Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC!

Take care of yourself. CW: colonial boarding-school legacy, anti-Blackness, assimilation, ableism, medical gatekeeping, chronic pain, medical gaslighting, suicide, psychiatric incarceration, ableist abuse and harassment. 

You can use the timestamps below with content warnings marked to skip potentially triggering content. 

- Follow Riz https://linktr.ee/RCarthins

- Help Riz get their wheelchair accessible van! https://chuffed.org/project/rizwav

- Support the Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC! project at https://rewilding.cc/book 

In this episode:

- 00:01:18: Meet Riz, an Afro-Indigenous, trans, Two-Spirit, radical yarn artist, wheelchair user, and mutual-aid organizer, who weaves fiber art into disability justice and collective care.

- 00:02:37: Learn how boarding school functioned as an assimilation machine for Indigenous and negatively-racialized kids like Riz. [CW: colonial boarding-school legacy, anti-Blackness, assimilation]

- 00:05:10: How perfectionism became a mask for Riz in elite, classist white institutions

- 00:08:00: How Riz got their college to pay for ADHD testing - and why their insurance later claimed they couldn’t cover ADHD anymore. [CW: ableism, medical gatekeeping]

- 00:09:14: Discover how Riz’s ADHD diagnosis opened the door to understanding autism and why bullying didn’t always register as bullying.

- 00:13:10: Learn how the athletic excellence expected of Black students came at the expense of Riz’s pain and chronic illness. [CW: chronic pain, medical gaslighting]

- 00:16:20: How institutional “care” became PR management when a classmate in crisis was expelled to protect the school’s image. [CW: suicide]

- 00:19:40: How speaking to campus counselors led to Riz’s unexpected psychiatric incarceration and a forced gap year from college. [CW: psychiatric incarceration]

- 00:22:03: How Riz navigated ADHD medication shortages and the inequities of medical access for disabled folks.

- 00:25:00: How Riz’s time in Cameroon and Tanzania revealed that “lateness” is a colonial construct — and how it reshaped their understanding of urgency and presence.

- 00:28:16: Why accommodations aren’t always guaranteed in grad school, especially when you’re up against abusive professors [CW: ableist abuse and harassment]

- 00:32:41: Learn how joy, fiber-arts therapy, and community care sustain Riz.

Support the Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC! project at https://rewilding.cc/book 

#autistic #actuallyautistic #adhd #audhd #queeraudhdbipoc #audhdbipoc #qtibipoc #bipoc #neurodivergence #neurodiversity

Action beats performative allyship. Be the reason Queer AuDHD BIPOC feel seen - chip in at https://rewilding.cc/book to back our stories, pay guests, and grow mutual aid.

Follow Janella at diversity_in_neurodiversity on IG, TikTok, YouTube: https://linktr.ee/diversityinneurodiversity

00:01:03: Meet Filipino-Korean AuDHDer Janella of “Diversity in Neurodiversity” and learn what her platform does differently for autistic and ADHD folks of color.

00:02:09: Follow Janella’s late-diagnosis path from a friend of color’s revelation to her own suspicions — and what finally pushed her to seek answers.

00:03:26: How an LAX sensory overload moment that reframed everything, and how one incident can catalyze a search for language and self-understanding.

00:05:17: Peek inside the diagnostic assessment maze (referrals, waitlists, criteria) and hear Janella’s mindset shift that made the waiting period unexpectedly useful.

00:09:33: How Asian cultural expectations can complicate family input on childhood traits, and why that tension didn’t derail Janella’s diagnosis.

00:11:22: Learn how a simultaneous AuDHD diagnosis landed for Janella — and why accepting one part felt easier for her than the other at first.

00:21:33: How gender roles, sensory needs, and queerness intersected across Janella’s life — and why naming difference opened up confidence instead of closing doors.

00:26:37: What thriving at work with accommodations can look like for an autistic person managing people daily, and why structure plus novelty turned out to be a strength.

00:42:00: What Janella wants newly diagnosed or questioning BIPOC listeners to know about mapping identities, spotting strengths, and finding your people.

#autistic #actuallyautistic #adhd #audhd #queeraudhdbipoc #audhdbipoc #qtibipoc #bipoc #neurodivergence #neurodiversity

Welcome to Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC! - a book and podcast to help late-diagnosed/identified Autistic and ADHD 2SLGBTQIA+ people of color feel seen, supported, and less alone while living in multiple margins.

Support our project at rewilding.cc/book - funds go toward our interviewees, the Autistic People of Color Mutual Aid Fund, and my disabled friend Nara, a mother of 2 living with multiple sclerosis and pancreatic cancer.

00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast

00:48 Meet the Host: TQ's Background

02:13 Challenges of Finding Representation

06:13 Creating a Living Archive

06:43 Who This Podcast is For

08:36 The Bigger Picture: Systemic Barriers

14:04 Support and Funding for the Project

16:11 Conclusion and Call to Action

Resources

- generative somatics by Spenta Kandawalla and Staci K. Haines https://generativesomatics.org/