CW suicide

I gave a TEDx talk last year. It was all about Autigender – that lovely concept where your autistic and gender identities are closely intwined and you can’t separate one from the other. Here is a link to the talk – because I love it!  

However, not everyone who watched it loves it. When I was giving the talk, I spoke on hatred and said that I knew – not wondered or speculated but knew – that when the talk went online it would attract attention from transphobic bigots. I secretly hoped that I got that wrong but sadly I was 100 per cent correct. Within 24 hours of uploading the video I had my first hater and they were closely followed by another. I honestly don’t understand these people’s motivation for this kind of thing and it is really not OK to attack me for my gender identity.

The weird thing about this kind of transphobia is that my gender – or your gender or anyone else’s gender – is nobody else’s concern. My gender has no impact on anyone else in the world so why do people that don’t even know me feel the need to level a bunch of hate and bigotry at me? I think the only instance where a person’s gender is potentially another person’s business is maybe in their sexual partner’s (as some people like and dislike certain physical characteristics in a partner) but I am yet to see transphobic hatred coming from trans folks’ partners!

Hatred in this space hurts, and it is dangerous. Many studies show that forty per cent of transgender folks have attempted suicide. Forty per cent! And bigotry and transphobia clearly feed into this horrific statistic.

I don’t hate myself when someone attacks me for my gender identity. I have two reactions. The first is anger. And that to my mind is the most appropriate reaction – someone has attacked me due to their own bigotry and ignorance. That is cause for an angry response from me and defending myself against an unreasonable attack. I should not hate myself about this but sadly a lot of people do. The other reaction I have is sadness. I am sad that a person limits themselves like this and that they don’t get to learn from and interact with awesome trans people.

I know that every time I post about gender diversity someone attacks me. They say all manner of things. My gender is apparently a sin, a phase, ‘madness’, ‘woke nonsense’ or unnatural. Weird because I thought it was just my gender! Do other people’s genders have all of this attached to them? Is my mum’s gender ‘political’? Is my dad’s gender the result of coercion? So then why is mine?  The transphobic bigots are a pretty passionate bunch which always baffles me. Once again why do they care? Do they feel threatened by me and my trans siblings? If that is the case, seriously why? They are even organised – whole groups of people dedicated to hating trans people just because we are trans. How sad does a person need to be to form a hate group or be a member of one?

Aside from outright hatred there are other issues I experience around gender. I am non-binary and my gender expression (i.e. clothes, hair etc) is androgynous but maybe more feminine than masculine. This means that as far as apparently most of the world is concerned I am female. This seems to be based on them taking a cursory look at me and then applying a stereotyped view of what my gender should be. I am NOT female; I am non-binary. Basically, I get erased all the time, called a ‘lady’ or ‘she’ even when I have stated my gender and pronouns. It isn’t as bad as outright hate but it is very frustrating and annoying. I wish people had more than two ‘boxes’ for gender! Thankfully I have some beautiful friends and allies who pull people up when they misgender me, but it is a major issue. A couple of years ago I even entertained the idea of going back to using she / her pronouns – for about five seconds – and then realised that I shouldn’t change who I am just because people kept getting my pronouns wrong!

I think a lot of people think things are better than they were for Queer folks and autistic folks in recent years. They are right – sort of. In terms of legislation and policy, in representation in popular culture and the collective consciousness things are very different to thirty years ago – or even 10 years ago. However, there is still a lot of things needing change. While we now have greater understanding of gender diversity for example, there are people who use this as a springboard for hate and transphobia. And the world we occupy is quite dynamic and the online world plays hosts to misinformation, conspiracies and all kinds of hatred so we do not know when a new conspiracy based in hate might crop up. There is no margin for complacency in this as it is far from guaranteed that things will change for the better in the future or that the gains that have been made will necessarily continue.

