the assumption that one way of thinking, feeling, communicating, looking, moving, relating, and experiencing the world represents the standard against which everyone else should be understood.

Once we begin to notice this assumption, we can see it almost everywhere.

Who Gets Treated as the Standard?

People with less sensitive nervous systems are often treated as the preferred standard, while sensitive people are described as too emotional, too reactive, too intense, or too easily overwhelmed.

Allistic, or non-autistic, ways of thinking, communicating, learning, working, and socializing are often treated as the reference point. Autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and other neurodivergent people are then measured by how closely they can fit those expectations.

Nondisabled bodies and consistent capacity are treated as the norm, while disabled and chronically ill people are expected to adapt to environments that were not designed with their bodies, energy, mobility, communication, sensory needs, or access needs in mind.

Whiteness and white Western cultural practices are frequently treated as the reference point. Other racial and cultural identities are then understood according to how they differ from that standard.

Skin color, facial features, hair texture, language, accent, cultural expression, spirituality, family structures, and ways of communicating may all be judged through white Western norms rather than understood within their own cultural and historical contexts.

Male bodies and experiences have also long been treated as the reference point in medicine, research, leadership, and social expectations.

Women and gender-diverse people have too often been understood through frameworks built around male bodies, male presentations, and male life experiences.

Thin bodies are frequently treated as the preferred standard. People in larger bodies may be judged, excluded, shamed, medically dismissed, or assumed to be unhealthy based on appearance alone.

Youth is treated as preferable to aging. Conventional attractiveness is treated as a form of social value. Visible disability, scars, facial differences, limb differences, and other physical variations are positioned outside the imagined norm.

Heterosexuality is commonly treated as the default, while lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and other sexual orientations require additional explanation.

Cisgender identity and the gender binary are treated as standard, while transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people are positioned as exceptions.

Western individualism is often treated as universal.

Independence, productivity, speed, financial security, and constant availability are rewarded. Interdependence, collective care, slower processing, variable capacity, rest, caregiving, and different forms of contribution are devalued.

These experiences are not identical, and they do not carry the same histories or consequences.

But they reveal a shared underlying pattern: society imagines there is one preferred way to be human, and everyone else is measured by their distance from that imagined center.

Nature Tells a Different Story

We do not choose one bird and decide that every other bird should become more like it.

We do not see a hummingbird as an unsuccessful eagle.

We do not think a penguin is a broken bird because it does not fly.

We do not ask an owl why it is awake at night or assume a tortoise is failing because it moves slowly.

We do not look at a forest and decide that every tree should be an oak.

A willow is not a defective redwood.

A cactus is not a failed fern because it cannot thrive in a rainforest.

A plant that needs shade is not weaker than one that flourishes in direct sunlight.

We do not expect every flower to bloom at the same time, in the same way, or under the same conditions.

Nature does not organize life around one ideal species, body, rhythm, appearance, or way of surviving.

It creates biodiversity.

Different forms of life have different strengths, vulnerabilities, needs, relationships, environments, and ways of contributing to the larger ecosystem.

We understand this instinctively when we look at nature, yet we often fail to extend the same understanding to human beings.

Instead, we create one narrow standard and ask everyone else to adapt to it.

When the Myth Becomes Internalized

The harm begins early.

Sensitive children are told they are weak.

Autistic children learn that their natural communication, movements, interests, sensory responses, and ways of connecting are wrong.

Disabled people are expected to navigate inaccessible spaces instead of having those spaces designed around the reality of human variation.

People whose race, culture, gender, sexuality, body size, appearance, or way of thinking differs from the dominant standard may be treated as less acceptable, less credible, or less worthy of belonging, while being pressured to minimize or change the parts of themselves that do not fit.

Over time, people may stop questioning the standard itself and begin questioning themselves.

Why am I so sensitive?

Why can’t I keep up?

Why do I struggle with things that seem easy for everyone else?

Why do I have to work so hard to be understood?

Why does my body seem unacceptable?

Why do I feel like I am always outside looking in?

This is how a social myth becomes internalized.

It creates shame, masking, perfectionism, self-surveillance, chronic anxiety, burnout, disconnection, loneliness, and the painful belief that we are fundamentally flawed.

People learn to suppress their needs, hide their bodies, change their voices, rehearse their communication, minimize their pain, ignore exhaustion, and reshape themselves in hopes of becoming more acceptable.

For many late-discovered autistic people, especially women and gender-diverse adults, this can mean decades spent trying to become the person they thought they were supposed to be.

They may have been identified as anxious, overly sensitive, dramatic, difficult, shy, rigid, emotional, or socially awkward without anyone recognizing the broader autistic pattern beneath those experiences.

Discovering that they are autistic can bring relief and clarity. It can also bring grief for all the years they believed their difficulty meeting an impossible standard reflected a personal failure.

The Myth Shapes Our Systems

The consequences are not only personal.

