Library / Watch / Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Lived experience, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Turning down discriminatory clients is a choice some autistic people cannot afford
In short
At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, a disabled business owner said she would not work with clients who discriminate. Another speaker said not everyone has that option, and a panellist described what it took to get one.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
A speaker at the Melbourne session on autism and disability at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium had recently become the owner of a social enterprise that helps make digital products accessible to people with disabilities who use assistive technology. She told the room that one of the strongest responses she had from clients was that they chose her because of who she is. Clients had told her, she said, “we want to come to you because you’re disabled owned”, and because she was authentic to herself. They did not want to work with someone who did not share their organisation’s values.
She drew a rule from that experience. Being openly disabled might not feel like a strength at first, she said, and it might feel scary, but it attracted the right clients, and people who were obtuse about it were probably not people she wanted to work with. She went further, saying “if they’re being discriminatory, I don’t want to work with them”, because that is not a safe environment for her. She accepted that she might miss some opportunities as a result, and said the ones she did get were really aligned to her.
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
- Autism in Australia, 2022 (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Statistics (Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers 2022)
- Writing Themselves In 4: The health and wellbeing of LGBTQA+ young people in Australia (National report) (opens in a new tab), La Trobe University, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (Hill, Lyons, Jones and colleagues)
- Your rights as an employee under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (opens in a new tab), Australian Human Rights Commission (IncludeAbility)
More from Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
All 94- 10 minutes 30 seconds, captioned Autistic panellists disagreed on whether to call themselves proudly disabled Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, two panellists claimed the word disabled with pride. A third said they were and were not proudly disabled, and another speaker said they did not yet have the words.
- 3 minutes 17 seconds, captioned A panellist said light intolerance showed where the social model of disability stops Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, a late diagnosed panellist accepted the social model of disability but said some autistic sensory limits are not socially imposed, and that disablement can change by the hour.
- 7 minutes 39 seconds, captioned Diagnosed at 46, a panellist said self acceptance began with finding their people Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, panellists described carrying internalised ableism for years, and said finding community was central to putting it down.
- 9 minutes 15 seconds, captioned Rikki said disclosure meant choosing between discrimination and being infantilised Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, Rikki, a panellist who uses a cane, said they disclose first because they will be judged either way. Another panellist holds back until the end.
- 2 minutes 38 seconds, captioned Lost skills or known limits, a participant asked about life after diagnosis Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, a participant said the office had become excruciating since their diagnosis. Panellists, including a provisional psychologist, gave different answers.
- 2 minutes 47 seconds, captioned Disabled person or person with disability, autistic panellists answered a carer’s question Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024 At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, a carer asked why the panel said disabled person. The answers turned on whether disability can be separated from the self.