Hatred is everywhere which makes me sad and angry but thankfully so is acceptance and love.  In my TEDx talk I spoke on the concept of allyship and of cis gender folks standing on the same side as Autigender folks. Everyone can be an ally and it makes a big difference. Allyship and advocacy combined form a great counter to hatred and bigotry. There are people working to change the world in this space, to support people and promote inclusion and respect. I will note a couple of resources in this space:

Dr Wenn Lawson and Beatrice Lawson: Transitioning Together

Maxfield Sparrow (edited): Spectrums

Sabrina Symington: Coming Out Again  

Laura Kate Dale: Uncomfortable Labels

Yennski at Mardi Gras in 2019

I was born in July 1974, but I didn’t know I was autistic for another twenty years – and I didn’t accept that for a further seven years. My autism diagnosis is now thirty years old so happy birthday!

When I was diagnosed, I was a prisoner (long story – visit my autobiography, Finding a Different Kind of Normal for more information on that part of my life.) I hated the diagnosis at that point in my life. I thought it was my middle-class parents making excuses for my poor behaviour and not accepting what I believed to be their influence on the troubled character I was at the time. I always knew I was autistic though; my denial was more about not wanting the diagnosis to be correct than a belief that it was wrong. Autism was very raw, very personal. I felt like it validated the bullies at school. And surely I was a big scary criminal not a nerd. (I actually believed autism to be a diagnosis of nerd!)

I got my act together in 2000. I got help for my mental health issues and decided to be a better version of myself. I enrolled in university which I loved. At the end of my first year, I got unwell with mental health issues. This prompted me to reflect on my identity. At this point I realised that for the first time in my life, that people actually liked me based on my personality and not because I belonged to one or another social group. I reflected on who in was and decided that the autism diagnosis in 1994 was probably correct. I did some research on autism and discovered Dr Wenn Lawson who is now a friend, colleague and co-author. I was still a fairly self-hating autistic though. I was more comfortable telling people that I had been in prison than my autism, but I was on a journey and that approach would soon change.

In 2004 I was asked to participate in a course for autistic adults to enable us to speak to school groups about autism. For reasons best known to herself, the very well-known advocate and author Polly Samuel attended this course despite the fact that she was an accomplished public speaker. I knew nothing about the world of autism advocates so didn’t know who Polly was. When we first met, she told me she had written nine books. I was amazed and wanted to be friends with this luminary in the world of autism.

Polly and I became great friends. In fact she became my mentor. I was delighted. Polly told me I should write my life story. She was not alone in this. At the time lots of people told me to write my life story and I categorically declined as I figured a book about my life would be met with judgement and blame and would make my life miserable! However, Polly convinced me. She said that if I wrote my story, it would be for the parents of autistic kids who got in trouble with the law. In half a second, I realised she meant my own parents, so I wrote the book. Polly also taught me autistic pride. I recall many occasions of making art in the studio at the bottom of her garden or playing with all her stimmy things. Polly enabled and encouraged my sense of autistic pride and positive self-knowledge. I remain and will always remain immesnely grateful for these things.

The book was published, as I am sure you know, and my career as an advocate began. Polly passed away a few years ago which was a very sad thing indeed. I think Polly gave me the life I have now. She was so hands on in her mentorship. The support she gave me with my first book was completely above and beyond expectations and without her influence I think the life I have now would be very different.

That was a long time ago now. My advocacy career is currently 19 years old. I have done some amazing things, met wonderful people and published another 16 books.  I have gone from being in complete denial about my autism to be out loud and proud and a bit of a poster child for autistic pride – and a bunch of other kinds of pride too.

So a big happy birthday to my diagnosis. I can’t imagine a world without that piece of paper. I actually lost the original piece of paper but I remember it said I satisfied all the DSM IV criteria for Asperger Syndrome so I think we can fairly confidently say I am autistic both in terms of formal diagnosis and my own sense identity. I have only met one clinician who thought I wasn’t autistic, and he tended to diagnose all the female patients in his hospital (and those he thought were female – like this non-binary Yennski) with borderline personality disorder (which I think he thought was histrionic woman syndrome, so I don’t take his dismissal of my autism very seriously!)

