Library / Watch / Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Community voice, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Some parents froze at the word autism, and others felt relief
In short
Asked at the close of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium whether autism still carried stigma, speakers described culturally diverse families, schoolyard taunts and the moment a diagnosis finally makes sense.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, put a question about the word itself to the room at the closing dialogue of Australia’s first Autistic Pride Day Symposium, in Melbourne on 18 June 2023. He wanted to know whether there was stigma attached to the word autism, and whether people were free to use it as they wanted, or whether there was pressure around it in business, at work and at school.
The first answer came from a speaker who said that, being later in life, they no longer cared what anyone thought and were simply claiming it. The problem for autistic people, the speaker said, is that everything around us is made for a neurotypical person. They loved their autistic brain and what it could do, but were very aware that every day they collided with things made by that white neurotypical man. They had recently started reading about design justice, and said society needed more of it, so that what is designed is more accommodating to many different people.
Sign in to keep reading, listening and watching.
Sign in with your email and everything in the Library is open to you: every story, every talk and every episode. It is free and it always will be. If you can, a donation helps keep it free for everyone.
Sources the story draws on
- Kids on the autism spectrum experience more bullying (opens in a new tab), UNSW Sydney Newsroom (P. Daniel Lin and Valsamma Eapen, republished from The Conversation)
- Autism in Australia, 2022 (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Statistics (Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers 2022)
- Book: Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, by Sasha Costanza-Chock (opens in a new tab), Allied Media Projects
More from Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
All 29-
2 minutes 38 seconds, captioned Neurotype, culture or disorder, the first symposium’s closing dialogue began with language Kyriakos Gold Asked what autism is, speakers at the close of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne described a brain style and a culture, and split on whether the word disorder should stay. - 2 minutes 20 seconds, captioned A panellist argued autism research had been built through a white, male, cisgender lens Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 Asked to explain intersectionality at the closing dialogue of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist asked who had shaped the field’s understanding of autism, and whose lives it left out.
- 3 minutes 50 seconds, captioned A panellist warned that anti trans politics was weaponising autism and gender identity Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 At the close of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist said autistic people are more likely to be queer and trans, and explained why research into it was met with suspicion.
- 3 minutes 25 seconds, captioned A two hour talk can look functional and cost the speaker the day Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 At the close of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a non autistic teacher in a mostly autistic team described what audiences do not see when autistic advocates tell their stories on stage.
- 4 minutes 57 seconds, captioned Autistic panellists described allyship as work done with the real person Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 Asked at the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium what an ally looks like, panellists answered with practice, from unmasking in public to a written user guide handed to a manager.
- 8 minutes 22 seconds, captioned A panellist warned of a lost generation of undiagnosed autistic seniors Kyriakos Gold At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist described a lost generation of older autistic Australians and argued that aged care has to be planned for people who may never get a diagnosis.