Lakan Ubaya Nagsalad on Ancestral Connection, Traditional Medicine, and Gender

- Support Lakan Ubaya’s traditional medicine practice at https://www.the-atang.site/

- The BIPOC autistic evaluator he mentioned - the link no longer works sadly: https://www.breakingbarrierstogetherllc.org/

Help us sustain this project by contributing to our fundraiser: https://rewilding.cc/book

In this episode:

00:42: Lakan Ubaya Nagsalad (he/it) introduces his Tagalog and Chinoy ancestry and the interconnectedness of his gender, queerness, and neurodivergence

01:33: How Lakan Ubaya’s couple’s therapy session led to an unexpected realization — and why it was difficult for it to see itself in the diagnostic criteria at first

05:35: The gift of being evaluated by an autistic BIPOC therapist

07:13: How an AuDHD diagnosis transformed his relationships and career

09:05: How Lakan Ubaya’s traditional Chinese medicine training influence his views on neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, and other common co-occurring health conditions

15:08: How whiteness, colonialism, and capitalism shape our views of neurodivergence

18:45: Lakan Ubaya’s gender identity journey — and looking beyond whitewashed, colonial concepts of gender

22:42: How traditional healers in the Philippines exist beyond colonial concepts of the gender binary and neurotypicality — and why seeking pre-colonial “authenticity” is a myth

26:59: “People just assume that I don’t struggle mentally as much as I actually do” — all the tools and scaffolds it relies on to survive

28:54: The financial, career, emotional, and energetic costs of being a multiply-disabled queer autigender Asian American person in a capitalist society

32:15: Food as a nonverbal, somatic way for Lakan Ubaya’s bicultural and possibly neurodivergent family members to communicate

33:42: We gushed about mooncake, Mid-Autumn Festival, and why some Asian autistics prefer it to Lunar New Year

35:28: “We have kindred spirits around us all the time” — on connecting with other autistic BIPOC and ancestral practices

38:19: How to support Lakan Ubaya’s practice in traditional medicine

Access the transcript for this episode by supporting us at: https://rewilding.cc/book

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