I wonder if I will be around for my diagnosis’ sixtieth birthday. An eighty-year-old Yenn is a scary thought – how many books will there be then?? I shudder to think.   But I do know that I love my neurodivergent identities and am delighted to have that autism ‘label.’ I have gone from being in denial to hating my autism to being extremely out loud and proud and wanting to make the world different – and better – for other autistic folks. And I guess I had better find thirty rainbow candles…  

I just called an awesome friend and in Sydney and she said she was at Mardi Gras and would have to call me back tomorrow! That is a pretty good reason to end a phone call and now I wish I was at Mardi Gras myself! I imagine my friend will have an amazing time. I have only been once myself in 2019 when I marched with the Aspect LGBTIQA+ folks. It was amazing. 2019 was one of the worst years of my life for mental health issues and when I got to Sydney for the event I was stressed and very depressed. I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy Mardi Gras but as soon as I got to Oxford Street the depression simply vanished. It was so affirming and empowering. I gave the crowd high fives the whole way and was blown away that all those hundreds of thousands of people were there to support and affirm me and my Queer friends and comrades.

Some Queer folks don’t like Mardi Gras and think is not radical enough and that it doesn’t help us. While I understand that view, I personally just love Mardi Gras as it gives us an opportunity to celebrate Queer lives and experiences. And let’s face it, as an activist I am a very good homeowner – I am pretty far from a Bolshevik these days!

Queer experience is obviously not just about celebrations though. I am Queer 365 days a year (and 366 this year!) One thing about being Queer is that you find out pretty quickly who is supportive and who is bigoted. I use they / them pronouns and when I introduce myself to someone, I feel I should tell them that to avoid me being misgendered and assumed female. (Unfortunately, this can happen anyway but coming out tends to reduce it a bit. People really do need to get across they / them pronouns!) I rarely encounter overt bigotry in response to my coming out but sometimes I do. When I came out as non-binary in 2018 a trans friend told me I would find out who my friends were and who they weren’t and that I would be surprised. They were absolutely spot on. Some people who I thought would react badly did, but some didn’t and some people I thought would be supportive were and some weren’t.

Some people think that non-binary isn’t a ‘thing’ or that it is all part of some woke agenda. I can clearly state that is not the case. My non-binary identity is very real indeed. I changed my name officially in 2019 and updated my passport to reflect this. Someone said you could get a gender descriptor of X on your passport and I thought that was a lovely thing to do so filled out the required form online. When it came to my gender, for some reason I needed a verification from my doctor about that. So, I made an appointment to see my psychiatrist. He asked me how I felt after I came out as non-binary. Without hesitation I responded that I felt liberated and that I wanted to dance down the street. So, guess who got gender X on their passport! I thought that was an interesting way to determine a person’s identity – how they felt about it – but I consistently feel liberated and comfortable in my own skin now I have my affirmed gender.

I am also asexual. This is an interesting one because it took me a while to figure it out and also to understand that it was a Queer identity much like being gay or bi is. I am now a very proud Ace and strongly identity as such. It is lovely knowing that there is an Ace community as well and that I am not alone.

A bit earlier in my LGBTIQA+ identity journey, before I had come out as non-binary or asexual, I was at a conference. We had drinks after the event, and I got talking to one of the other delegates. Out of the blue I said to them ‘I think I am non-binary and asexual’ and they responded with ‘me too.’ This was the first time I had tried to come out and not only was it positive, but it also affirmed both me and the person I was taking to. Affirmation and validation are essential things in this space, I think.

I could write so much on this topic. I haven’t even started on Autigender or Neuroqueer identities. I do have a TEDx talk on Autigender from 2023 which I would love to link to in this post, but the video hasn’t been uploaded to YouTube yet! I think the main take aways from this area are the value of pride and the immense value of being a genuine ally. So happy Mardi Gras good people of Yennski’s blogland, get your pride on and be your amazing self, whatever your identity may be.   

