Autistics Thriving, Not Just Surviving Free to Listen

Transcript

Autistics Thriving, Not Just Surviving

January 11th, 2026

Introduction and Episode Preview

Welcome to Today’s Autistic Moment: A Podcast for Autistic Adults by An Autistic Adult. My name is Philip King-Lowe. I am the owner, producer and host and I am an Autistic Adult.  Thank you so very much for listening.

On this episode, my guest Mati L. Boulakia-Bortnick and I will introduce you to this year’s theme Autistics Thriving, Not Just Surviving. We will emphasize that Autistics thrive through self-acceptance, self-knowledge, and creating environments that work for Autistic individuals. Autistics thrive through collaboration, community building, and finding joy in our unique interests.

Come join us as we begin season 6 of Today’s Autistic Moment.

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After this first commercial break, Mati will join me to talk about Autistics Thriving, Not Just Surviving.

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Commercial Break I

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Segment 2

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Philip King-Lowe 

Mati, welcome to Today's Autistic Moment on this first show in 2026 thank you so much for being here today.

Mati 

Thank you for having me. Philip, it's good to be back.

Philip King-Lowe 

Yeah. So, I first want to tell my audience that my idea for this sixth season of Today's Autistic Moment I got from Mati because it was in an ad that he gave me, that I saw and mentioned the words “Autistics Thriving, Not Just Surviving.” To be clear, Mati has been extremely generous with giving me his okay to use this phrase as my theme this year. Among my reasons for doing it is to is to say that a lot of what you heard on my last show in 2025 when Eric Garcia and I talked about the infrastructure that Autistics have created over the last 10 to 15, 20, years that really did help with the challenging times we are living through, and that infrastructure has helped us to be strong advocates in in the times we're living through. So that's part of my reason, and I want Autistics to feel encouraged, like we are stronger than we think. We are definitely stronger than what those who demean us think, and we are thriving, and so I want my guests and my network and I to really dive into what we're talking about with that. And so, I'm going to ask Mati to please give us some background, if you will, about how you came up with the words “Autistics thriving, not just surviving,” and what that means for the work that you do?

Mati 

Thank you, Philip, yeah, so I'd love to say that there was a lot of thought that went into it when I came up with that as my kind of catch phrase for my practice. There wasn't, because for me, it seems that's just the obvious, the obvious kind of foregone conclusion. There's so much talk about like, oh, I want, Autistic people to fit in. We want Autistic people to practice self-care. We want Autistic people to, like, get through it and overcome disability, which, these are all terrible things because we don't overcome our disability, right? Like we are Autistic and like, that's something we're always going to live being, because we can't change ourselves. We're going to always be. And the goal isn't to overcome anything. It's about creating lives that work for us, but work for us is a pretty low bar, just like self-care is a low bar. Like, why not actually have more than self-care, right? Like, let's even grow self-grow, not just maintain the basics. You know, surviving isn't a goal, it's a really low bar. And there's when it comes to disability and disabled folks, the abled public gives us a really low bar, and I don't want to come off the wrong way in the very often, like people, underestimate us, very often we underestimate ourselves, but very often we overestimate ourselves as well, right? Like sometimes we actually can't do the things that people think that we can, right? That's part of being Autistic. That's part of being disabled. But just surviving, for me, is nonsense. And so many people that I meet in my practice, whether it's coaching or whether I'm doing trainings, seminars on being Autistic and how to support Autistic people, there's this idea that like the best I can do, and this is especially true for some late identified folks, that the best that I can do is simply not be in a really deep level of burnout. That the best I can do is just survive and I have hard days, and I've been in the deepest stages of burnout, right? And today I'm not. I have bad days, I have bad weeks, even bad periods, but I would say that I'm thriving in life, in that I know my needs, I do my very best to get them met. Most of them are not met. Not gonna lie, like this idea that we're always gonna have all of our needs met, it's not it's not realistic. But I'm not just surviving. I'm actually growing. I'm building for myself, for others. I feel good with myself and this idea that we are always going to be exhausted and we're always going to be in a low level, level one, burnout is always and that's inevitable. I reject that. And I think that modeling is a really important thing. You know, a lot of our models out there on the internet are people who say, I've overcome my disability. Look at me. I've learned social skills. And like those that social media promotes and the media promotes are always these kind of disability porn type Autistic folks who say, Well, I did it, so why don't you do it? I don't want to model that. I want to model something else that, you know what? Yeah, I still have meltdowns all the time. I still flirt with burnout, not all the time, but often. I struggle, and even though I struggle in many things, I'm also thriving, because I'm also seeing that my life doesn't have to be all negative. I understand that I have needs that I can meet and that I can grow and move forward and not stay stagnant, and that, to me, is thriving. I have a family, I have a career, I have purpose, I have a calling, I have a social group. Is it always easy? No, do I forget all those things that I just said pretty often and think that everything is terrible? Yeah, I'm human, and I know that objectively, I'm thriving, right? And I don't think it's all it's all it's not inevitable for all of us to just be miserable and survive all the time.

