The Blog
Inclusion Shouldn’t Hurt: When DEI Work Is Just More Labor for Marginalized People
This article explores how many DEI efforts rely on the unpaid or underpaid labor of neurodivergent and marginalized staff to drive inclusion, placing an unfair emotional and logistical burden on those already navigating inaccessible systems. It highlights how organizations often perform progressiveness without making structural changes, leaving neurodivergent individuals to educate, advocate, and repair harm without real power or support. The article calls for a shift toward shared responsibility, genuine equity, and systemic change that centers value, repair, and accountability over optics.
We’re Not All Tech Bros: Expanding the Public Imagination of Autistic Identity
This article critiques the narrow, stereotypical portrayal of autism as primarily white, male, and tech-oriented, which erases the vast diversity of autistic experiences. It explores how media, clinical frameworks, and workplace initiatives reinforce this limited image, excluding autistic people who do not fit the expected mold. The article calls for a broader, more inclusive understanding of autistic identity that reflects the full spectrum of neurodivergent lives across gender, race, ability, and expression.
Stop Co-opting Neurodiversity to Sell Your Company Culture
This article exposes how companies often misuse the language of neurodiversity as a marketing tool rather than committing to real inclusion and accessibility for neurodivergent people. It critiques surface-level hiring initiatives, ableist workplace structures, and the commodification of neurodivergent traits while ignoring the need for systemic change. True inclusion, the article argues, requires listening to neurodivergent voices, rethinking workplace norms, and building environments where neurodivergent people are supported, respected, and able to lead.
Stop Infantilizing Us: The Deep Harm of Autism’s Childlike Branding
This article critiques the widespread use of infantilizing imagery like puzzle pieces and primary colors in autism-related branding. It explains how such visuals erase autistic adults, reinforce harmful stereotypes, and center neurotypical comfort over autistic dignity. The piece calls for respectful, adult-centered representation created by and for autistic people.
The Neurodivergent Sabbatical: What It Means to Step Away to Save Yourself
This article explores the concept of a neurodivergent sabbatical as a vital act of self-preservation for autistic and ADHD adults facing burnout from masking, overwork, and systemic inaccessibility. It distinguishes the sabbatical from a vacation, describing it as a necessary pause that often arises from collapse rather than choice, allowing space for unmasking, rest, and reconnection with self. The piece challenges productivity culture and calls for a collective reimagining of rest as resistance, care, and a reclaiming of worth outside of output.
Beyond the Diagnosis: Navigating Internalized Pathology After Labels
This article explores the ongoing process neurodivergent adults face after receiving a diagnosis, particularly the challenge of unlearning internalized shame and pathology. While a diagnosis can be validating, it does not erase years of being misunderstood, punished, or framed as broken by systems rooted in deficit-based thinking. True healing begins when neurodivergent people move beyond clinical labels to reclaim their identities, unmask safely, and build affirming narratives rooted in community, authenticity, and self-acceptance.
Burnout vs. Depression: How Misdiagnosis Hurts Neurodivergent People
This article explains the critical differences between clinical depression and neurodivergent burnout, highlighting how the two are often confused in autistic and ADHD adults. While depression is typically an internal mood disorder, burnout stems from chronic masking, sensory overwhelm, and environmental mismatch. Misdiagnosis can lead to ineffective treatment and delay true recovery, making accurate recognition essential for healing and self-understanding.
Neurodivergence and Moral Injury: When the System Forces Us to Betray Ourselves
This article explores how moral injury affects neurodivergent adults who have been pressured to conform to systems that deny their values, needs, and identities. It explains that masking, compliance, and chronic self-betrayal—often required to survive in education, workplaces, and social environments—can lead to deep emotional harm and disconnection from the self. Naming this as moral injury allows for healing through self-compassion, community, and reclaiming alignment with one’s true neurodivergent identity.
The Myth of the Independent Adult: How Interdependence Is Pathologized
This article critiques the Western ideal of the “independent adult,” revealing how it harms neurodivergent people by pathologizing natural support needs and masking the universal reality of interdependence. It explores how expectations of self-sufficiency and productivity fuel shame, burnout, and isolation, especially for late-diagnosed autistic adults. Reclaiming interdependence as a strength allows for more authentic, sustainable, and inclusive ways of living that honor diverse needs and foster true community care.
Microaggressions That Erase Our Neurodivergent Identity
This article offers neurodiversity-affirming scripts to respond to common microaggressions that autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people frequently encounter. Each response is designed to validate identity, challenge harmful assumptions, and reduce the emotional labor often required to defend one’s neurodivergence. The piece emphasizes that no one owes an explanation for their identity and that protecting one’s boundaries and well-being always comes first.
Designing for Neurodivergent Joy: Rethinking Access and Inclusion in Theme Parks and Entertainment Spaces
This resource, for industry professionals, parents, and park/event visitors, brings together a series of in-depth articles that examine the barriers neurodivergent individuals and families face in theme parks and entertainment spaces, from sensory overload and executive dysfunction to inflexible design and incomplete accommodations. It offers visionary alternatives rooted in lived experience, proposing practical and systemic changes that prioritize regulation, autonomy, and access to joy. Together, these writings call for a shift from performative inclusion to intentionally crafted environments where neurodivergent people are centered, supported, and truly welcomed.
Neurodivergent Access and Inclusion: A Resource Series for Conference Planners
This resource series offers in-depth guidance for conference organizers on creating events that are truly accessible and affirming for neurodivergent attendees. It explores the importance of sensory regulation, flexible scheduling, and holistic design that centers neurodivergent needs across every stage of the attendee experience. Grounded in the social model of disability and neurodiversity-affirming practice, these articles challenge performative inclusion and advocate for systemic, meaningful change.