I am sitting in my parents’ dining room typing this post after being here since Saturday. I often say my parents are the best people in the world and here are some of the reasons why…

My parents are very much into church. When was a kid we went to the Christadelphians which is theologically quite conservative and fundamentalist. Over the years we all left the Christadelphians – me at the age of 15 and my parents some years later. In the circles I currently move in (transgender people and those with marginalised sexuality) Christians are notorious for being hardline, conservative and bigots, especially around gender diversity and sexuality. When I came out as non-binary in 2018 my parents were amazing. I was worried about them accepting me, but they not only accepted me, but they also actively demonstrated their love and acceptance. They even bought me a loaf of rainbow bread! In my TEDx talk last year, which was about gender diversity and autism, I said that my parents were the best kind of Christians imaginable and if all Christians were like my parents, then sign me up – I’m off to church!

My parents have always shown love and kindness and wanted the best for me. The ultimate demonstration of this was when I was a prisoner. As you may know. I was a prisoner from 1994 to 2000 on and off. My parents visited me every month. When I was released, they would help me move – this happened many times. They never judged and were always there for me. I remember them saying that there were no other middle-class parents and me saying that they had all stopped coming. When I first went to jail in 1994 it came as a surprise to my parents. They stayed with a wealthy friend in Melbourne. She said, ‘if that was my child I would move to Peru!’ My mum since said she was pretty certain this person actually would have moved to Peru! Thankfully my parents stayed in Victoria where it was easier to visit me than in Peru!

When I say I was in prison, I think people imagine it was like the movies. It wasn’t. I was the most broken and unhappy person you could imagine. I was violent against myself and others. I was considered a management problem and given a lot of punishments and sanctions. I wanted death. My life was total hell and everyone – including my parents – thought I would be leaving prison in a box. The anxiety my parent must have felt when I was going through all this must have bene off the chart. I wish I could make it up to them, but I guess my current success in life is a way of practically demonstrating that.

When I was released for the last time in February 2000 my parents were amazing and supported me like you wouldn’t believe. I remember them going overseas about three months after I was released and coming back with loads of gifts of me. They still love giving me gifts and every time I see them, they have some little treasure for me.

My love for my parents is immense. I think they are totally wonderful, and I also think they and their actions of support and acceptance are the main reason I am still here and that I am making a difference in the world. So, thank you to my parents for everything.

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Autistic people often have a strong affinity with animals. This can be any number of different animals from insects to chickens and cows and more conventional things like cats and dogs. Autistic people often have a strong bond with the animals in our lives and we may find it easier and more pleasant communicating with animals than with our human peers.

I have loved cats since I knew they existed. Much of my childhood was spent trying to convince my parents to get a kitty. Eventually they did. Her name was Smokey and she was excellent at keeping down the mouse population on our farm. That is the reason cats domesticated humans in the first place and Smokey was no exception!

As a teenager I didn’t have a cat and pretty much as soon as I moved out of home I got myself a furry feline friend whose name was Sensei. Sensei was (I think) a Norwegian forest cat. She was like my witches familiar. However I felt she felt. She was an amazing cat. She would disappear for three days every time I moved – which was many times – and come back with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the suburb I was living in at the time. We were so in sync that when I was in hospital at the age of 21 she died.

I have had a lot of different cats but the one who will always stand out is Mr Kitty. Mr Kitty and I bonded the moment we met. He was a prince among felines. He had an amazing personality. I belonged to him and he to me. I worried what would happen if I died before him as I pictured him constantly wondering where the human was and being sad and confused when I didn’t come in the door after work. People loved Mr Kitty. He was a very difficult cat and vets were wary of him as he was not a fan of the vet! I had movie night at my home Whimsy Manor every fortnight with some friends and Mr Kitty was in his furry little element. If someone got up he would immediately jump into their spot. Because of his reputation for aggression my friends always wanted me to be the person to evict him from the spot. Despite his tendency to aggression people really loved Mr Kitty – as they should have because he was wonderful.

Thank fully for Mr kitty he passed away while I was still alive. As a human I can understand grief and loss – something cats can’t. I said goodbye to my little furry kitty boy when he was almost eight years old. He had a heart condition. I held him as he went to sleep and told him that he was beautiful and I loved him. I would not get another cat for over two years. No cat could replace Mr Kitty. My dad even wrote a poem for him.