Philip King-Lowe 

Well, one of my notes that I've written for this theme this year is that Autistics thrive by having hard conversations about collaboration and community building. That's something that Autistics have definitely been thriving with this past year. The Autistic community has been thriving through the hard conversations of what has been happening with the subject of Autism in the US this past year. And through some really brutal rhetoric and actions regarding what being Autistic means, and is "such a burden" and that sort of thing. But Autistics also thrive by finding joy through our special interests, finding joy in just being ourselves. And you know, there is a power in self-acceptance. There is a power in just instead of surrendering to all the negativity, but finding the positivity within us that is genuine, that is shows that we're equal to the tasks we are given, and yet also being honest with what our support needs might be, and by advocating for ourselves as strongly as we do. One of the reasons I'm choosing this theme of Autistics thriving, not just surviving, is that Autistics, we are often a lot "stronger" than we are portrayed to be. You want to talk with that please?

Mati 

I want to preface it with it's okay sometimes when we're not as strong as we think we are, right, right? I don't want anyone ever to hear that like, Okay, well, you know, Philip and Mati, they're really they're really strong, but I'm not that strong. I don't want to hear that some of us were not strong, and it's okay. I'm not always strong. Sometimes I overestimate what I can do, just as much as I underestimate what I can do. However I do think, and I think this is really, this is a big it's a big question also between those of us who are diagnosed or identified at an early age and those later in life, find that very often those identified later earlier in life often underestimate our strengths, while those very often who are identified later in life also underestimate our strengths, but maybe often depending on their social and their class background, their racial background, you know, what kind of privilege they might have, right might overestimate sometimes. I have a sticker on my like, I think, like a lot of Autistic folks, I like stickers. And I have a sticker on this laptop, which says, I'm Autistic. Don't try that on me, right? So, I often think that we're so used to being told whether, again, whether you're identified early or late, but we all are conditioned from a very young age that we are less than that. We can't do that. We aren't worthy of doing that. People don't see us. People just don't see us. It helps me think you know. So, some of you might know I'm also studying to be a rabbi. Big part of my rabbinical work is connecting Autism to the parts of the Bible that we read in the synagogue on a weekly basis. So, this last week, we spoke about Joseph going to Egypt with his brothers. You familiar with this story Philip? Yeah. So, there's this big question, right? So, Joseph's brothers come down to Egypt during the famine, and it says they don't recognize him. And like all the commentators say, what does it mean that his brothers don't recognize him? And they say, because, oh, Joseph got older now he's in power or right? All they give him all the explanations. I always have read Joseph as an Autistic character myself. He's different, right? He's definitely queer in some way, right? He's very, very different. And for me, I go the obvious answer, why don't Joseph's brothers recognize him when, when he's in power, when they get to Egypt? Because they could never foresee and never imagine in their own mind's eye that he could ever be more powerful than them. They literally left him for dead, right? They don't count him, and that's how I feel people look at they don't count us. They don't see us as being able to do anything. Very often, ironically, they see that we can't do things, and then also, simultaneously, think that we're planning all these great like, you know, conspiracies, right? Pick a side. But I see so many clients and so many people in my spaces to just think they can't do that. They don't have the ability. And I don't want again, I don't want us to be talking about functioning levels and what you can do what you can't do, but so often, you can never know what you're able to do until you're in a space and in an environment where you are safe and you are allowed to try. How many of us don't have not learned about ourselves until we were in an environment where we could learn about ourselves?

