Episode 165: Becoming a young autistic advocate – with Quincy Hansen

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Hello and thanks for joining me for this episode of Beyond 6 Seconds! Today my guest is Quincy Hansen, a young autistic advocate, blogger, and author of the brand new book, “Shake It Up! How to be Young, Autistic, and Make an Impact.” I talk with Quincy about his book, and he shares some of his own story of how he went from being a struggling and misunderstood middle schooler to a confident autistic advocate and college student with a popular online platform. We talk about how finding the right educational environments, with people who showed him kindness and understanding, as well as learning about autism from the Actually Autistic community helped Quincy become the successful student, writer and published author he is today.

I’ve also got something really special for you, for listening to this episode! For a limited time, I’m partnering with Jessica Kingsley Publishers, which is Quincy’s book publisher, to give away 2 copies of his book, as well as a special discount code you can use to purchase the book at a 20% discount. I’ll tell you all about it at the end of this episode.

And now, let’s get to my interview with Quincy!

On today’s episode I’m speaking with Quincy Hansen, a young autistic activist, blogger and public speaker living in Colorado in the USA. Quincy’s advocacy revolves around correcting stereotypes and misconceptions about autism to bring about greater acceptance, understanding and inclusion of autistic people while promoting self-determination and equal protection for neurodivergent people.

He’s the author of the new book, “Shake It Up! How to be Young, Autistic and Make an Impact,” and also writes a blog at SpeakingOfAutism.com. Quincy, welcome to the podcast.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I’m super excited to be on and get to talk with you today.

Carolyn Kiel: I’m so excited to learn more about your story and your new book that you have coming out. So I guess why don’t we start from the beginning? Like, when in your life did you realize that you were autistic?

Quincy Hansen: Yes. So this is for me a straightforward question with a less than straightforward answer. In that, I will tell you that the first time that it ever specifically clicked that like, oh, I am autistic, and I was told that straight up was when I was 13 years old. And that is after I got a, what you’d call a clinical diagnosis. But the story, and that’s actually fairly early on compared to a lot of other people, but the answer’s a little bit more complicated than that because I had gone through school with different educational, what you’d call educational diagnoses. So for the purposes of school accommodations and whatnot with various neurodivergences and anxiety disorders and some autism spectrum talk thrown around.

So you can say I was identified as neurodivergent and definitely autistic since I was very young, like toddler toddlerhood even early and beyond. But the first time that I definitively like, remember being told like, yes, you are autistic was when I was 13 years old at the very beginning of my eighth grade year of school.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, wow. So what was it like growing up as an autistic child and teenager? Like, tell me about what school was like.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. So school is one of the big aspects I like to talk about when I think about growing up as an autistic child. And that is because throughout my entire time in school, but especially like third grade up until high school, I had kind of a really messy time. And that’s because I was identified very early on as twice exceptional, and that means intellectually gifted, but also developmentally disabled.

And so I got to live kind of almost with my foot in two different worlds, in that I got the experience of being put in the gifted talented classes and having the enrichment activities that go with that, but also having kind of the, your typical special education experience of having therapy sessions and group social skills, activities, and counseling, and those kind of things that come with that.

But despite that, I feel even being recognized as such, I had a really, really hard time at school simply because I was not understood at all, in that I had a really hard time staying regulated through the day. There was a time in middle school where I could not get through a full day at school without having a meltdown and having to be sent home early.

In fact, I was actually pulled out of school halfway through my seventh grade year because it was such a mess. And basically one of the big problems that it was treated a behavior issue, like, Quincy has behavior problems. I didn’t wanna be labeled as the bad kid or the problem kid, but I kind of was, and that was so frustrating because I felt like I didn’t have control over my body or over my ability to process. I had a lot of trouble processing strong emotions and inputs.

And so that was very difficult and caused me a lot of problems. And ultimately I felt like I was, I was walking around like in this fishbowl that I could see out of, but other people couldn’t reach into and I felt like nobody understood what I was going through and that nobody would listen to me. And people were constantly misinterpreting what was going on with me. And it was just, it was really hard and it felt very, very isolating.

