Autism, Gender Diversity, and Transitioning with Yenn Purkis and Dr Wenn B Lawson

Doing It! with Hannah Witton

Global Media & Entertainment

Health & Fitness, Relationships, Sexuality, Society & Culture

4.8 • 651 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Yenn Purkis and Dr Wenn B Lawson, who co-authored the book The Austistic Trans Guide To Life. Yenn & Wenn discuss what autism means to each of them personally, navigating gender identity when autistic, and how service providers can become more inclusive to neurodivergent people. They also share their thoughts on why autistic people are more likely to be trans and non-binary than non-autistic people, advice for autistic people whose gender identity isn’t being taken seriously, and what it’s like being in trans activist spaces as autistic people. Finally Wenn, Yenn, and Hannah talk about the importance of surrounding yourself with allies!

✨MORE ABOUT YENN PURKIS✨
Yenn Purkis is an autistic and non-binary author, public speaker and community leader who also has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Yenn is the author of eleven published books on elements of autism and is a regular blogger. Yenn was named the 2016 ACT Volunteer of the Year and received the ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Award in 2019. Yenn is also a prolific public speaker and has presented at a range of events including at TEDx Canberra in 2013. Yenn works for the Australian Public Service and lives in Canberra, Australia.

- Website: http://yennpurkis.com/

✨MORE ABOUT DR WENN B LAWSON✨
Dr. Wenn, (Phd) is a British Psychologist, a member of the Australian Psychological Society and Australian Association of Social Work, an autistic lecturer, advocate, researcher, writer and poet who has passionately shared professional and personal knowledge of autism over the past 3 decades. In Australia Wenn is an Associate Researcher with Curtin University (WA) & Macquarie University (NSW). In the UK Wenn is a Tutor Practitioner with the University of Birmingham’s (UK) Masters Autism course. Back home in Oz, Wenn is a member of the autism Co-operative Research Centre (ACRC), member of the Australasian Autism Research Council, (AARC) & Ambassador for ‘I CAN’, Australia. Internationally Dr. Wenn is on the Board for ‘Good Autism Practice (GAP) UK, Editorial Board for ‘Autism in Adulthood’ and the US Autism Association’s Advisory Board. In 2021 Dr. Wenn was awarded the Lesley Hall National Lifetime Achievement Award for Disability Leadership. Dr. Wenn is a family man with autistic offspring and grandchildren.

- Website: http://www.wennlawson.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD8L-Ht_jSQxBmWe6MzZvJA

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome back to Doing It to the Sex and Relationships podcast where
0:10.7	pets have never been so nerdy with me, your host, Hannah Witten.
0:15.0	This week I am joined by the brilliant Yen Perkis and Wen Larson, who co-authored the book, The Autistic Trans Guide to
0:22.8	Life.
0:23.7	Yen is an autistic and non-binary author, public speaker and community leader who also has a diagnosis
0:30.3	of schizophrenia.
0:32.1	Yen is the author of 11 published books on elements of autism and is a regular blogger. Dr. Wen Larson is a psychologist,
0:41.3	an autistic lecturer, writer and poet who has passionately shared professional and personal
0:48.0	knowledge of autism over the past three decades. I wanted to get them on the podcast to share
0:53.6	all their important insight on how
0:55.8	autism and gender identity overlap and how autism also interacts with sex and relationships.
1:02.6	We spoke all about what autism means to each of them personally and they shared very interesting
1:07.7	thoughts on why autistic people are more likely to be trans and non-binary than non-autistic people.
1:13.6	And how that is rooted in autistic people being very grounded in their truth and not succumbing to social expectations as much.
1:21.6	At the same time, they also spoke about why many autistic people do feel like they have to hide who they are to be able to fit into
1:28.3	society and how damaging that is to their lives. We spoke about navigating gender identity services
1:34.4	and the experience of transitioning when autistic and also what it's like being in trans-activist
1:39.9	spaces as autistic people. We discussed the stereotype that autistic people are asexual and Yen and Wen's own personal
1:46.6	journeys of understanding how they want to connect and relate to others.
1:50.5	Wen spoke about why he fears the impact of pornography on autistic people's understanding
1:55.1	of sex and connection, and therefore why a proper sex education is so important for autistic
2:00.5	people who are more at risk
	...

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