Philip King-Lowe 

Right?

Mati 

It's about creating environments.

Philip King-Lowe 

There is also that level, though. Mati of where will you arrive at a place of self-acceptance, that space where we accept that we're Autistic. We learn to be proud of that and that even with the challenges that we have, we with our excellent problem solving skills. Over time, we learn to work through them and not let those challenges completely take us down, if you will. Exactly. That's one of the great ways that Autistics thrive. Do you agree?

Mati 

I absolutely agree self-knowledge is everything right? I was diagnosed when I was nearly three years old, and but I only really started to understand Autism when I was 18, and it really took me, then another 10 years, until my late 20s, to really internalize and really begin to understand what this all means. And self-knowledge leads to grace, to self-grace. And without that self-grace, we can't get to that point that you just said, and that's why it's so important, right? It's not enough just to buy a book, it's not enough just to listen to a podcast, it's not enough just to go to a class. It's about doing that. The difficult work is that self-work with yourself, of sitting there and, yeah, going out into the world, and sometimes it hurts and not again. I don't mean like in an exposure and acceptance therapy way. I mean like learning about yourself through the prism of yourself, to look at yourself through your own gaze, and not through the gaze of others, not the gaze of what you've been taught Autism is, but your own self-knowledge. Because once you get there, I don't want to say you become invincible, but like it's a lot harder to get something to stick on to you.

Philip King-Lowe 

Where do you see Autistics thriving and not just surviving?

Mati 

I'm really fortunate, and I get to see it everywhere. I am so blessed and so fortunate that I get to work in my day to day job with Autistic people all day, every day. From 40 plus different countries with people I've worked in and different languages of different genders and different races and different ages, and I get to see people thrive every day. I get your podcast. People want to see people who are thriving. Listen to this podcast, right? I'm also inspired that last talk you had with Eric about building infrastructure, because I never thought about that. That's what we've been doing for the last 20 years, building an infrastructure to build our own support systems, to build our own environment and ecosystem. I had never thought about that we're all doing, and that's thriving again, thriving, we also need to redefine what thriving is. I think, I think very people think thriving, and they go, Oh, I'm being like my neurotypical Jones' is next door, and I'm going, I'm finishing high school at 17, I'm finishing college at 21 and then I'm going to have that job, but then this job and mortgage and white picket fence and that thriving is not what everyone else is doing. I don't mean like a moral relativism that like we have to be our thriving could be less no. But where we can be content. I think a big piece of where we find out where we burn out, and where we get upset and where we develop mental health issues, right? Is putting ourselves into that box of trying to be like everybody else, once you realize who you are and what you are, thriving, but doesn't become relative to somebody else, becomes relative to you, right? And that bar, some people, that bar, might go down with it, and it might be less pressure for someone might go up. That's a different problem, right, right? Thriving is waking up. Is not waking up every day and being full of energy. It's never it's not having meltdowns anymore. It's not never struggling that's not real thriving is that you understand yourself and that you are able to build a life that works for you.

