Autism and Public Declaration: On Giving a Poster Session at ALA

I did a thing.

I’ve mentioned before that I was going to turn my PowerPoint into a presentation for the big 2026 library conference in Chicago. Well, I did.

Me and my poster. I don’t know who took the image. It was the person at the pinboard beside me. She was nice. I soon shed the flannel shirt and did the whole thing with a Circle A Autistic shirt and a cool blue flat cap. Amber lenses are courtesy of my glaucoma. Jealous?

First, a little bit of history.

A while back, I took a library training course on autism and libraries, which focused on the lived experience of the speaker. While interesting, it was pretty light on facts, history, and the medical and cultural response to those of us with autism (which, to be fair, it never claimed to address). I decided that I wanted to create a presentation that incorporated all of these issues together…the changing historical views of autism and the autistic, the current scientific thought surrounding our neurotype and how it has evolved (and how it has been held back by reactionary charlatans and idiots who claim X Y or Z cause autism (and conveniently sell a miracle cure on their websites)), autistic culture and how all of this has made an impact in my personal and work life.

With blessings from my place of work, I developed a 90-minute presentation. And actually presented it. More than once. To many of my peers, not only in my department but throughout all of the entire library system. Then we got a crazy idea…how about turning this into a presentation that I could give for the Public Library Association? So, I shortened it somewhat and applied; the PLA said, “Sure.” So one afternoon, over the internet and through the auspices of my library and the aforementioned PLA, I presented this to interested library folk from all over the US and Canada, and it seemed to go fairly well.

Now here’s where things get even bigger. I applied to transform this presentation into a poster session to give at the 2026 American Library Association conference in Chicago.

A picture I took on a different trip to Chicago. I like trying to get birds in my photos.

Obviously, they said yes, so I went to Chicago to ALA this year.

Whoop-de-doo, middle-aged man goes to a work-thing in a big city.

But it is, at least it is for me.

Since I came into my autistic identity and have allowed myself to experience the world like I was supposed to, I’ve had to relearn things, had to re-experience things, and had to re-launch myself. As the mask has dropped and as I’ve allowed myself to be more fully who I really am, I’ve allowed myself to realize consciously that the world is a lot more chaotic, a lot more frantic, and a lot harder to pass through than I had allowed myself to experience and notice before. This trip to Chicago, this work convention, this poster session were tests of my selfhood, my autistic selfhood. Let me explain:

While the major elements of travel and lodging were set up by the library system, I still had to cope with the ‘smaller’ elements. I had to get to the airport, had to navigate through the chaos of security, carrying items, checking items, stowing items, getting to the right gates, and so forth…you know the procedure, but I was doing this all on my own and with my autistic nature out there in the wild for all to see.

Now, I did allow myself the use of the sunflower lanyard.

wikipedia.org

Hidden Disabilities Sunflower — Wikipedia

I’ve written about these before, but the sunflower lanyard is a visual symbol for airport workers and others in the know that they are dealing with a person who may need a little extra help. The sunflower lanyard is a visual symbol for hidden disability, and though I am somewhat loath to say that my autism is a disability as such, the society that we live in today makes it a disability (not to mention that glaucoma also qualifies one for use of this). Some airports are more trained in recognizing them than others, some airlines are more up-to-date with this training than others, and many European airports (surprise) are miles ahead of the US regarding helping passengers who may need extra time or grace, but it’s okay to use things that are meant for you. It’s okay to use help when it is out there.

I felt it was important for me to do this as much as I could on my own — so I went by myself. I planned. Of course, I planned. Planning is part of the fun. I found restaurants I wanted to go to, and while most of them were nearby the convention center (my Uber trips or public transport weren’t reimbursed aside from the airport to hotel and hotel to airport), I did venture forth by Uber to one of my “new” favorite restaurants in the city, Duke of Perth.

2827 North Broadway. Picture by me.

Where I had a stellar plate of all-you-can-eat fish and chips

The Whisky was a lovely Bunnahabhain 12, perfect for the evening’s meal (no I wasn’t reimbursed for the whisky). Picture by me. And the whisky list (the white laminated page on the left) was quite extensive as shown below:

told you it was a nice selection

and wandered around on my own before returning. I thought long and hard about having a 2nd whisky that night (it would have been the Springbank, and I’m kicking myself now for not having it whilst I had the opportunity.)

Sorry, got off track. I just really liked this place.

Back to the point. Since coming into my own as an autistic person and coming out as an autistic person, I have found myself allowing myself to be more autistic. I’m not covering up as much, and I’m allowing myself to feel more — to feel the confusion, to feel the frustration, to feel my own joy, and to express those moments how I choose to.

Before, when I was unaware that I was autistic, when I was passing and masking and camouflaging, and struggling to keep it together, I did keep it together (for the most part) but I suffered, I burned out, I shut down, and I coped in the best ways I could come up with at the time — most of them damaging, all of them always leaving me feeling worthless, wondering why it was that I had so much trouble with just the basic requirements of living a modern life.

My wife wanted to come on this trip with me, and I’m sure it would have been okay with my employer, but I didn’t want her to. It’s not that I don’t love her, love spending time with her, want to spend time with her…I just needed to do this myself. For myself.

I developed the initial PowerPoint presentation. I stood in front of groups presenting my research. I applied to present this online. I applied to present this in Chicago. Yes, I was assisted in many wonderful ways, but this was mine.

I had to do it myself. I had to wander through airports, call rides, keep track of all my materials, check in to hotels, find my way around the biggest convention center in the country, find my way to meeting rooms, find food, find seating, wander through the sensory overloaded chaos of the exhibitor’s hall, find where I was to present my own session, present my own session, and find healthy ways to reset. Call it autistic sovereignty.

My own session:

I tried to keep track of the number of people I spoke with, I tried to keep up with the number of people who walked by, read over the poster, took a picture of it, shared their own stories of autism or autism-adjacent life in library-land or the overall world, but the 105 minutes I was standing there in that side spotlight, I couldn’t keep track. There were too many, but in my mind and memory, they all seemed to share a certain trait: they all cared, and they all were happy to be seen. My poster, for those who stopped by, that interacted with it and with me, wasn’t a poster; it was a mirror.

Autistic stories matter: In a world where our differences are enough to draw scorn, in a world where questioning and not conforming to the narrowest piece of an already narrow interpretation of an, at best, questionable worldview can keep one from advancing (or even getting started), in a world where allegiance to a fraud is more important than being true to yourself, our stories matter. Our voices matter. Not just autistic stories, all our stories.

I am privileged to have found Medium, a place where I can speak. And I am privileged in other obvious ways as well, but I am pleased that such places exist where our stories can be expressed and shared, and where audiences can find and commiserate and co-celebrate. For those who have read my stories here on Medium, I thank you. I will try to post more regularly, and I will try to speak more with you and with all of us. Thanks for the opportunity.