Toppling the Temple of Grandin: Autistic-Animal Analogies and the Ableist-Speciesist Nexus

In this article, we conduct an ideological rhetorical criticism of Temple Grandin’s rhetorical texts. Using our lived experiences as actually-autistic scholars, our critique fuses rhetorical theory with critical autism studies and critical animal studies. We specifically assess the analogical necropolitics central to Grandin’s portrayals of livestock and autistic people. We conclude that Grandin’s complicity in the animal-industrial complex renders her status as an animal advocate questionable and her status as an autistic advocate dangerous. The discursive intersections of speciesism and ableism in Grandin’s central analogies regarding autistic and livestock bodies renders both parties as subhuman, disposable, and potentially killable. We conclude with alternative ways of thinking about animality, autism, and the pursuit of multispecies justice.