A panellist challenged the symposium’s own theme by defending the business costume

The theme of the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium was Taking Off the Mask, which the Autistic Pride Day campaign had announced in March 2024. On the Melbourne panel about autism and disability, one panellist pushed back on it. “I think again there is power in putting on the mask,” the panellist told the room, and then reached for a different word. What they meant, they said, was closer to a costume. Autistic people who are trying to accept themselves, they argued, need to be the hero in their own story, and every hero has a costume that makes them feel powered when they put it on.

The panellist described how that works in their own life. On a bad day, at work or at home, when they feel drained and do not want to put on what they called the business mask, they dress for the role anyway. “I’ll put on the suit and sit at the desk,” they said. The outfit primes them for a mindset. By masking some of what makes them uncomfortable, they said, they can reach the thing they care about, which is being productive and getting the job done. They compared it to the advice that if you pretend to smile you will feel the emotions of a smile, and said that was why they found the conversation challenging, because they saw value in taking off the mask and, as they had argued, in putting it on.