Black Girl Diagnosed - Autism Acceptance Month with Charlotte Bachelor

In this special Autism Acceptance Month episode of Black Girl Diagnosed, we welcome back returning guest Charlotte Bachelor for an honest and affirming conversation centered on Black autistic women and the importance of true acceptance beyond awareness.

Charlotte shares her perspective on representation, self-acceptance, and why Black autistic voices must be centered in conversations about autism. Together, we discuss the misconceptions Black autistic women still face, the impact of late diagnosis, and what it means to create spaces where neurodivergent people feel seen, valued, and supported.

This episode is a reminder that autism acceptance is about more than visibility  it’s about listening, understanding, community, and making room for Black autistic people to exist fully and authentically. 🩷✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome back to Black Girl Diagnose and Happy Autism Acceptance Month. Today's episode is extra special as we celebrate Autism Acceptance Month with a returning guest, the amazing Charlotte Bachelor. Charlotte is a late diagnosed autistic and ADHD writer and speaker whose work centers uplifting the voices and experiences of Black disabled women and girls through powerful storytelling. We're excited to have her back for this important conversation as we continue to honor, uplift, and amplify neurodivergent voices all month long. Welcome back to Black Girl Diagnose, Charlotte. Thank you much for thank you so much for having me. It's great to be back. Yes, we you you're always so supportive of everything and it's just it's just our honor for you to be here. So we'll get right into things. Um so during autism acceptance month, um, what does true acceptance look like specifically for black autistic women beyond just awareness?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

I think acceptance for black autistic women looks like meeting people where they're at and where they are in their journey. Some people might be coming into this diagnosis as a teenager, as somebody in their 20s, um, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. So we really do have just like autism is a spectrum, we have a spectrum of experiences here. And so I don't think we can tell people how to process their stories or how to feel about their late diagnosis. So for me, it's providing people resources and a space to tell their story, but also honoring where they are in their journey because the diagnosis can be a lot to um take in, especially if you are a black autistic woman. I mean, there aren't a lot of spaces. Granted, you have a space for black autistic women, but there aren't a lot of spaces for us out there. So I really want us just to kind of give grace to black autistic women wherever they are in their journey and continue to build them up and provide resources and safe spaces for them so they can kind of come into their, you know, autistic adulthood and understand what that means for them.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, I know like when I was diagnosed, I was kind of like rejecting my diagnosis. And it really wasn't until I accepted it that like I became happy and I was able to live my life and live in my truth and share all the joys that I was feeling now knowing and now having a word for something that I was. So I I feel like a lot of people don't understand that. There's like for some people, you know, a little period of grief, um, but then new beginnings for for your old life and then a new life that you're starting. So thank you for touching on that. Um, why is it so important to center the voices and experiences of black autistic women during this month? Well, well, all always, but during autism acceptance month.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

I think it's very important because we still aren't seen as a face in the autistic community. Like somebody will bring us out for Black History Month and be like, hey, this is my Black Home Girl, or here she is for Juneteenth, or see, here she is for Women's History Month. But when April comes around, it's like, get to the backseat, girl, because unfortunately the face of autism now is typically low support needs white autistic men and more so white autistic women, which is not to say those people don't have their struggles, but by constantly amplifying those verse voices and going to them as kind of the mainstays or the the keepers of knowledge of community, we're really missing out on um diverse stories and the intersectional nature of autism. You cannot ignore autism as just this diagnosis without seeing how someone's raised, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and gender impacts their lived experience. So when we uplift black autistic women, not just during April, but all the time, we're acknowledging their humidity and acknowledging that they are an important part of the autistic community and not just a token or a footnote in the autistic community and in our history.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Right. And I think also, you know, the problem that we also do have is like like I always say this, I'm like traditionally, the face of autism has never been a black woman. And I wrote an article a few years ago and I said when you think of autism, a black woman's face does not pop in your head. And some of the problem is though that some white autistic women can't decenter their whiteness be for us to be able to s to tell our stories. So that that is also definitely a problem. And um I'd like to know, like, you you know, we we all probably are still like in the same area with this, but uh, what do you feel are some of the biggest misconceptions about black women and autism that you s you think still need to be challenged?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