I now have Sunflower the naughty tortie. She is different to Mr Kitty in a number of ways. She does not have any aggression in her. She is obliging and sweet. The vet loves her and calls her princess. Sunflower follows me around the house, including to the toilet which apparently is an activity requiring feline attention! Sunflower is affectionate but not too much so. She likes to sleep on top of me while I sleep. I never heard of a cat doing that before! She loves being brushed and she loves to play. The foster carer I got her from said she was an ‘uncomplicated’ cat and they were right. I love her to bits and tell her constantly how much I love her.

Sunflower had a litter of kittens before I rescued her. She was a very young mum being 6 months old when she had her kittens. I think when I got her to my house she loved the lack of responsibility of being away form her kids! She is terrified of outside for some reason. I can leave the door open and be confident she won’t leave. This is good because we have cat containment laws in Canberra so kitties need to be indoors or in a cat run. When I adopted Sunflower the process was very rigorous. I needed to submit an application to meet her and then another to adopt her. The adoption organisation said they thought any cat would do well with a human like me.

I have always had cats. I know cats. I struggle with human non-verbal communication but am pretty good at knowing what my kitty is trying to communicate. I get cats. When I meet someone’s cat or dog they usually gravitate towards me. Owners will say ‘oh but they never talk to strangers usually…’ When I am around cats I feel good. Even if I am watching TV and a cat comes on I get excited and feel good – and often exclaim ‘ooh kitty!!’ If I am in a house where there is a party I will usually talk to the cat before I talk to its humans!

Cats never call you names. They never bully or harass. They don’t make fun of you. They are not ableist, transphobic, homophobic or racist. Cats do not start wars. They do not judge your fashion sense or hair style. And all you need to do to be friends with a cat is to give them enough space, give them some food that they like and show them love and affection. I have always thought that cats are a lot easier than humans. I hope when I die that I go to the place where all the cats go. And talking of cats and death, I have had a number of friends tell me that when they die they would like to come back as one of my cats because I treat them so well! I hope my cats agree / have agreed with that sentiment.    

As an autistic person – and an advocate – I come across some lovely affirming behaviour from allistic folks and also some really unhelpful, ableist thinking. I want to unpack some of the no-no’s as well as some of the positive things people can do.

Firstly the ‘don’t ever do this’ list:

• Tell people how to identify. Staying “you shouldn’t say you are autistic. You should say you are a person with autism”. This is wrong on a number of levels. A person’s identity is their own and also saying ’I am autistic’ (identity first language) is seen as more inclusive by a lot of autistic people who view autism as a key part of who we are. You wouldn’t say ‘I am a person with lesbian’.
• Taking about functioning levels  – these are highly unhelpful and largely meaningless. My functioning changes form day to day. And the functioning labels go to the idea of a norm of functioning and autistic people deviating from that norm. This is not a particularly useful way f viewing autism. Please don’t tell me I am ‘high functioning’ or ‘low functioning’.
• Paternalism. Treating autistic people like we are eternal children is really unhelpful and disrespectful.
• Microaggressions. These sadly are everywhere. I had someone tell me that “you shouldn’t say you are autistic. You could pass for normal”. I don’t even think I need to comment on why that is not OK. Needless to say the person copped an autistic pride-fuelled serve! Things like ‘you don’t look autistic’ are also not OK. I mean what does autistic look like??
• Assumptions and stereotypes. These are prevalent and very much not OK for any group.
• Assuming all autistic people are the same. As they say, if you have met one autistic person you have met one autistic person. (Or as a clever advocate once said “if you have met one autistic person well then meet some more of us because we are awesome!”
• Don’t assume autistic people are annoying, disrespectful or rude.

So we have seen some examples of what not to do but what should people be doing?