And so it was so unbelievably relieving when, like I was in my early teenage years and I started actually like researching autism and I found the autistic community. And I started like reading stuff where people had gone through the exact same things that I had. And like, I felt like I wanted to cry because it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m not alone. And finally, somebody else who understands. And so that was kind of my intro to the autistic community and kind of how that blossomed.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, the, the fishbowl description that you gave really resonates with me as well. Like, I, I wasn’t diagnosed until like much, much later in life, but I even still feel that like, you know, you’re, you’re there, you’re close, but there’s like this barrier that is just not something that can be crossed.

And it’s amazing how much we learn about autism from like talking to other autistic people, as opposed to, I don’t know, like reading in books or studying it in school, cuz yeah. It’s like the best way to learn is from other autistic people.

Quincy Hansen: Oh for sure. So much of what I’ve learned about myself. People tell me that I’m so insightful, but honestly, I can’t take credit for it all because it’s just the ability to read other people’s experiences and to talk to other autistic people. It’s kind of like this cloud group think, if you will, where you gather experiences together and it’s like, oh, that makes sense. And I can apply that to me. And you learn so much from other people. And then I hope that I can give some of that back with my blog and such, but yeah, it really is just a continuous learning experience from other people and being able to parse that together and create a picture of what’s actually going on with your body and your mind.

Carolyn Kiel: And so was this around the time that you decided to become an autism advocate, as you were like learning about autism from the actually autistic community?

Quincy Hansen: Yes. So I remember this was like my freshman into sophomore year of high school. Specifically, my freshman year where like at lunch, I would be on my phone every single day, reading blogs by other autistic people. Just cuz I felt so connected and it’s like, my world had opened up. And it, it wasn’t at that time that I had actually created anything, but like I think it was probably had to be sometime around there. It’s like, oh yeah, I need a blog. I wanna start writing. I wanna be like like these other people who are sharing their experiences.

And actually what it started as honestly is my blog is that before my current one, I had a few private blogs where basically I found myself answering the same questions over and over and over again. And so I figured, oh, well, what if I just write everything down and have like an article on it that I can just share instead of having to answer it over and over again? And that’s kind of how that ultimately started, before I got the courage to actually publish publicly.

Carolyn Kiel: That makes sense. You know what the topics are, so good topic cues to write on. Absolutely.

How did you get inspired to go from blogging to writing a published book, like the new one you have coming out?

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. So it was kind of a wild ride in 2019, where in January I published my first articles on Speaking of Autism, on the public blog. And initially I kind of just started sharing them. I was writing a lot on Quora at the time about autism, and it’s one of those things where again, you get the same question over and over again. And so a lot of times I’d give a brief explanation and then link to a blog post. Or I do that in Facebook, on Facebook where I just link to a blog post.

And at some point I shared one of my blog posts that I had written in a Facebook group that had several very, very well known, established autistic advocates in it. And one of them, or a few of them read it and were really impressed and shared it on their Facebook pages that had hundreds of thousands of followers. This was early in February. And I went to bed and then I woke up and I checked my phone to see like 30 WordPress notifications and open up and see that I had like 250,000 views overnight.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Quincy Hansen: And I was kind of just stunned by that. And I had people, I had emails already coming in and I went and indeed it had been shared on a bunch of different pages. And so that’s where I kind of had this explosion suddenly and people were asking me, oh, do you have a Facebook page? Are you on Twitter? And so I made a Twitter account for my blog and I made my Facebook page for my blog. And on Twitter, like I had people whose blogs that I had been reading for years, all of a sudden, like reaching out to me and be like, wow, this is really great. This was really well written. And you know, so glad to see new young people in the advocacy game.

And at that point I got kind of, I got kind of a little bit of a rush off of that. And I’m like, oh, I gotta keep writing. And then I just kept writing. And like, these posts kept like land, not every single one, but most of them kept landing with people and resonating and getting shared and people would reach out to me and tell me how great it was.

