Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Bridget Hampstead's Journey: Autism, Community, and Radical Love
16 Apr 2025
Send us a text Bridget Hampstead shares her journey from discovering her own neurodivergence to founding Fish in a Tree, a virtual community center supporting neurodivergent adults. Her work combines community building, political advocacy, and neuroaffirming practices to create spaces where late-diagnosed autistic individuals can find acceptance and belonging. • Founded Fish in a Tree after realizing neurodivergent people lacked community support • Pivoted from physical center to virtual programming, expanding reach nationwide • Faced challenges with neurodiversity language acceptance in the Deep South • Represented the US at UN's World Autism Awareness Day despite censorship • Increasingly focused on political advocacy as disability rights face new threats • Programming specifically resonates with late-diagnosed autistic women • Writes daily on neurodivergent topics while seeking funding to address critical issues Connect with Fish in a Tree at www.fishinatreeNOLA.org. You are so loved and a warm welcome awaits you at Fish in a Tree, where we see you, we get you, you are valid and you are the person of honor at our table. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Full Episode
Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real-life people who will inspire... and show that you are not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World. Joining us today is Bridget Hampstead, founding director of Fish in a Tree, an organization dedicated to supporting and championing neurodiversity in New Orleans and surrounding areas.
Prior to Fish in a Tree, she was awarded Activist of the Year in 2023 and became U.S. Representative to the U.N. for World Autism Awareness Day 2024. She possesses a wealth of knowledge and we are honored to have her on the show. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here with you.
So can you tell me, how did you get involved in what you're doing now?
So I'm an ADHD person myself, and just because of my own neurodivergence and my experience, my kind of what I thought was a very unique experience of my neurodivergence, I'm coming to learn is not so different from other late diagnosed autistic women. What began me on that road.
And then I was working for a big name disability organization, spearheading a program that was training and educating autistic youth in coding and computer languages. And then we were finding them jobs in the tech industry. And I was left to my own devices to spearhead that program. And so I set it up as a neuroaffirming program.
And what I found was that we could get people trained and get them jobs. And that kind of wasn't an issue. The issue was them keeping the jobs once they got them because the companies that were receiving them were not prepared to accommodate them or to manage them in a way that worked for them.
You know, I was kind of struggling with how do we prepare employers to take these people on and is what we're doing ethical, like training people and finding them jobs that they can't keep, is that useful to anyone at all? And so I was really struggling with that.
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