Welcome to another edition of This Week in Autistic Culture, our Sunday magazine podcast that brings together the stories, conversations and ideas shaping Autistic culture each week.
Content note: This episode contains discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation and public harassment.
This week, Angela and Simon reflect on the death of Professor Jason Arday and the pressures that can come with being a highly visible Autistic person. They discuss public scrutiny, the way successful Autistic people can be placed on impossible pedestals, and what happens when institutions fail to protect people during periods of intense vulnerability.
They also turn to Robbie Williams following his recent comments about being Autistic, asking why autism is so often used to explain someone’s struggles or differences, but rarely recognised as part of the creativity, innovation and perspective behind their success.
Later, Angela takes us inside the 2026 Neurodiversity Index Report, including the striking gap between the number of employers who believe their workplaces are neuroinclusive and the neurodivergent employees who actually feel supported.
As always, we’ll also take you through everything happening across the Autistic Culture Podcast Network this week, with new episodes exploring writing, drinking and masking, Autistic menopause, autism therapy, PDA, Reddit and more.
Plus, we head to the Community Notice Board for books, events and opportunities from across the wider Autistic community.
📌 Community Noticeboard
The Community Noticeboard is your space to share what’s happening across autistic culture. Whether you’re launching a book, hosting an event, releasing a podcast, starting a creative project, celebrating a milestone, or simply have something you’d like the community to know about, we’d love to hear from you.
Send your announcements, links and updates to autisticculturepodcast@gmail.com, and we’ll feature as many as we can in a future edition of This Week in Autistic Culture.
This Week’s Topics:
Books & research:
Events
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