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Debate, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Told pride was too gay, Autistic Pride Day asked where to compromise
In short
At the 2024 symposium in Sydney, Kyriakos Gold put the feedback on Autistic Pride Day’s name to a panel of autistic founders and an investor. Their answers set the movement’s values against the money it needs.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
The feedback on the name came with a cost attached. On a panel about autistic entrepreneurship at the Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Sydney on 9 June 2024, Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, told the room what he had been hearing about the event itself: “The feedback for us was do not use pride. It’s too gay.” Most of that feedback, he said, had come from straight people, and most of it from neurotypical people. He said it had meant the project had not been funded to the extent that would let it grow appropriately over the previous two years.
Then Gold put the question as plainly as he could. “It is a love project. If this was a business project, where is the compromise line?” He addressed it to Roo Harris, a general partner at Scale Investors, because she makes decisions on projects worth millions.
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Sources the story draws on
- About the Skoll Centre (opens in a new tab), Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
- Winning teams announced for The Global Challenge 2017 (opens in a new tab), Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
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