• Listen and learn. There is so much content by autistic people out there. I alone have published so much content I can’t keep track of it! And I am far from alone. Educating yourself with autistic experience and opinions and viewpoints is a great thing to do to improve your knowledge around autism and autistic experience.
• Change your thinking. Challenge any biases you have –  conscious or unconscious.
• Meet some autistic people if you haven’t already.
• Be respectful and inclusive of autistic people.  
• If you are autistic yourself, work to build your sense of pride and positive self-knowledge.
• Read some autobiographical accounts from autistic people – there are several out there including two by me!
• Understand intersectionality. There are so may autistic people that belong to other intersectional groups, particularly race, other neurodivergences, gender diversity and sexuality.
• If you are an employer, hire autistic and other neurodivergent staff members. There are supports available for employers and a neurodivergent staff member can have a lot of useful skills and add to the diversity of your team.     
• Learn to ‘speak autistic’ – viewed form the perspective of autism as a culture.
• Andf possibly most important, dxitch the stereotypes!  

I have number of formal, medical diagnoses. Autism from 1994 when I was 20, schizophrenia from 1995 when I was 21, ADHD at 45 and Anxiety at 47. I have had a couple of misdiagnoses as well. I often wonder about these things, I mean how do they know? A mental health diagnosis in particular is based almost entirely on observation by a doctor and – if you are in hospital – the observations of other staff. It is as such a pretty subjective thing.

When I was 22 I got my misdiagnosis (well I see it as that) of borderline personality disorder The doctor in that case appeared to diagnose all his assigned female at birth patients with this. The way I viewed it was that to the mind of this doctor, it was a diagnosis of histrionic woman syndrome! This label followed me around for some years and was mostly pretty unhelpful and just meant that clinicians were mean to me and thought I was intentionally manipulating and overly sensitive. Years after this I learned that a very common misdiagnosis for autistic folks – and especially women and non-binary people – is borderline personality disorder. There is a reason for this and that is that often autistic people do similar things to people with borderline but up until quite recently psychiatrists tended to have a poor understanding of autism.

Sometimes people say they won’t seek a diagnosis for their child because they don’t want to ‘label’ them. To my mind this is both unhelpful and silly. Autism is an actual thing. Would you not say your child has red hair because you don’t want to ‘label’ them as a redhead? Of course not so why is this the case with autism? An autistic person is autistic whether they are formally diagnosed, self-diagnosed or mis-diagnosed with something else! Knowing that a person is autistic opens the door to accessing supports and also to a sense of community should the person want one. Most of the people I know who are autistic and have an official diagnosis are really grateful because everything makes sense. It makes me sad that some parents would deny their child access to their autistic identity. The funny thing is that these children who parents were avoiding a label often seek a formal assessment once they reach adulthood anyway!

And this brings me to the idea of self-diagnosis. This can be quite fraught. I tend to think that people who have a self-diagnosis do tend to predominantly be correct in their assessment that they are autistic. There are many reasons that a person would not access a formal diagnosis. It often relates to cost. In many countries an autism assessment is a very expensive thing meaning that some people do not have access to an assessment even if they want one. Another which I find some people will say is ’I know I am autistic and a formal diagnosis wouldn’t make any difference’ And older adults often don’t seek a diagnoses because they have gone their whole life without one and don’t see the need to get one at this point in their journey. To my mind self-diagnosis is valid and to challenge self-diagnosed folks is not OK. A person’s identity is their own and hey, we are not the diagnoss police!

I am very grateful for my autism diagnosis and that I was able to get one. Likewise with schizophrenia because without that particular ‘label’ I wouldn’t be able to access life-changing medication. Likewise, with anxiety – that was a latecomer to my little family of diagnoses but has been incredibly useful through enabling me to access more lifechanging medications. And ADHD is a great one because it relates to my identity and sense of who I am – but no meds for that one because they make me psychotic! I do not regret any of my various labels and they help me to navigate my life and understand myself better. I wish everyone access to appropriate and accurate diagnoses which help them live their lives well and understand their identity.

I view myself an an autistic expatriate – I am in a strange land with strange customs (metaphorically) and I am viewed as odd and unusual and atypical. 

I was diagnosed as autistic thirty years ago, in 1994 at the age of 20. This was in a time where there was very little understanding of autism. I was given negative messaging from almost everyone. Autism was seen as a disorder, a problem, a tragedy and autistic people a burden to their families and to society. I didn’t understand what autism was but was pretty certain it was not a thing I wanted!