I think there is, um, I think for black autistic women and black autistic girls, the immediate to jump that it's a behavioral problem or it's an attitude adjustment that needs to be happened and not an actual disability, right? Um, so many stories of what I hear from mothers and from parents in my area are that when they're taking their young children to the doctor at one and a half, at two, three, four years old, they're struggling to get that diagnosis. The mothers have accepted and are naming autism, but the the doctors and the clinicians and the specialists, because we're not the face of autism and we're not the face of most disabilities, there's an exception that we are just choosing to be difficult, being to be hard-headed or to be antisocial. So I think that's the biggest thing um when it comes to black autistic women's voices. And I think it goes back to kind of what you were touching on is that there's a stereotype that black autistic women are demanding or that we take up too much space or we talk about race too much, which I tell people all the time, I can't take off this black skin when I enter the room. That's the first thing somebody's gonna see before the word autism comes out of my mouth. Like I can't, I can't, I can't take this off, right? And so I can't deny that how my race and my gender has played a huge role and how it has shaped my autistic experience, my accesses to services, my accesses to support, and just how you know I am accepted in the community. So I think, you know, people need to broaden their horizons and their imaginations a little bit and understand that black women exist in multitudes, and black autistic women is just one of those multitudes, right? Um and I think it's important for people to just keep seeing us and for us to have, you know, more visibility with things like your podcast and so many other advocates doing the work because there are a lot of parents out there who want, you know, black autistic women for their little black autistic girls to look up to. And when it's time for April to roll around, it's like crickets, right? So I think it's important our stories are highlighted because there's a generation coming up behind us who are going to need our stories, who need this wisdom, who need this knowledge to know how to grow, navigate, and deal with life's challenges.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Right. And like for me, like I'm I'm kind of like on a little mini social media break right now. Um, I just needed a breather. But talking to parents a lot, a lot of them really have said, you know, I'm really glad that I found your page. Um, I have a little black autistic girl. So it the parents know what their what their daughters need. The parents know how important it is for there to be representation of black autistic women. Um, I just um I just covered an event over last the end of last week and the show Love on the Spectrum came up and I asked one of the cast members, I was like, you know, how important is more diversity on the show? And she answered it to the best of her ability, but she really didn't answer it because I was basically axeling, because I think there's only been like one black cast member in the US version of it. So um people, little black autistic girls need to see that too. Why is there a show full of white autistic people that can fall in love? But where where are the black black people? And also like when you touched on this, when they bring the bring it to the attention that their child, they think their child may be autistic, but that's when like the medical gaslighting starts and that's when the medical bias starts, especially for black women, and then especially also for like black women who live in underserved communities, who really don't have the resources. So during autism acceptance month, that really is the time and we should when why people are listening to autism, uh that feels I feel like that is the time when they need to listen and you know stop stop with the medical gaslighting, stop with the medical bias. Um, but this question kind of just like rolls rolls into the next. Um, how can communities better support black autistic women and feeling seen and feeling affirmed and accepted year-round?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I'm gonna take it back to elementary school, and for some people who are not black autistic women, I'm gonna tell you to put your listening ears on. You might be so quick to say, well, hey, I experience that too, and I'm a white autistic woman, or I experience that and I'm a white autistic man. I'm not talking about you right now. I'm talking about black autistic women, and we have to get comfortable, you know, de-centering ourselves, even when it's not, you know, when it's not April, or it's not Black History Month, or it's not Juneteenth, or whatever. Can you look at your roster of guests on your show? You know, I'm talking just to the public on your show, your podcast, your Instagram page, and can you count how many black autistic women you have and how many different black artists you have, not the same two or three, but do can you can you name four artist black autistic women? Can you tell me the last time you saw a black autistic woman in your LinkedIn feed? Like, I think people don't realize until you bring it to their attention that there's been a lack of attention to our um to our stories. And a lot of times the place is willing to platform us or people like you, other black artistic w autistic women, we're constantly building each other up, hyping each other up, gassing each other up. But we're kind of like a niche within a niche. If the greater autistic community is not honoring and validating our humanity year-round, then we're seen as a subcategory or just to add on to the autistic experience. We're not seen as a valid autistic experience. So I think it starts with that. Like you really have to sit down and audit your content and see who am I not reaching or what is an audience I'm I'm not I'm possibly missing out on.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, and and I what's something that I also notice is that like when the bigger autism organizations, the national autism organizations, when they do their these lists and they put these lists together, it's always like the same handful of black autistic people. Sometimes there's not even a black autistic woman in there. It might just be a man, but it's always the same list. And I'm just like, where's the diversity here? You you guys have, you know, you're one token black autistic person and you feel like that's enough and it's not. That's also that's harmful because where why is it so hard for people to understand that it's a spectrum? So this black autistic woman is not gonna be like that black autistic woman. So why are you only amplifying the experiences and the voices of a certain type of black autistic woman? I feel like, you know, a lot of us like me, I know I'm not a safe black autistic woman. I'm gonna say what needs to be said. I'm gonna talk about race. I'm I'm going to talk about these things. I'm not just gonna get there, sit up and smile and be like, yes, I'm black and autistic. No, I'm gonna ask questions about race and we're gonna have these uncomfortable conversations. I always say that when new people come to my page, I'm like, like right now I have interactions limited because I don't want new people commenting or trolls being racist and saying stuff. So I do have my interactions limited right now because people they're so quick to be like, oh, you're such a racist, you're always talking about race, but like not for nothing. I'm always gonna defend my blackness first because when you see me first, you see me, you see a black woman. So I think a lot of people don't understand that. But um, can you share your diagnosis story with our audience?

