Charlotte Brooks Profile Photo

Charlotte Brooks

♾️ Autistic PhD Researcher in DISN at University of Birmingham; researching autistic nonbinary experiences in school 🏫

📌 Autism and Gender diversity: Supporting trans and autistic children and young people

I’m excited to share this talk on ‘Autism and Gender diversity: Supporting trans and autistic children and young people’, which I made to contribute to course materials for the University of Birmingham MA in Inclusion: www.youtube.com/watch

Autistic children and young people are four times more likely to be gender diverse than non-autistic children and young people (Hisle-Gorman et al., 2019).

🏳️‍⚧️ My talk provides an introduction to terms around gender diversity, the overlap with being autistic, and how gender diversity may be experienced by autistic young people. 🤝 I then go on to talk about what autistic gender diverse young people need from professionals working to support them. I also provide further resources to explore this topic further (see video description)

School Uniform

Auto-generated description: Three students wearing matching yellow shirts, blue striped ties, navy skirts, and white socks with black shoes are seated on chairs.

In the UK, almost all schools have a uniform. Occasionally we have a debate on why that is - to (supposedly) reduce class divides, to look 'smart', to deprive us of any sense of individuality? I have a mixed relationship with uniforms, which I intend to explore in this article.

I’m sharing a Zones of Regulation poster I made for myself and my (adult) family to help with alexithymia. The 4 colours represent emotional states + energy levels. I think it’s a lot more intuitive for #ActuallyAutistic people than traditional emotion labels: drive.google.com/uc?export=down…

We will place magnets on the chart to represent us and our emotional state. Step 1) identifying what zone we’re in, step 2) using stims to work through undesirable emotional states. Also works to communicate our emotional state so we don’t trigger each other.

I first discovered Zones of Regulation teaching primary school children, but then realised it helped with my own alexithymia. Would anyone be interested in reading more about this? #AskingAutistics

#AskingAutistics What do you do when you know you're burnt out but you can't switch off?

#AskingAutistics Is your hyperempathy a good or a bad thing? Discuss

Being misgendered as an #ActuallyAutistic person: “It is hard to know intent and whether people are being knowingly disrespectful or just making a mistake” @YennPurkis

#AskingAutistics Is this something unique to being trans/enby and autistic?

Christmas cake

Auto-generated description: A beautifully decorated white cake features pine cones, dried orange slices, cranberries, and frosted leaves, set alongside festive star decorations and a candle.

Transitioning from 2021 to 2022 with the help from a sugary delight

Christmas and New Year is a time that is usually rife with a sense of celebration and holiday cheer for many around the world. It's a time to get together with family friends, throw your work schedule out the window and indulge in rich food, bright lights and overspending.

The best books I’ve read this year, a 🧵of #bookrecs in time for Christmas. See https://thegoo.se/reading/