Dr. Rachel Moseley

The inequalities that autistic people face and they've always faced.

So whereas in the past there's been this idea that autistic people just naturally have mental illnesses and we, you know, we naturally lead shorter lives and so forth.

We're now really bringing to the fore that it doesn't have to be this way, that we have shorter lives and have poorer health because of inequalities.

And that really shifts the narrative.

It makes it not about treating the individual or treating autism in the individual.

It's about

demanding better lives for autistic people, not equal lives.

So that narrative is really changing, and hence it's shifting the idea that autism and being autistic is pathological.

It's rather saying that the world does not treat autistic people fairly.

So that, I think, is a positive direction, because in the past, the way people wrote about autism and the assumptions they made were really, really awful.

I hope so too.

I think a part of that, a really helpful part, is hearing from autistic people themselves.

Autistic people are very often othered in society.

They are treated and perceived as other.

Whereas if we can listen to autistic voices, because they're there waiting to be heard, we can sort of challenge that idea that autistic people are other than you.

We all share much, much more than we differ.

Yes.

So I wrote a book with my colleague, Professor Julie Gamble-Turner, and we wrote a book about autistic menopause.

So it's published by Jessica Kingsley Publisher.

It's called Autistic Menopause, A Guide to the Menopausal Transition for Autistic People and Those Who Support Them.