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, so to just to make it very brief, um, I have other disabilities in addition to autism. And I came to a point my senior year of college where I was like, this stuff is just not working, and I need some additional support. So I sought out a diagnosis partially because I had a professor at my university who shared her late diagnosis story. And this was a white woman, but at the time I didn't know you could get diagnosed as autistic as an adult. Like I just did not know. So I started doing my research. I found a um a center here in Michigan. I waited like six months on a wait list, went, got diagnosed, got my accommodations, and that was the end of story. And it might seem simple, but I had to fight the psychiatrist I was seeing at the time. I kept like a diary of all of my symptoms for three months straight. And I went and talked to that woman. This and the psychiatrist was a black woman, and she wrote me off and was like, Well, you're talking too fast, this, that, blah, blah, blah. Um, and I had to go and find a new psychiatrist. And if you know, finding a good psychiatrist is kind of like a needle in a haystack. It's not like just you're gonna go to Walmart and pick up a box of cornflakes. It's like having to go to five or six stores to find the one thing you need for your recipe. So then I sat on a wait list, which thankfully was not that long because I know some of these wait lists are years long and thankfully had insurance and had my parents' support and I was working. So cost was not as a prohibitive factor for me. So I am blessed to say I was a highly resourced person and I had the health insurance, I had the doctors on my side, I had the family support, and I know my diagnosis story is not like everybody else's. So um I put that out there to say it's not impossible to get diagnosed, but it's definitely not easy. It's not like walking into urgent care to go get a flu test. It definitely takes a lot of time, energy, and mental resources, just having to call, having to check insurance. I mean, in Michigan at the time, we had the autism navigator service through the Autism Alliance of Michigan, which essentially is like a hotline for autism services. So you can call them, and based on where you are in the state, they can help you find stuff. Unfortunately, they've lost um quite a bit of funding here in recent years. But I know not even every state has that, or you know. So for me, I'm lucky that my diagnosis, even though it was six months, it was pretty straightforward. And I was able to get accommodations like that in college. I had a great the neuroside who did it was a great assessor, and I felt that I was very validated and seen as whole during my experience. I know that's not everybody's experience, but I would say for people who are looking to get diagnosed, that is not an overnight thing. So you just have to be prepared. Do and definitely please, please, please do your homework. Um, please do your homework, please research the options out there. Um, you know, it's definitely depends on state by state, city by city thing, but I think it takes up a lot of time and energy that a lot of people don't um acknowledge and for people with other disabilities who have gone through kind of the the diagnosis like flow chart that can kind of be triggering or frustrating for them too.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah. Yeah, and that that is really important because um like me, it for me it was is a little bit different. Um, because you know, we all have different different experiences. Um I I wasn't seeking a diagnosis, but we knew that something was different, you know. I I try not to say wrong because you know, um being autistic doesn't make you wrong, but we've always known that something was different. But I was just at a point in my life where I was breaking. So like, you know, I was put into the psychiatric hospital, but I was but I was there for three months before one it was a woman of color before she said I think she's autistic, and then they brought in a team, an assessment to do my assessment. It was two two women. My assessment took either two or three days, and it was a couple hours each day. But the reason I feel like it was so long is because they didn't know what they were looking for. They they kind of gave me like an overall evaluation, and then that's how we found out that I was autistic, that I had ADHD, that I was dyslexic, that you know, in some some places I'm you know stunted and I have delays, which I knew that already. I just didn't know the language for it. So but it but it even though I wasn't seeking a diagnosis, getting a diagnosis was still hard because I had been to other therapists and I and I do remember one of my therapists was like, You seem like you're on the spectrum, but then like he didn't say anything else about it after that. He was just like, So what are your plans of the weekend? And I was just like, You're just gonna leave it at that. So, you know, a white man can't stand him, stop going to him. But, you know, like listening to everybody's story, the one thing that, you know, that we do have in common, like me, I'm a millennial, so you know, I was really it considered being late diagnosed, being diagnosed as a millennial and an and an adult. But I I just feel like I I I know part of the reason I fell through the cracks was because, you know, I am an artist and people always look at us as being a little bit weird, being a little bit being a little bit eccentric. But um I I stayed to myself, so they just thought that I was being shy. But when I did come out of my shell, it was like, oh, look at her being grown, look at her not listening. So in school, they always looked at me, it it was always looked at like a behavioral issue, which which is common for black children. Black children are always labeled with a behavioral issue before they really take the time out to um say, oh well, maybe something else is going on here. Um, but for um black women who are questioning, um, since we're talking about this, um, who are questioning or who have or are newly diagnosed, what message of encouragement or acceptance would you want to share with them?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

