Autistic and Living the Dream

Category: LGBTQIA+

  • Trans Aware Cancer Care: We almost have lift off!

    Trans Aware Cancer Care: We almost have lift off!

    We had a great planning meeting today for Trans Aware Cancer Care. This is the first time many of us had been in a room together and it was so much nicer than being in constant Zoom meetings. We’ve finally settled on the idea for what creative tools we might want for the workshops too.…

  • What bisexuality means to me

    What bisexuality means to me

    As a teenager I thought in a binary fashion, and this affected how I understood sexuality and gender. My understanding of what it meant to be bisexual was that you liked both men and women, and that you needed to like them equally. The fact that I swayed to one gender over others meant that…

  • Internal conflict in queer spaces

    Internal conflict in queer spaces

    There’s an awareness day and month for pretty much every identity, disability and living circumstance. For trans and gender diverse people we have  Trans Awareness Week and Trans Day of Visibility just in case you weren’t aware that we exist! Then we have  Trans Day of Mourning. So, our three trans community moments in the…

  • “You’re asking permission to be yourself”: Autistic adults’ experiences of accessing gender identity healthcare

    “You’re asking permission to be yourself”: Autistic adults’ experiences of accessing gender identity healthcare

    Earlier today Steven Kapp shared this at the Spring Symposium of the University of Portsmouth’s Quality of Life, Health, and Well-Being Research Group. So, I thought I’d share it here too! (Especially as our full work is about to be published!) “You’re asking permission to be yourself”: Autistic adults’ experiences of accessing gender identity healthcareHarley Bruce, Katie…

  • Is UK sex and relationship education LGBTQIA+ appropriate?

    Is UK sex and relationship education LGBTQIA+ appropriate?

    Sex education, which teaches secondary aged children about sexual health and relationships, has arguably remained unchanged for the last fifteen years, despite the changing needs of children and young people (Arnett & Hughes, 2012). This in part is due to Section 28 which forbade the promotion of homosexuality within schools.  Sexual minority youth may feel…

  • Trans Day of Visibility – stay proud, stay safe

    Trans Day of Visibility – stay proud, stay safe

    Trans Day of Visibility is always a strange one for me. I’ve been “out” for nearly a year and a half now. I’ve been out in various stages across my social life, the first person being my husband, who has been amazing with my new pronouns and my journey so far. My being visible has…

  • When living authentically isn’t safe: Autistic, trans and OCD

    When living authentically isn’t safe: Autistic, trans and OCD

    This is the transcript from my OCD Family Podcast: When living authentically isn’t safe. Listen to S1E30 Part IV here. Nicole: Whoa, welcome back to the OCD family podcast and I am just so excited to introduce our guest today Katie Munday, they are late diagnosed autistic person with OCD and ADHD. You can catch…

  • Trans and Autistic: Gate-keeping kills

    Trans and Autistic: Gate-keeping kills

    CW: transphobia, gate-keeping, ableism, mental health crisis, police brutality, murder. Lack of support and validation for trans Autistic children and adults can culminate in fatalities, such as the case of Kayden Clarke, an Autistic trans man who was murdered by police when they responded to his suicide call. Clarke had experienced gate-keeping throughout his transition,…

  • Spectrum 10K: potential amniocentesis study shows the ARC for who they really are

    Spectrum 10K: potential amniocentesis study shows the ARC for who they really are

    Content warnings: amniocentesis, pregnancy, abortion, ableism, eugenics. The Autism Research Centre (ARC), based at University of Cambridge, is running Spectrum 10K – a eugenics project which claims they want to “help the well-being” of Autistic people and our families. The Boycott Spectrum 10K team has spoken about the many issues of this project in various…

  • Stories from across the “double rainbow”: trans and non-binary Autistic narratives [plain language summary]

    Stories from across the “double rainbow”: trans and non-binary Autistic narratives [plain language summary]

    In my research I spoke to 13 trans and / or non-binary Autistic people (people said to live under the double rainbow of neurodivergence and queerness). I wanted to know about their lives, what they thought about representation and their recommendations for double rainbow research. It was important for me to do this work as…