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Debate, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Australia’s first Autistic Pride Day Symposium asked whether pride had come too early
In short
Opening the 2023 symposium, Kyriakos Gold asked whether Australia was ready for autistic pride. One panellist said the sector lacked cohesion; others said the moment had arrived and autistic people should lead it.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
The first Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Australia opened in Melbourne on 18 June 2023 with a question Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, put to his own panel. To his knowledge, he said, this was the country’s first such symposium. He had noticed on social media that many more organisations in the United Kingdom were using pride narratives than in Australia, and he asked whether Australia was too early with the notion of pride.
The panellist Gold asked first, who answered from experience working in neurodiversity, gave the most cautious answer. In their experience, the panellist said, the messaging across the community as a whole had not been consistent or coherent. Before autistic pride could become a larger movement, everyone needed to be brought together around something they could all take part in and enjoy. Even through a number of initiatives, the panellist said, “some of the organisations in the space don’t really work together well enough”. The ideas were right, but there needed to be more cohesion before autistic pride could become the movement he wanted it to be.
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Sources the story draws on
- Social Identity, Self-Esteem, and Mental Health in Autism (opens in a new tab), European Journal of Social Psychology (Kate Cooper, Laura G. E. Smith and Ailsa Russell)
- Yellow Ladybugs Submission: National Autism Strategy, Discussion Paper (opens in a new tab), Yellow Ladybugs Ltd (published on the Department of Social Services engagement site, engage.dss.gov.au)
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