I think the biggest thing, like with your adult diagnosis is your diagnosis. You can choose to disclose, you can choose not to disclose. It really is up to you because again, you are an adult. Nobody can tell grown folks what to do and how to manage it. So it's not like you have to build room in a day and like I have to go to HR right now and I have to tell everybody and I gotta start an Instagram page and YouTube. That's the path some of us take, like once we've kind of eased into our diagnosis. Um, but you don't have to rush into anything. I mean, for me, understanding my diagnosis was like, okay, I think maybe now I might need a different therapist, maybe a black woman therapist who can help me with this transition, because at the time I was like four months away from graduating college and moving back home and working a full-time job. So I learned then, like, hey, the therapist I have been rocking with for several years up until this point, she couldn't really serve me in this transition. Or, you know, these are the accommodations I need in school, or this is what I can do to better accommodate myself. I think what's important is to really understand your diagnosis, what it means for you, and focusing on how you can make your environment and your life easier for yourself, building those systems, building those routines, building those sensory things you need into your home and your space, because unfortunately, not everybody is going to be accommodating. And the only person you can control is yourself. So if you have a hectic job and the job is not accommodating, at least when you come home at five o'clock, you can have your sensory safe space. You can turn the lights down and you can focus on yourself. And the second thing I would say is your diagnosis does not take away any achievements or accomplishments that you had before you got diagnosed. Just because you got diagnosed as autistic does not mean they're going to come and snatch that diploma, that degree, that promotion. That doesn't make you any less capable. You just found out new information about yourself. And when presented with new information, sometimes we have to pivot. Sometimes we do things the same way. Sometimes we learn the way we're living our lives is not sustainable and we need to do things different. A diagnosis does not have to be, I know there's grief with it, but it doesn't have to be this earth-shattering thing. It's information like anything else, like the weather, the time, how tall you are. It's information. And so we can do what we want with this information. But um, if you don't feel this person does not feel comfortable disclosing their diagnosis, you don't have to. If you don't feel comfortable taking that advocacy route, you know, you don't have to. Your autistic journey is your your journey and nobody can bully you, nobody can force you or twist your arm into doing something you want to do. And sometimes you just need to sit in it for a week or for a month or for two months. So everybody's journey is different. And um if it doesn't look like ours or other people you'll see online, that's totally okay too.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah, yeah. And I and I love that you said that because like for me, I had to sit in it for two years. Like I I was embarrassed. I didn't tell anyone. And and then it wasn't until like I I kind I made like my phenomenal autistic page, but I wasn't really doing much with it. I was just kind of like looking for like community and stuff like that. And I just started sharing my experience. But then I saw that just sharing my experience we I I felt I needed to just do a little bit more. So but I but I love how you say that you said that everybody doesn't have to take the advocacy route because that it's it's not for everybody and it's not easy. Um I I speak to people all the time who when they share my stuff I try to thank everybody who shares my stuff and some of them are like you know I don't I don't have energy to to put this content out and advocate but you know I'm here to support. So I have great allies and and and and it's not for everybody. But um oh damn I just lost my train of thought oh do you um do you feel that um that per we purpose they purposely um or I don't I don't even know what do you feel like people are relieved when autism acceptance month is over and they're just like oh well we'll let them all go back from to where they came from so we don't have to hear about autism anymore?

