Library / Watch / Think Autism Sydney 2025
Argument, Think Autism Sydney 2025
Sharon Zivkovic said older autistic people free of masking should lead
In short
At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, Dr Sharon Zivkovic said she would no longer mask for anyone, and argued that autistic elders free of job worries should push for a society where young people do not have to.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
The autistic people best placed to stop masking, Dr Sharon Zivkovic argued at Think Autism Sydney on 31 May 2025, are the older ones, and that gives them a duty. “I won’t mask for anyone,” she told the entrepreneurship panel. If people wanted what she did, they could come to her on those terms.
The argument came out of a question Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, asked about gender. Women are known to mask better, he said, and he asked whether research showed any difference between male and female autistic entrepreneurs. Zivkovic was careful with her answer. There was research showing that women are better at masking, she said, but she did not know what it was like to be a man, so she could speak only to what had been written. The difference she wanted to raise was a different one, between older and younger autistic 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
- Gender differences in self-reported camouflaging in autistic and non-autistic adults (Hull, Lai, Baron-Cohen, Allison, Smith, Petrides and Mandy) (opens in a new tab), Autism (record on UCL Discovery)
- Access and Eligibility Reassessment Practice Guide, Current NDIS Act 2013, Version 4.0 (opens in a new tab), National Disability Insurance Agency
- Autism in Australia, 2022 (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Statistics
More from Think Autism Sydney 2025
All 44-
5 minutes 9 seconds, captioned Sharon Zivkovic said autistic founders belong to the older meaning of social entrepreneurship Dr Sharon Zivkovic, Christina Chun At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, Dr Sharon Zivkovic separated autistic social entrepreneurship from the mainstream social enterprise model. Christina Chun said her own sector did not actively think about autistic entrepreneurship. -
2 minutes, captioned When employment shuts autistic people out, building a business becomes the pathway Kyriakos Gold, Zoe Atterbury At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, the panel on autistic entrepreneurship treated self employment as a response to inaccessible workplaces, and a panellist said she wanted children to see that it was possible. - 3 minutes 25 seconds, captioned The unwritten rules of business, and the workarounds autistic founders build around them Rebecca McCash, Kyriakos Gold and 1 more At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, Rebecca McCash said the hard part of her enterprise was the nuance outside it. Christina Chun credited neurotypical advisers, and Kyriakos Gold described using AI and mimicry.
- 2 minutes 48 seconds, captioned Christina Chun said funders keep backing the people they already fund Christina Chun At Think Autism Sydney in May 2025, Christina Chun described a funding system that runs on social cues and rewards incumbents. A fellow panellist said the first barrier is the grant application itself.
- 4 minutes 32 seconds, captioned Sharon Zivkovic built a founder program when none met the autism strategy’s principles Dr Sharon Zivkovic, Rebecca McCash At Think Autism Sydney in 2025, Dr Sharon Zivkovic said the national strategy’s action plan promised to evaluate support for entrepreneurs, and that the programs on offer still asked autistic founders to predict.
- 3 minutes 27 seconds, captioned Autistic founders were told to aim for the places where budgets are set Think Autism Sydney 2025 At Think Autism Sydney in May 2025, a panellist warned that running a business is a separate skill from pursuing an interest, and told autistic founders to aim for the positions where budgets and policy are set.