Philip King-Lowe 

Exactly, yes, Yep, yeah. I totally agree with that. And you know to me, that means I get up in the morning and I work on my own time schedule. It means I work in my comfortable clothing. It means that I get to say to the rest world, rest of the world that wants to further marginalize me, I say I am so much more than that, and all you folks can just go away. I don't need to live up to your standards. I have my own standards that I live by, and those standards are okay because they're mine. It includes things like surrounding yourself by other Autistic advocates that are making differences by finding ways to include nonspeaking Autistics in studies and things like, you know how to come up with ways of supports for ourselves by, you know what we read, what we do, who we see, and you know how we do exercise that self-care and so, you know, those are ways that we thrive, you know. And one of the points that I made last year was that sometimes, even if the only thing you feel like you can do is do your self-care for a day otherwise, because the day before or the day of, you know, life is really hit you in the head that you're still doing something that's thriving.

Philip King-Lowe

After this next commercial break, Mati and I will talk about Autistics thriving through our own gaze as we face our own internalized ableism. We will also talk about the importance of building community with other Autistics so that we can thrive by expanding our intersectional identities so each of us advocates in our unique ways.

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Segment 3

Philip King-Lowe

The other matter that I want us to shed some light on is the fact that our intersectional communities, and these include people of color, our LGBTQ+ communities, the multiple Neurodivergent identities that make up who we are and that sort of thing, they're all part of this, and the disability community is part of this, and we all thrive with the messages that we hear through media, the messages we hear from our family or from people around us that continue to promote an atmosphere of disability, as in as an unable to do, or a deficit, which means we are somehow, you know that step below the rest of humanity. When we choose to ground ourselves in our type of social justice and become more create more infrastructure for ourselves and the Autistic community however, we do that. We are, in fact, thriving, and we are making some headway. And, you know, while we certainly don't want to sugarcoat the things that are so negative. The thing is, is that Autistics are more than those negative determinations. So you want to talk about that Mati?

Mati 

I want to go back to the topic of gaze to answer your question. So gaze is this idea about like, how do we look at ourselves, right? And so for most of us, whether again, whether we're identified early or identified later in life. We are taught to look at ourselves as less than, and that if you want to be accepted, if you want to receive love, if you want to receive acceptance, so you need to act and behave in a certain way. You need to emote in a certain way. You need to hold your body in a certain way. And therefore you're always putting yourself against the standard which has nothing to do with you. And you look at yourself that way, and you might say, Oh, no, you know, like I don't believe in society, like I'm proudly Autistic. I'm not looking at myself that way. I push myself because I want to push myself without actually dissecting where that comes from in the first place. So undoing the neurotypical gaze is a lot of work, and I think until you can start to look at yourself, and as you said, like you, Philip, you create your own schedule. You create your own standards, right? It didn't happen from overnight, right? It took years of understanding and processing and seeing what works for you, because maybe, like sometimes, we might be able to do one of those things we're still figuring out the other thing. It's always thriving. Part of thriving is knowing that you're always on a journey, and you're not actually getting to any end point, right? Our needs change over time. How we look at ourselves changes over time. How even, like our own, if there can even be a pristine way of ever looking at ourselves and not looking at the games of others? It takes a long time to undo internalized ableism, but like, we have to be actively engaging with these topics all the time, otherwise fall complacent, and we will then start to put ourselves down, see that we can't that we say, I can't do this, I can't do that, and then we get into that kind of spiral of not being able to move forward, right? I'm not saying that we should push ourselves out of our comfort zones.

Philip King-Lowe 

No. That's it. We should.

Mati 

But here is also an aspect of, how can I slowly expand my comfort zone? And you can only expand your comfort zone by feeling comfortable where you are, right now.