As time went on, autism become incrementally more known. However, this was a very slow thing and by the time I wrote my first book – 12 years after my diagnosis – most of the messaging and attitudes were still pretty bad. My book changed my world. I would love to say the book changed the world  – I mean maybe it did in a small way but not that many people read it. For me, the book ushered in a world as an advocate and author and with it an immense sense of pride in myself as an autistic person. 

The book was really the idea of my mentor at the time, the late and very great autistic author and advocate Polly Samuel. Polly strongly encouraged me to write the book and supported me to do so. To say Polly went above and beyond is an understatement. She even wrote a foreword for the book and sent it to her publisher – now one of my three publishers – with advice as to why they should publish it. It was amazing. However the book was not Polly’s greatest gift to me. Her greatest gift was my sense of pride and positive self knowledge and identity, I learned my pride, my advocacy, my sense of who I am in Polly’s house with its art and shiny things and amazing autistic presence. 

Polly basically taught me my autistic culture, my neurodivergent language. Shortly after my book came out I started thinking about who I was as an autistic person. I would go to autism events and spend time in the quiet room – which wasn’t always that quiet! It would be full of autistic people and there were no social or communication problems there. In fact if an allistic / neurotypical person came into that room then their communication and social skills would be ‘wrong’. Observing this made me realise that autistic people do not communicate or socialise ‘wrong’ at all. Communication is about making yourself understood and understanding others. In the quiet room in the conferences, both of those elements of communication were definitely happening. The issue was clearly not that we were socialising or communicating ‘wrong’ at all. Rather it was that the allistic people communicate differently to us. Both ‘languages’ are valid and effective, but different. 

I figured that autistic people are like members of a different nationality. We speak ‘French’ and allistic people speak ‘German’. Both French and German are totally valid ‘languages’ but if you expect someone to speak German when they are in fact speaking French then communication is going to be difficult. Neurotypical folks are expecting us to speak ‘German’ and we don’t. Because we are an often misunderstood minority it is like people don’t even realise that the metaphorical French, autistic language is even a thing. They just think we are speaking ‘German’ very poorly!

The nice thing about what I call the autistic culture model is that it ties in with the concept of Different not less and promotes inclusion and pride rather than a deficits / negative view – and also challenges some of the rather ableist views around neurodivergent people. So yes, I am an expatriate in the land of Neurotypical, a stranger in a strange land. And I ham very happy to share my autistic customs and culture with the inhabitants of what to me is the very odd country I find myself living in for much of the time!  

So it is very nearly 2024. I wasn’t going to do one of these but then thought that a bit of Yennski self-reflection is probably warranted on new years eve. I don’t want this to read like one of those iffy family Christmas letters which involve showcasing all the exciting things family members have done and trying to outdo people with their apparently amazing exploits…. However this year has featured a lot of very exciting accomplishments on the land of Yenn. 

Tp get it out of the way, my exciting accomplishments that would make my grandma proud if she was still with us are:

• Gave a TED talk. Actually gave my second TED talk. Go me
• Published two new books 
• Coauthored four books 
• Signed a contract for a new book which will be Yenn book #18. Wow!
• Gave a number of talks for different organisations 
• Continued paying the mortgage on Yennski Central and decorating it with artworks.

There we go. Te overachieving, impressing grandma bit is now done. We can forget that now.

This year was actually a time of significant personal growth for me. I had a few epiphanies and worked on some issues which have been around for most of my life. I got to a place with my mental health medication and therapy which has resulted in me viewing life in a very different and more positive way. After having severe anxiety pretty much continuously sick I was 12 years old I am now managing my anxiety well with a combination of medication and therapy which is amazing. 

I had some issues with my self-confidence which I still have but which I am aware of and am working to address. 

Relationships with family and friends have kept me busy. Sadly I had to excise a friend from my life after some upsetting behaviour on their part but on the positive side I have strengthened relationships with many other friends and family. I adopted a beautiful kitty called Sunflower who I love dearly. Sadly I had to bid farewell to my ginger boy Major Tom in January. I only had him for seven weeks but he was a lovely little fella and very much missed. I have him in a purple urn and I have Mr Kitty in a green urn – Mr Kitty was the best cat in history – which is my totally unbiased viewpoint! 