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I honestly I don't know like how to answer that question. So from my perspective I'm in Detroit Michigan but you know blackest city in America and a lot of the people I sit with parents caregivers allies service providers um a lot of people are screaming out for help here. There are not enough resources to meet the needs of our black and brown children. There are not enough supports in the city of Detroit proper I am in parent groups I hear from parents I I break bread with these people and it's a struggle. So for me and my community when this comes around we're all side by side at the autism walk trying to raise money to get our first adaptive plagiar in the city because there are no adaptive plagiams in the city and parents sometimes have to go 15 or 20 miles outside of city limits to find resources for their children. So for for me and my community here in Detroit I think people are banging their pots and pants louder than before because these these new parents and grandparents and caregivers I'm seeing they're not afraid to say the word autism or my child is autistic and they're out here searching for answers, searching for support and searching for community. I know some people like the race thing they're like oh you're just autistic you just need to get over it but I think for my community um especially for this like new generation of parents and kids coming up it's definitely like we're all sitting at the table and how are we going to make the most out of April? How are we we talking to city council members, we're talking to the school district we're talking to anybody who will listen um so for me I don't really get that much like pushback on autistic awareness and acceptance month because I would say I'm in a lot of pro-autistic spaces even if I'm not dealing with you know autistic people themselves even if I'm dealing with parents or caregivers or allies they know that autistic people in their families we live this 247 365 no breaks no stops like this is real life for us. So thankfully I will say I have people in my corner when I get on my soapbox and start banging my pound and pan and start getting loud and passionate about it they understand because it comes from a place of passionate care and concern and not of a place of just you know complaining to complain or you know just so thankfully I have not experienced a lot of that I mean I might I mean I just started posting on YouTube and it's always somebody in the YouTube comments who got something slick to say but I was thinking oh trust me I know because I be blocking people I be blocking people on on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

I put up a post about this this white lady was like I don't know if you saw it when she was like oh I hope black women are gonna start using autism as an excuse to start being loud and rude and mean and I'm like well tell us how you really feel about us without telling us how you really feel about us.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

And so yeah people feel brave behind the screen but when I find like I'm in person and like doing like I just came back from my advocacy trip with the Arc of Michigan to Washington DC and I was meeting with legislators like you know it's I'm glad I have the community I have online and offline. But I'm just glad that people now are getting louder and these parents are feeling less shame and less stigma which means they're gonna raise kids who are not ashamed to be autistic and that's the biggest thing that's important for me.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah and and like that's just like to me that's that's a beautiful thing to me because it wasn't always like that. You know, especially in the black community um sometimes we do harm to ourselves and you know that's a very sensitive topic. That's a conversation for another day but when I see a a black parent of an autistic child and I see that they have pride in their child they're not embarrassed they post about uh their their experience with autism the ups and the downs and I feel like when other people see that they they don't feel so alone but um do you have any recent projects that you would like to share so um I have a YouTube channel now.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

I have a YouTube channel I'm on YouTube. If you look up it's the same as my Instagram Charlotte says but I think my YouTube channel has three S's instead of two S's um I post short Bonnet Chronicles is on there which are like quick minute and a half long snippets into like life as a disabled black woman living in America. I have recently started vlogging so I posted a video about going to a disability leadership retreat for women in New York. I'm working on blogs about um my experience in Washington DC and I have some other videos talking about what black autistic girls dream of my experience getting diagnosed the messy reality of being disabled and that's become kind of my new outlet so um if you want to join us I'll be sure to send the link and share it in this note show notes. We're happy to have people there. But other than that I'm just you know I'm on Instagram I'm on LinkedIn um I'm working I'm advocating I'm doing all the things and trying to just do my part to uplift the community and you and you are um what would you want people to know and take away from this interview I want people to know that even like as black autistic women we're still on a spectrum like there is no one black autistic woman we voted as a spokesperson. We all have our niches we all have our areas we got some people working the special education and IAP and we got people on the self-advocacy end we got people on the OT and speech end we have people who are writers illustrators designers uh public speakers we have a plethora of autistic women and if you think one of us is dope go into that autistic woman's following and find the other 10 dope autistic black women there are more of us to hire there are plenty of us looking to speak to educate to teach so I would just say for the non-black autistic women out there hire us pay us because there are plenty of us out here and just keep educating and just keep you know just keep expanding your horizons and just keep that mind open of who is autistic and who belongs in our community.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yes thank you and thank you again so much for joining us again for sharing your powerful story and wisdom with us to our listeners thank you for tuning in to Black Girl Diagnosed your presence and support means everything once again happy autism acceptance month and until next time take care and keep advocating with love you