The myth of the default human shapes entire systems.

It influences who is included in research and whose experiences become the basis for medical knowledge.

It shapes diagnostic criteria, educational expectations, workplace culture, architecture, technology, transportation, healthcare, law, public policy, housing, hiring, promotion, and access to support.

It affects who is believed.

Who is taken seriously.

Who receives care.

Who is diagnosed.

Who is missed.

Who is accommodated.

Who is punished.

Who is protected.

Who is viewed as intelligent.

Who is seen as employable.

Whose pain is recognized.

Whose communication is respected.

Whose needs are considered reasonable.

Whose differences are celebrated as diversity and whose are treated as deficits.

These are not minor consequences.

They influence safety, health, income, education, housing, freedom, belonging, and life expectancy.

They contribute to discrimination, exclusion, poverty, medical neglect, missed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, school punishment, workplace loss, social isolation, and unequal access to opportunities and care.

What We Lose When We Value Only One Way of Being

The myth of the default human also narrows the possibilities available to everyone.

When only one way of thinking, communicating, leading, working, loving, moving, looking, or contributing is valued, society loses the insight and creativity of people who do things differently.

We lose different forms of intelligence.

Different ways of solving problems.

Different kinds of sensory awareness.

Different cultural knowledge.

Different approaches to care.

Different forms of leadership.

Different ways of building community.

Different expressions of beauty.

Different ways of noticing what others miss.

Just as ecosystems depend on biodiversity, human communities depend on human diversity.

A healthy forest is not healthy because every tree is the same. It is resilient because many forms of life exist together, each contributing something different.

Sameness has never been nature’s goal.

Diversity has.

There has never been a default human.

There have only ever been humans with different nervous systems, bodies, skin colors, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, body sizes, appearances, rhythms, capacities, communication styles, and ways of experiencing the world.

These differences are not departures from humanity.

They are humanity.

What Can Each of Us Do?

We can begin by questioning the idea that there is one right way to be human.

We can notice when people are being measured against an imagined standard and ask who created that standard, whose experiences it centers, and who may be excluded by it.

We can examine how whiteness is treated as the cultural reference point and challenge racism when Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are stereotyped, excluded, disbelieved, medically dismissed, over-policed, or expected to assimilate in order to be accepted.

We can question the assumption that heterosexuality and cisgender identity are the default.

We can respect people’s names, pronouns, relationships, identities, and ways of building family without expecting them to explain or defend who they are.

We can challenge the ways body size, age, appearance, disability, productivity, and financial independence are used to determine whose bodies and lives are considered valuable.

We can pause before describing someone as too sensitive, too emotional, too quiet, too intense, too slow, too direct, too different, or too much.

We can ask whether we are seeing the person clearly or measuring them against a standard they were never meant to fit.

We can also ask:

Whose experiences are being centered?

Who was this environment, policy, study, diagnostic framework, or expectation designed around?

Who may be overlooked, misunderstood, excluded, or harmed?

We can listen to people whose experiences differ from our own.

We can question bias within ourselves and within the systems we participate in.

We can speak up when we witness discrimination and support practices that expand access, safety, dignity, representation, and decision-making power.

We can make room for different ways of communicating, learning, moving, resting, working, loving, expressing gender, building family, contributing, and belonging.

Most importantly, we can stop asking people to become more like the imagined default in order to be believed, respected, protected, or welcomed.

The goal is not simply to include more people in systems built around one narrow version of humanity.

The deeper goal is to transform those systems so the full diversity of human beings can flourish.

There Is No Default Human

Imagine how much suffering could be prevented if children grew up knowing they did not need to resemble an imagined standard to belong.

Imagine schools, workplaces, healthcare systems, and communities designed around the reality of human variation from the beginning, instead of expecting people to ask for exceptions after harm has already occurred.

Nature has been showing us this truth all along.

There is no default bird.

There is no default tree.

There is no default body, brain, culture, gender, or way of being.

There is no default human.

There is only the vast, necessary, and extraordinary diversity of being human.

Help This Message Reach Someone Who Needs It

If this article helped you see yourself or others differently, please consider sharing it with someone who may need the reminder that they were never meant to fit one narrow version of being human.

Together, we can help more people question the myth of the “default human” and recognize that human difference is not a problem to solve. It is part of the rich and necessary diversity of being human. 🩷

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About the Author

Julie Bjelland, LMFT

A psychotherapist, author, and autism assessor specializing in late-discovered autistic women and sensitive neurodivergent adults. She is the founder of The Sensitive and Neurodivergent Community, Podcast and Blog and author of Autistic Women: A Clinician’s Guide to Neurodiversity-Affirming Identification and Support (W.W. Norton, forthcoming, 2027). Her work explores how greater understanding of nervous system differences can support self-acceptance, accessibility, belonging, and more humane systems of care. JulieBjelland.com

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