July 2019

Book Releases

Interview with Author of Uncomfortable Labels, Laura Kate Dale by Yenn Purkis

July 10, 2019 Spectrum Women

In this interview, author Laura Kate Dale discusses her new book Uncomfortable Labels with Spectrum Women Pride Page editor and autistic and non-binary advocate Yenn Purkis. The book is an autobiographical account of Laura’s life as a gay autistic trans woman. Why do you think you weren’t diagnosed as autistic sooner? I think for me personally, the issue was two-fold. Firstly, I was the kind of child on the autism spectrum who presented at a young age as very rule following, very detail oriented, and very able to follow set instructions. I wasn’t physically aggressive during meltdowns and was generally […]

Arts

What I like by Jenny Snyder

July 6, 2019 Spectrum Women

People make autism out to be scary and pitiable. But there are lots of things I LIKE about being autistic. Focus: Focusing on an activity is incredibly energizing. You could say I have a one-track mind. I am good at certain kinds of things because it’s easy to totally commit myself to some drive and I am pretty much single minded. Thoughts are like drugs to me. A few times in my life people have commented, “You think too much,” like my focus was weird, but I love the non-stop inner deliberations. My mind is not a bad place to […]

Pride Page

Spectrum Women’s new Pride Page – An introduction from topic editor Yenn Purkis

July 4, 2019 Spectrum Women

‘I thought this site was about autism, not gender’ said one irate visitor to my page after I posted a meme about gender diversity and autism earlier this year. In fact, the way I see it, if you are talking about autism you need to be talking about gender diversity too. Recent research shows that autistic people are 7.5 times more likely to be trans and gender diverse than the general population[1]. That is a lot of trans autistic people! Anecdotally that statistic is borne out in my own experience. I know a lot of other autistics who are non-binary, […]