Ep. 40: Let's Talk About Autistic Gender Identity & Relationships Ft. Neurodivergent Rebel
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What is the purpose of this episode and who is the guest?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift.
We're an SLP couple from California with three boys and a passion for finding better ways to support autistic kids.
I'm Chris. You might know me as Speech Dude. I'm a neurodivergent high school SLP and the creator of the Dynamic Assessment of Social Emotional Learning and I specialize in crafting neurodiversity affirming IEPs through my online course.
And I'm Jessie, a sensory integration trained SLP, owner of a top-rated clinic in Los Angeles, and the creator of the Inside Out sensory communication programs for parents and therapists. Join us weekly to learn neurodiversity-affirming ways to support social-emotional development and regulation in autistic kids.
Are you ready to make the shift?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Making the Shift. We are so excited. Today, we have Lyric here, who is also known as NeuroDivergentRebel. And we cannot wait to have this conversation with you. We are talking all about gender identity and autism and autistic relationships. And I'll do a quick intro of you. So Lyric is a queer pansexual trans non-binary polyamorous autistic whose pronouns are they them lyric owns a consultancy for neurodivergent consulting and is the author of a best-selling business ethics book which was praised in forbes which is so impressive congratulations on that and
your
kind of big mission is just i mean it sounds like the name neurodivergent rebel came from this rebelling against a society who puts all of these kind of constructs on us and values assimilation, rebelling against a culture that values assimilation, I think you say, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's something that is like for me as a human being, my whole life before I knew I was autistic, I didn't find out I was autistic until I was 29. Um, I was called a rebel. I was told I was being rebellious just for existing as my full self. And people just thought I was trying to be different. And it was meant to be an insult. But really, it was just me being me. But I didn't know any other way. It was just natural to me to be myself. And so once I found out I was autistic, I decided to kind of reclaim that rebel thing that had been used against me my entire life and use that as something that's more empowering for myself.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I was going to say too, and that's like, as we journey forward and society becomes more accepting towards things, it's gotta be liberating to, you know, for, for the autistic community and, and, and, and as we make gains forward, I feel like that, that is something that is good for us, you know, cause as you mentioned, I think growing up feeling like having to rebel, but people just being mean. It's just like, that's not the kind of society we want to live in.
Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, you know, it's like when you're different in any kind of different, like in any group and you stand out, you know, being autistic is one way you stand out, even if you don't have a word for it. Unfortunately, like people can be really mean to anything that they perceive as different. And then, you know, not a lot of autistic people in my age group, I'm in my mid thirties and older, like we grew up not knowing we were autistic. So we grew up with people being mean to us, but not knowing why people were so mean to us. And so that was like another, like really hard level to like, oh, people are so mean. And I don't know why people are being mean.
Yeah. And, you know, I would love to kind of talk about the big picture of like, why are we having this conversation specific to, you know, autism? Like, how does gender identity fit with autism? And And you said something on one of your videos, and I forgot to say that Lyric is like an on fire content creator, like great YouTube channel, so much good content there. But you said in one of your videos, you said it's not compatible to be anti LGBTQIA and pro autistic.
No,
it really isn't. Maybe you could share.
How did Lyric discover they were autistic and what does “rebel” mean to them?
I know you did a poll on Twitter. Maybe you could kind of share like the general results of that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this episode and who is the guest?
0:08–4:56
2
How did Lyric discover they were autistic and what does “rebel” mean to them?
4:56–10:32
3
Why are autistic people more likely to identify as LGBTQIA?
10:32–14:05
4
What did the large‑scale survey reveal about autism and gender identity?
14:05–19:39
5
How do biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation differ on the spectrum?
19:39–24:00
6
How does masking affect autistic people’s mental health and self‑acceptance?
24:00–30:13
7
What strategies help autistic individuals build authentic relationships?
30:13–33:12
8
How does Lyric’s consulting work and book support neurodivergent workplaces?
33:12–38:39
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)