And I realized at that point like, oh wow. Like I actually have I guess the talent in this area to be a voice that’s listened to. And so I don’t wanna waste that. And so at that point I started writing less for myself and for the people around me and that at that point, it kind of switched to a venture for all kinds of other people. And of course, ever since then, I am relatively widely read.

It was also that year, because when people start to know your name and you start to have stuff that’s published, you start getting invited to speaking engagements. And so I got invited to do some interviews on some Facebook pages, and I got invited to the Autistics Present Symposium, which the theme that year was essentially youth voices. So being 17 years old, that was really really great, good timing. And so I spoke at my first public conference and it was, it was good for a while. I was publishing once a week for like six straight months. I’m actually amazed now because I’m, I’m lucky if I can get like one post out every two months at this point, just with everything going on in my life.

But it was actually later in that year, that year I made friends with another well known advocate from the UK named Siena Castellon, who’s actually one of the people who’s interviewed in my book. And she had a big platform at that point that she had been building from scratch for a few years. And she shared a bunch of my stuff and we would message back all the time.

And she had recently, or I, I don’t know if it was published at that point, but it was at least in production, she had written a book called The Spectrum Girl’s Survival Guide with Jessica Kingsley Publishers. And it was Siena who told one of the commissioning editors from the, their autism department or whatnot about me and say, Hey, you know, he’s a really good writer. You should, you should check him out. And I guess at some point when I got an email from one of the people at Jessica Kingsley and they asked, Hey, do you wanna write a book?

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Quincy Hansen: For us? And of course I jumped at that opportunity. And there’s a phase where I was wandering back and forth with the commissioning editor between different ideas that we could do for a book. And ultimately that’s where we settled on Shake It Up, which is the concept of the advocacy guide written specifically for autistic teens and young adults.

And while that was going on, the coronavirus pandemic hits, and that put a big stopper in kind of, I had some speaking engagements that I was gonna go to, but those ended up not happening because they were canceled. And I was having a really hard time coping with that as well. So my writing diminished. But ultimately, October 2020 I got the contract signed and then it took a year for me to write the book, and then another half year in production until finally it’s come to life. And so this really is a multi-year project and it’s so surreal just to see the, the, the physical copy of this book, like sitting on the table in front of me and opening it up and know I wrote those words. And so it just kind of snowballed downhill from publishing that first thing online.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. Yeah, that’s an amazing story. And I think anyone who’s at least somewhat familiar with the actually autistic community, especially the online communities, knows that there are several very well known advocates. So just, you know, following them and then finding out that they’ve discovered your work and now they’re reaching out to you and endorsing your writing is just like, that’s definitely gotta be an amazing feeling and clearly led to some really great opportunities, including writing Shake It Up. So that is really, really cool.

Quincy Hansen: Oh, for sure.

Carolyn Kiel: And you mentioned that Siena was one of the people that you interviewed in your book. You actually do have several interviews of different advocates from all around the world in your book. So how did you pick the people that you wanted to interview?

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. So I’m going to be a hundred percent honest here, it started off with just a big list of people who met the criteria. These would be autistic advocates who are between the ages of like 12 and 20, I think was my criteria, giving a little bit of leeway. And It was actually initially kind of difficult to make that list because a lot of the advocates that I knew about were were just simply older than that. But eventually I reached out to some people. I knew of a few. And I was in contact with a few and I reached out to some others to make some suggestions. And I had a list with about two dozen people.

And then from there I made a point of studying their platforms and figuring out what their work was about and what their strengths were. And I did that because I wanted to be able to tailor some of the interviews at least to topics that were covered in the book. And there were a few people who I ended up reaching out to who either did not respond to me or said they agreed to be interviewed, but then it never went through. And so I had to cross a few off my list. But eventually that just narrowed it down to the 11 that are in the book now. I think initially actually in the proposal, the outline for the book, I was gonna have 12. Six interviews after each chapter and then six case studies, but I couldn’t get the, get the full 12, which is all right, because I actually went over my word count anyway. It was a long time of figuring out who I was connected with and who people knew and what their platforms were. And then just finding the ones that were willing to sit down with me or to work with me.

