Autistic communities coming together online

IOL News

30-04-2025

April Marks Autism Awareness Month Autism is not a puzzle to be solved — it's a world to be understood. This Autism Awareness Month, listen, learn, and celebrate every voice.
Image: Ya'eesh Collins
April marks World Autism Awareness Month, a time often filled with pastel puzzle pieces, corporate platitudes, and well-meaning infographics. But beyond the official campaigns and hashtags lies something far more powerful.
Online platforms such as TikTok have become spaces where autistic people are building their voices together.
These spaces function as support groups, stages, soapboxes, and sanctuaries. They offer something traditional awareness campaigns often lack: authenticity.
Stacy Hart, known online as KingLady_CPT, never set out to become a voice for autistic adults.
A content creator and social media strategist by profession, she started her TikTok page to entertain, experiment, and connect. What she didn't expect was that the platform would also become her lifeline, helping her process a late autism diagnosis and find a community that changed her life.
Hart's career was already built on social media strategies and content creation when she began using TikTok as a personal and professional testing ground. Her first post after her autism diagnosis was raw: a candid car rant about rejecting the disabled label. A video she later deleted.
"That video isn't something I'm proud of, but it shows how shocked I was. Overnight, I was being told I was disabled," she reflects.
Since her diagnosis at 29, she has worked through internalised ableism, coming to embrace her identity and finding gratitude for a community that chose education over cancellation.
TikTok, she says, is uniquely suited for autistic creators.
"It lets you share your special interests without needing the energy for traditional socialising," she explains. Still, she is clear-eyed about the platform's dark side, where bigotry and bad-faith interactions exist.
Below, Hart addresses the debate around seeking a professional autism diagnosis.
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While formal diagnoses can open access to services and support, she points out that the process can also be costly and emotionally draining.
For many, self-identification is a valid path, particularly given the systemic barriers to formal diagnosis.
Accepting her diagnosis has led her to better understand her limits, both socially and emotionally.
'Autism isn't a motivation issue. It's a capacity issue,' she explains. 'And if there's going to be a change, we have to fight for it.'
Her philosophy today is simple: block and protect your peace. "Authenticity doesn't mean tolerating abuse."
For Hart, autistic people don't need a cure. They need understanding, better diagnostic tools, and real post-diagnosis support. She knows her voice is just one piece of the puzzle — but it's a piece she's proud to contribute to.
"Autism isn't all that I am, but it shapes everything I do. Speaking up is exhausting. But if we want a better world, we have to keep fighting," she says.
TikTok: A New Kind of Advocacy
On TikTok, autism awareness takes a different form. It is fluid, visual, and often unexpectedly joyful.
Scrolling through the #ActuallyAutistic tag reveals creators using trending audios and short-form skits to depict the highs and lows of life on the spectrum. This is autism in motion: vibrant, funny, sad, celebratory, and deeply relatable.
TikTok, often dismissed as superficial, has quietly evolved into a space for identity-making, advocacy, and community. Under hashtags like #ActuallyAutistic and #Neurodivergent, creators are offering layered expressions of their inner worlds and reshaping how the public understands autism.
The same algorithm, often criticised for its lack of transparency, can, at times, amplify marginalised voices and bring overlooked narratives into mainstream visibility.
This visibility, however, comes with risk. As creators gain popularity, they are often met with public scrutiny, medical skepticism, or harassment. The boundary between advocacy and exploitation is not always clear.
Still, many continue to share their stories, not because they are expected to, but as acts of self-advocacy, self-definition, and cultural authorship.
Autistic individuals are not waiting to be represented. They are producing their representation. They are not asking for a seat at the table. They are building entire ecosystems of knowledge, empathy, and resistance.
True awareness is not simply about recognizing symptoms. It is about truly listening to stories. And right now, more than ever, those stories are being told. One post, one video, and one hashtag at a time.
Autistic creators are reshaping the conversation through online discourse, community building, mutual support, and knowledge creation.
Raising Awareness for Autism As the Month of April comes to an end, lets keep the awareness going.
Image: AIT