Philip King-Lowe 

Right. Yeah. The more the more we work on self-acceptance and self-knowledge and which also means, as you say, expanding our comfort zones, which means making room for others who are different than us, which, you know, includes communities of color, and also, you know, there's sometimes there is a disconnect from others with those others who are Neurodivergent in terms of how, you know how that community is growing. I jokingly say that the Neurodivergent communities are headed in the same direction as the LGBTQI+ community since and soon, if not already, we are the other community of alphabet soup. But the thing is, is that it's not it's actually a good thing, because that means that the umbrella is expanding, and Autistics thrive in many ways, because I don't want to minimize and say we don't have some work to do on a greater acceptance of diversity. But in many ways, the Autistic community has been and continues to expand our scope as to what our what diversity there is within the Autistic communities and Today's Autistic Moment is going to continue to continue to expand on that this year. As I have been in the last few years. So my last question of the day is, where can we help Autistic individuals find resources about thriving and not just surviving? And now I want to begin this, because I've often wondered this about you, Matthew, you have so many support groups meetings every month where you work with, you know, all these different parts of the Autistic community, everything from the LGBTQ people to Jewish people. You work with those who are over 40. You work with those who are various occupations and that sort of thing. Would you talk about that kind of thing? And maybe you know, you know, as you kind of alluded to earlier, you see so many different Autistics on so many levels, and so, you know, maybe talk about how that's led you to you and others to find resources to help with thriving.

Mati 

Yeah. So thank you, Philip, I lead a lot of different groups, a lot of support groups, discussion circles, and I find it really important to, well, I have some more general groups for Autistic Adults who want to get together, right? And then that's awesome. And it's really important for us to have larger spaces. I find that those specialized groups right? So for queer folks, for trans, non-binary folks, for people who want to discuss spirituality, for artists, for teachers, for professors, for students, for parents. I'm sure I'm missing a few. Being in a space where other like, yes, that we're all Autistic, helps us relate to each other, but it also leads to this idea that all Autistic folks are going to get along, and that all Autistic people have the same experience, and then when somebody doesn't have that same experience, people get anxious not to say that every Autistic parent is going to have the same experience, not that every Autistic person who's an artist is going to have the same experience. But I tried to kind of go down to these niches that people can relate on a more than just that we're Autistic, because that can get I've been doing this in one form of another since 2006 and I've been doing these zoom ones since 2019 just saying that we're Autistic Adults who are masking isn't the niche that it sounds like after a while, as you can imagine, right? It's it needs to go deeper, and we need to be connected with others who are going through similar experiences to us. And there's plenty, right? And we need more. We need absolutely more. I have a colleague who runs spaces for black Autistics, for Autistic women, for Autistic people who have undergone spiritual trauma, for Autistic people in addiction. There's so many out there. You have different things. We're in so many different fields we're in so many different interests. Connecting on Autism is an amazing first spot. And I think everybody can remember the first time they got to be in a space where somebody explained their Autistic experience, and you finally had words to describe what you've always been feeling, but never could put words to right I like to take that to the next level. And how much deeper can we go? Because we're not just all Autistic people. We all have interests. We all have really deep interests about things, right? And we want to talk about things that aren't just Autism, like for some people listening, Autism might be your special interest, and you can nerd out on Autism all day long. That's awesome. There's some of us who that's not actually our biggest interest in life, and a lot of us are struggling with other more specific things, or want to share joy about those specific things, right? So we need more spaces. We need more Autistic peers out there leading spaces like this.