I’d like to point out as well that like, if there are any young autistic advocates out there who you feel like you met the criteria, but I did not reach out to you. I want to say that it is absolutely not personal. I know I would feel disappointed if I was listening to this podcast and in your situation. There’s always more opportunities, but it’s just, I don’t know. It’s so it’s, it’s kind of hard to find people in that demographic, I guess. So I don’t know. Hopefully there’ll be more of them after people read this book.

Carolyn Kiel: I mean, the book has really a lot of well, great advice that comes from you and your own experience. And you share a bit of your own story in there as well, as well as the stories of the other advocates that you interviewed. And I think, especially now whether you’re a young advocate, whether you’re a young autistic advocate, or even if you’re advocating for a, a different cause, cuz you talk about that in the book too, is that you don’t necessarily have to have autism as your only platform. You can have other issues that you care about. And a lot of the lessons that you talk about apply to that as well. Like, you know, the environment, or really any other major issues there.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that’s something I, I was thinking in my head that I was gonna bring up, but I, over the last question, but I forgot to. But yeah, I mean, I tried, I tried my best to find people who are diverse in their forms of advocacy. But like, so many autistic people are drawn to autism and advocacy for obvious reasons. And I suppose if you’re gonna advertise you’re autistic, you might be an autism advocate. But like, yeah, absolutely. I don’t wanna box people in with this book. That was a big point when I was trying to make, when writing this, like, Hey, there’s a lot of young autistic people who are autism advocates, but that’s not the only area of concern that you could be an advocate for. And being autistic can be a strength that can play into any form of advocacy, even if it’s not autism or neurodiversity advocacy. So I’m glad that you brought that up. Thank you.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you really break down a lot of the steps that you went through in terms of how you decide you wanna be an advocate and what you wanna advocate for, and then you kind of take people through what the steps are and what some of the potential challenges could be as well. And I remembered from reading your book, you talk about like the first step of advocacy is really finding your own self-confidence and positive self image, which especially for autistic advocates is challenging because a lot of us are coming in from feeling really misunderstood and we may not have that like positive self-confidence completely yet. So that’s a really important starting point. And, and in the book, you mentioned that when you were growing up that you struggled with this, because I think you said there was a lot of focus in school on what you couldn’t do versus what you could do. So kind of curious, how did you build your own self confidence in those early years when you were just becoming an advocate?

Quincy Hansen: Oh, geez. Well, I feel really, really lucky because it’s almost, I don’t wanna say coincidences, but there’s a set of circumstances that I almost like to say kind of saved me from, I don’t wanna call it the public school pipeline necessarily because I’m sure there’s some good districts out there, but that’s what it was for me was the, the public school special ed pipeline. In that, there was a time, like when I hit my low, like it was, it was seventh grade year. I was like 12, almost 13 years old. And I had pulled out of the school year. And apparently there were rumors going around I’d been expelled, cuz I mean, even the rest of the student body, you know, thought I was the bad kid or whatever. It’s kind of unfortunate because it’s not like I was a mean person or a bully. I just had breakdowns a lot, run outta classrooms and that sort of thing.

But anyway It was a very, very like low point in my life. And like, I was rock bottom socially. And even though I had been identified like as academically gifted, I was not doing so hot in that area, just because I couldn’t function at school. And so like, I felt totally worthless and like, I was just kind of drifting through life.

And there are a couple things that happened that actually really got my self confidence back. And one of the big ones is that my parents took a huge risk, and that they decided that I wasn’t going to go back to middle school. What the school district wanted me to do is they wanted to send me to the alternative middle school, basically, where they provide like more one-on-one support and whatnot, but we decided that we weren’t gonna do that. And instead my dad decided to enroll me in community college classes, which is crazy. So I was an eighth grader, 13 years old, taking college level courses at a community college. And so my eighth grade year I took college biology and also what would be for community college remedial, but basically high school algebra as an eighth grader. I took an English class as well, and some other classes at a local community college.

