They’re no replacement for a union. In fact, they’re often created to distract from collective bargaining efforts. — As a public academic who writes about anti-productivity and neurodiversity, I’m often invited to speak at organizations’ Employee Resource Groups (ERGS). In the past year, I’ve given talks at everywhere from Indeed to Nike, from Salesforce to Reverb, and from The University of Michigan to Griffith Foods.

The one thing testosterone can’t cure is my fear of losing access to it — In the spring of 2020, I took a break from taking testosterone. Detransition was a desperate bid to win back the affection of the straight man I lived with who no longer desired me, and with whom, thanks to the lockdown, I suddenly had an endless, lonely expanse of time…

And yes, I do mean *all* drugs. — Hormone Replacement Therapy It’s May of 2018, and I’m sitting on an examination table at Howard Brown Health Center’s TPAN location. My nurse practitioner, Jon, is a cheery, open-faced man with a trimmed grey beard. He’s sitting facing me, with a laptop at his side, and asking questions with a degree of patience…

“Historically underrepresented” — by whom? — In a recent Medium post, my friend Emma Barnes suggested a crucial reframe for making accessibility requests: instead of locating the problem within yourself (or within your disability), phrase your request in a way that draws attention to the inaccessibility of your environment. For example, instead of saying that you…

Autistic Advice #8 — Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can send me questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here. Today’s question…

People who don’t wish to ‘recover’ still deserve autonomy and care. — I just finished reading the book Saving Our Own Lives by Shira Hassan last week, and it stands out to me as the first book I’ve ever read that applies a harm reduction framework to eating disordered behaviors. The conversation with Gloria Lucas included in the book discusses this subject…

Autistic Advice #7 — Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can send me questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here. Today’s question…

No identity promises safety. — I was walking home one Saturday evening when two women began following and screaming at me. “HEY! HEY MAN! HEY SIR! HEY MAN!” one of the women yelled, over and over. She ran across the road and closed up the distance between herself and me. “Can I ask you something?”…