Philip King-Lowe 

Yeah, yeah. Well, my experience is similar to that. You know, my audience has heard me say on numerous occasions, and here it is, for those of you who may not have heard me say this before. From the moment that I was identified until which was 2011 through the late part of 2017 I went through a really dark period of my own life where, quite frankly, I felt like a social invalid because of how it was impacting me. And then in late November 2017 I walked through the doors for the first time at the Autism Society of Minnesota, and I was greeted by Jillian Nelson, who has become a close, dear friend of mine, and she just happened to be facilitating a group for Autistics who are LGBTQ that night. And I remember being in a room with all of these individuals who said things for the first time that I'm like, Yeah, I know what they're talking about, you know? And that first moment when you started to connect with others who were saying things like one, one heard said, you know, "what gets me so angry is the number of times that neurotypical people have tried to tell me that I don't know how to socialize properly, and yet they can't show me through their own example, how to socialize" for example. I heard another who just said that, you know, she was about to lose her job, and I knew what that was like. And then from there, like going to my first Minnesota Autism Conference and hearing other Autistics sharing at those workshops about things like, you know why functioning labels spring hidden harm and that sort of thing. And finally, those things started to make sense, and I went to workshops about with my husband to talk about how couples can communicate with each other, and there was so many things that finally made sense. And you know, sometimes it is being in another space with other Autistics that you start to hear things that sound familiar to you and for me as a late, identified person, it was such a Wow. No, I'm not the only person who's been in these situations or thought that way. There are others who think like I do, and, you know, who reflect on experiences that sound exactly like others that I've had and through five seasons of Today's Autistic Moment, I have continued to hear a lot of the Autistics talk about experiences they've had that I've identified or others have identified with. And doing that is something that makes us thrive when we know that we're not just a group of people who are labeled by negative terminology and, you know, decisions that negatively impact us. Our shared experiences when we tell them to others who are Autistic, and we start to form our own community groups and support groups and that sort of thing create creating our own social infrastructure. Wow, that could really make us thrive in ways that we didn't know we could just by being able to tell someone else what they what they've experienced, to have someone else say that happened to me too. And that's one of those things that starts helping us thrive, to feel like we finally connected with somebody else who knows exactly what we're talking about. What do you think of that Matthew?

Mati 

Yeah, having being, and I think that's the power of being in these spaces. I know I meet so many people who say I was lurking on for years on Twitter and on BlueSky and on Reddit and things, and I didn't want to get involved, because I've been so hurt in community, and I've been so hurt and socially so I need to be by myself and not be around others, and I have all of the sympathy and empathy in the world because I've been that person myself. And being in space with other people is absolutely essential. Right. Being in space with other Autistic people is how that's where you get that modeling that we spoke about earlier, like you see others doing it, and that gives us we everybody needs models. Everybody needs models. I don't mean that like every single person you're gonna meet is gonna be your mentor. I don't even mean that doing that like you should not like just assume people are your mentor because they're Autistic, right? Like seeing other people thriving, seeing other people voicing themselves, finding themselves, it is hugely important to yourself, even if you don't necessarily see how and why that might be the case, if you're listening to this podcast right now, is at some point you heard somebody say something, and that moved you a little bit. Imagine what that's like when you actually come onto a Zoom Room, or you go into an in person event. How much more it can do that I cannot begin to emphasize how important it is to thriving as an Autistic Adult, to be in community with other Autistic people. Without that, it doesn't work.

Philip King-Lowe 

Yeah, yeah.

Mati 

We are social animals.

Philip King-Lowe 

We are social animals. And, you know, that's the point I was getting to, and what we're talking about, you thrive by finding, finding others who you know, who know what you're talking about. I remember shortly after I started Today's Autistic Moment, one of my new listeners had said to me "before I started listening to your podcast, I didn't know where the Adult Autistic communities were," and I'm like, good. That's what I want you to do. You know, you know they're finding them through this podcast, through social groups, through coaching groups, like what Mati does and, yeah, that's really the whole purpose of this.

After this final commercial break, Mati and I will conclude our interview followed by Today’s Autistic Community Bulletin Board

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Commercial Break III

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Future Shows

On January 25th, Zoë Korengold will be my guest for Autistics Thriving through Crises. Zoë and I will discuss the unique challenges and experiences of Autistic individuals, including sensory and social crises, and the importance of understanding different communication patterns. We will emphasize the role of support systems in providing resources and supports. We will highlight the significance of restorative processes and the need for time and space to address conflicts. 

Today’s Autistic Moment will continue to recognize the importance of acknowledging our Black Autistic individuals in February.  On February 8th, Charlotte Bachelor and I will discuss Black Autistics Thriving in Urban Settings.  Mark Lyons, Jr. will join me on February 22nd for Black Autistics Thriving in Rural Settings.