I got a new tattoo which I love very much. It covers self harm scars on my left arm and is very beautiful. The imagery I chose was meaningful on a number of levels and every time I look at the art it gives me a sense of empowerment and healing. The artist was a total star and I plan on getting more Yennski ink from her next year.

My paid work continues to be awesome and I am looking forward to starting back on Tuesday. 

I had three years of total misery between 2019 and 2022 with severe mental health issues and having to take huge amounts of sick leave and using my insurance. I feel like I have come out the other end of that time and into a more happy and productive time. My brain is odd as it can give me so much joy and creativity but also so much pain and misery. 

I don’t make new year resolutions per se – unless I have an epiphany on New Year’s Day I guess! I think we can do personal growth on any day of the year,. That being said I hope 2024 brings good things my way and your way. I turn 50 in July so that is a big milestone. I plan to have a big party and lots of joy and celebration. I don’t think I was supposed to live as long as that but I did. I am still going strong, writing books and cuddling my kitty – and other people’s kitties too if they don’t mind me doing so!.

Go well in 2024. Keep being awesome and change the world for the better in whatever way you can. 

I am known for my sense of style. I love clothes, shoes and accessories. I spent many years very poor and unable to express myself the way I wanted to through my style. In 2007 I got myself a wonderful job in the Australian Public Service, finally got paid well and bought business clothes and loved wearing suits and looking conservative! 

Over the past few years I have discovered a more individual Yennski style. I do find a lot of people assume I am female which really bothers me because I am not female, I am non-binary. I complained about this to a non-binary friend who was assigned female at birth and who has a beard and they said people do it to them as well! This confirms my view that a lot of people only have two boxes for gender in their mind – the girl box and the boy box. Anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into one or other of these gets shoved into one or the other. It is infuriating that’s for sure! 

I wondered (for about five seconds) whether I should consciously make my expression more masculine and then realised that my expression is my own and I shouldn’t have to change how I express myself just because some people make unhelpful assumptions!

I love style and I have quite a unique approach to how to express my identity through fashion. I love that I can afford to buy clothes and accessories that reflect how I want to present myself to the wold. When I am purchasing clothes and accessories my main concern is whether it is ‘too girly’. In fact despite that fact that people assume my expression is feminine, I prefer to be misgendered as male than female – I have no idea why that might be!

However this piece isn’t just about how I dress nicely. It is about the meaning of style in the world we live in. Gender identity influences style and sadly gender identity is very political at this point in time.. Trans and gender divergent folks face hatred and bigotry and there are a lot of people who would hurt us and discriminate against us. 

I had someone online tell me that they loved my ‘sweet enby style’ (for those who don’t know, enby means non-binary). The way I present to the world – my hair colour, tattoos, pride jewellery and t-shirts  etc- are a way of me demonstrating my pride as a autistic and non-binary person. The way we choose to express ourselves can be seen as very political. To my mind it shouldn’t but we live in a world where there is a lot of bigotry and ableism in the world. 

There is an assumption that autistic people are all asexual, cis gender, white men. Along with this is the stereotype that we don’t care about style or fashion and are all maths geniuses. I actually don’t know any autistic people who fit that stereotype! I have met a lot of autistic people who have a very strong sense of style and use their style to express who they are and their autistic identity. Others aren’t hugely interested in style and that is perfectly OK. We are all different. 

I do love to express myself through things like my clothing, jewellery, hairstyle and tattoos.  People tell me they would love to look like me and I say ‘oh but you can if you want to’ but I think that may be wrong. Being Yenn is a pretty individual thing, a bit like how I decorate my home. I suspect I am the only person who could express themselves like I do because there is only one of me – just like everyone else!

I think pride – be it Queer pride or Autistic pride – is a great thing and if we can express our pride through our expression that is a wonderful thing. My gender rand my autism should not need to be political but they are and if that s the case then expressing pride and positive self-knowledge through my style is a great thing to do. 

So be loud and proud and wear your rainbow wig I say!