Registration has closed for this event!
About the event
Thank you for your interest in this event. This event has now taken place, and though registrations are closed, if you would like to watch the recording then you can access it here (along with the other NCW 2024 event recordings!). We hope you enjoy.
This NCW event celebrates people who are both LGBTQIA+ and Neurodivergent; an intersection often referred to as the ‘double rainbow’ because we fall into two spectrums, both of which use rainbow imagery.
There is a strong correlation between neurodivergence and LGBTQIA+ and we are unfortunately at much higher risk of discrimination, bullying, and suicide. This needs to change!
Panel chair Charlie Hart is Autistic, ADHD, cPTSD, bi/pan, and gender non-conforming. Charlie promotes understanding, acceptance, and support for those on the ‘double rainbow’, in memory of their first-born child Iggy, and strives to make this world more accepting and welcoming for their remaining two awesome neurodivergent teenagers and others like them.
Charlie is joined by a diverse panel of awesomely neurodivergent and queer advocates, bringing their own unique stories, perspectives, and ideas.
Join us to learn more about the ‘double rainbow’ and how everybody can be an effective ally to us.
This is a free online event via Zoom.
Charlie Hart | Event Chair
HR Consultant (EDI Specialist)
Charlie Hart AKA ‘Ausome Charlie’ (shey/they) is a highly experienced, CIPD-qualified HR professional, and a popular and influential intersectional neurodiversity advocate. Charlie is Bi/Pan, Autistic and ADHD, and has C-PTSD. They identify as a ‘Queer AuDHDer'. Charlie’s presentations and speeches centre their own lived experience, inclusion insights and ideas, underpinned with expertise in employment legislation and HR best practice, delivered with authentically neurodivergent quirkiness and dry self-deprecating humour.
AJ Singh (they/he)
Founder, Wautistic Wayfinder
AJ’s identities include: South Asian, mixed heritage, Transmasc, pansexual, Autistic, ADHD, Disabled.
They are a neuroscientist, poet, writer and decolonial practitioner. He developed the term neuro-embodiment to describe the journey of divesting from neuronormativity and honouring the way our mindbodies function. AJ works primarily with white Autistics to help them to unlearn ableism and racism and to heal themselves through understanding and connection, so they can show up with compassion for themselves and others to dismantle white supremacy and connected systems of harm.
Grace Liu
Grace is an autistic writer, speaker and artist from the East Midlands. She is the author of Approaching Autistic Adulthood and blogger at Unwritten Grace Writing, where she writes about her experiences as a mixed race, lesbian, autistic person. She is also a pet portrait artist and a dedicated cat person – cats are her special interest! As well as cats, her other interests include music and cooking.
Ollie Roscoe
Autism and Mental Health Specialist
Ollie is an Autistic Queer Transgender Man who has worked in the combined fields of Autism and Mental Health for 15 years, and has been specifically focused on the intersection of LGBTQIA+, Autism and Mental Health for the past 4 years. He co-founded and led Birmingham's Transgender Social Support Community - TranSpectrum (now TranSanctuary) from 2017 until 2022. He continues to be involved in organising and support for Transgender people specifically within the kink/fetish community.
Shazzy Tharby
Mental Health Consultant and Counselling Psychotherapist
Shazzy, a UK-born Mental Health Nurse and Counselling Psychotherapist based in Australia, boasts a diverse career spanning over 30 years. Starting at Cambridge University, attaining a Postgraduate Degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy and now studying MSc Psychology, she pioneers change in the neurodiversity sphere. Advocating for mental health, disability, and LGBTQIA2S+ rights, Shazzy amplifies marginalised voices through intersectionality. Her activism extends through board memberships, committees, and co-design projects, while LinkedIn serves as her platform for advocacy. Recognised as an award-winning mentor, motivational speaker, and global trainer, Shazzy inspires audiences worldwide, embodying a commitment to positive change and inclusivity.
Tony McCaffery
CEO – Diversity Scotland
Tony McCaffery is CEO of Diversity Scotland (aka Diversity Company outside UK).
Over the past 30 years Tony has achieved success as a leader in the fields of People, Culture and Talent, in addition to holding board and advisory positions for a range of organisations, including the Institute of Equality & Diversity Practitioners.
Along with writing #for a national newspaper, Tony has featured in radio and television programmes where diversity and equity have been the focus.
Tony is a queer, disabled, neurodivergent, multi-ethnic person of colour, with lived experience of rough-sleeping homelessness, the foster care system and social mobility.