Thank you for listening to Today’s Autistic Moment.

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Segment 4

Philip King-Lowe

Mati, thank you so much for joining me for Today's Autistic Moment's first show in 2026. I thank you for allowing me to use this theme. My audience, you're going to hear, as you do every year, some diverse voices talking about how they're thriving. And you know, this is going to be an exciting year. You know, one of the ways that we're going to do that is through the organization that myself and folks from Umbrella ND have been forming Autistic Advocates United: An Autistic and Allies Grassroots Movement. We are going to be working on changing April to Autistic Advocacy Month. We're going to give you some tools to prepare you to do some advocacy work during April and start to really help the Autistic community become a community of people who are actively advocating for ourselves, and so you're going to be hearing a lot more about that as time goes on. Mati, thank you so much for joining me, and of course, we'll be seeing you throughout the year.

Mati 

Philip, thank you so much for having me on it was really great talking to you.

Philip King-Lowe

You too.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Today’s Autistic Community Bulletin Board

All these events and many others such as sensory friendly concerts, art activities and museum information links are available on

todaysautisticmoment.com/bulletinboard.

The Adult Coffee Club for Autistic Adults in Minnesota are held on the second Tuesday of every month (weather permitting) at Dogwood Coffee located at 2700 University Ave W. Suite 100 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Zip Code for your GPS is 55114. The Adult Coffee Clubs will begin at 4pm to 6pm on January 13th. February 10th. March 10th. No Coffee Club in April. May 12th. June 9th.

Understanding Autism virtual classes are offered by The Autism Society of Minnesota. The next classes will be January 12th, 10-11am. February 9th, 12-1pm. March 9th, 6- 7pm. April 13th, 10-11am. May 11th, 12-1pm. June 8th, 6-7pm.

On February 5th, 2026, Sara Lahti will present a workshop at The Autism Society of Minnesota entitled: PTSD and ASD: Double Neurodivergence.

Registration is open to attend the Minnesota Virtual Autism Conference April 15th through the 16th, 2026. Register at the Early Bird rate before January 31st, and get access to all conference keynote and breakout sessions, plus access to session recordings for a full month so you can revisit content on your own schedule.

Go to ausm.org to get more information about these and other social and recreational programs, educational events, counseling services and support groups at The Autism Society of Minnesota.

MNeurodivergent is a social club rooted in a vision of bringing Neurodivergent Minnesotans together to build meaningful connections.  Its core principle is to foster an environment where all are treated with dignity and respect regardless of ability or preferences. Go to their website mneurodivergent.org for more information, become a member, volunteer and attend their events.

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network is now accepting applications for the 2026 Autism Campus Inclusion (ACI) Leadership Academy that will be held virtually Monday, July 13th through Sunday, July 19th, 2026. Use the link on this episode’s transcript ASAN 2026 ACI Leadership Academy or go to the Autistic Community Bulletin Board on todaysautisticmoment.com for more information

Dr. Scott Frasard invites you to get involved with The Autistic Exchange Project. Inspired by Kyle McDonald’s red paperclip story, this project trades one small item at a time, increasing the value with each exchange. The goal of the first trade chain is to eventually obtain an AAC device for a nonspeaking Autistic person who needs communication support. Go to The Autistic Exchange Project page on Facebook to offer a trade for a pair of vintage handles, share the project and follow the journey.

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If you have questions about Today’s Autistic Moment, please send an email to todaysautisticmoment@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to Today’s Autistic Moment: A Podcast for Autistic Adults by An Autistic Adult.

May you have an Autistically Amazing day.

♫ Closing Background Music with credits ♫

All of the guests meet with me on Zoom to record the interviews. The interview transcripts are provided by Otter. The podcast is prepared and edited on WavePad Masters Edition by NCH Software. The podcast is published by Spotify for Podcasters.  The music that you hear is licensed to Today’s Autistic Moment by premiumbeat.com.