Kaligirwa on Moderate Support Needs, Access Fatigue & Radical Disclosure

Head here now to pre-order your copy of Queer! AuDHD! BIPOC! eBook which includes interviews with Kaligirwa and other multiply-marginalized AuDHDers of color.

- Follow & support Kaligirwa’s work

- Read Kaligirwa’s Substack

- Check out Kaligirwa’s post on the models of disability

- Note: the ICD-10 still includes Asperger's syndrome, but the ICD-11 does not

- Academic with vision loss Annika Konrad coined the term "access fatigue"

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

Meet Rwandan-Canadian AuDHDer Kaligirwa (@blackspectrumscholar, all pronouns) from Quebec, Canada! We talk about:

00:01:01: How she was diagnosed with ADHD in early high school — and why many of his challenges weren’t addressed by medication alone

00:03:00: Their confusion of going through interpersonal challenges and long assessment waitlists without realizing they were autism-related or receiving adequate support [CW: psychiatric hospitalization]

00:09:10: What it’s like to have moderate support needs split across the 2 categories in the DSM-5’s scale of support needs.

00:11:16: What online autistic spaces don’t talk about enough re: getting accommodations and support services

00:13:30: Kali explains what “Access fatigue” is — and how it wears out disabled people fighting for support

00:15:00: The biggest stressors and injustices they face as a Black agender AuDHDer who is read as a woman.

00:18:23: Who gets seen as — and excluded from — “the norm” in AuDHD, and how is it reinforced by white supremacy and Global North bias?

00:25:00: Kali unpacks the myth of autistics having “a strong sense of justice” and ties it to how marginalized communities were policed for their reactions to the C.K. unaliving in Sep 2025.

00:29:36: What brings Kali most joy in different areas of his daily life

00:31:00: Why she always discloses their AuDHD status in all settings

00:34:25: Kali’s nuanced message to late-diagnosed/identified queer AuDHD BIPOC

00:36:00: What they want policymakers and organizations to know about the models of disability they rely on

00:37:00: How to support and uplift Kaligirwa’s advocacy and educational work!

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

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