And it turns out that my parents’ intuition was right in that number one, I was still smart because as an eighth grader, I was, I was a straight A student in college level courses. And it was actually really funny to me when the 19, 20 year old college students would go to me for biology help. But it also proved to me that I could function in a school environment. It just had to be the right environment and that a college or a university environment is way different than a middle school environment. In fact, I don’t know anybody who won’t openly admit that middle school sucks, largely because middle schoolers are not exactly the most developed of, of the human population. And so I didn’t run into problems with other kids or teachers whose focus was on controlling the classroom. And the lecture hall experience where I was allowed to just, there was more freedom, I guess, to learn in ways I needed to. And I would sit in the back of the room and pace back and forth and nobody cared. And it was, just worked out really well.

And I gained so much confidence, like knowing like, oh, wow, I actually am intelligent. I don’t wanna, I also don’t wanna give the impression though, that I think that like intelligence is a necessary marker of success or self confidence because it’s not. But at least for me in that specific circumstance that was, and the idea too, that like, oh yeah, I can attend an academic environment and make it through a day without having a meltdown. And I can do that by myself. And I have the executive functioning skills to, to get homework such done. It’s like, just reinforce that it’s not me. It was the environment. And so that was a big motivator.

I hit another roadblock in the path actually, where I was gonna attend a charter school in my school district. And it was a lottery system where you kind of had to enroll and then get lucky to get picked, to be enrolled. And I just so happened to be lucky enough to be enrolled. And there was a time in which we, you know, we, at this point we’re like full in like, oh yeah, we’re gonna go the accommodation routes and all that. So we were open about like, “Hey, you know, there’s a clinical autism diagnosis now. And we need this, this and this, and this is, this is what works.” And we were gonna go in for kind of, I, I don’t know if it was actually slated to be an IEP meeting, but kind of a similar thing. So I went in and met with the principal and some of the school counselors from said high school. And instead of it being an accommodation meeting, it basically turned into, we’re not gonna enroll Quincy at the school. Because the, the principal had the idea of it being like this elite charter school and they didn’t want autistic students. And so,

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Quincy Hansen: They basically used my past record from the district of like having trouble with like meltdowns and whatever to justify unenrolling me. And so that seemed really terrible at the time. And we actually considered legal action, but some of the people we talked to said that it would actually be a difficult case for this, that, and every reason I don’t fully understand.

So that was another road bump that actually ended up being okay, because instead I, we enrolled me in the private school that I graduated from, Faith Christian Academy. And for the first time in my life, I actually had a good school experience, because it wasn’t so much of a fight for what I needed. It’s a school of like less than 400 students and comparatively few staff to a public high school in Denver. And so instead of going in and having to fight for accommodations or fight for going for that route, instead of like the behaviorism route, it was just sit down and the staff at the school, “just tell us what he needs. Oh, that? Okay.” You know, it was so easy.

And the people there, like actually accepted me and wanted to see the good in me. And that was true of both the student body, or most of the student body, and the faculty as well, in that I had teachers there who legitimately liked me. And they saw that, like, I had trouble with some things because I’m autistic and disabled, but they saw that I was there and ready to learn and, you know, how do I say this? A good person. And now I feel like I’m talking myself up. But a kind soul, it’s been described before. And so teachers to work with me and people who saw the same thing and were willing to be my friend, and like I had never been in that atmosphere before. It had just been so much, you know, just judgment. School districts and teachers and faculty that wanted to do like the bare minimum to just move me on to the next grade level so that they didn’t have to worry about me anymore. Like I actually felt cared for and like listened to as a student.

And you could ask me well, what what would I ascribe to that? It’s just, it’s an attitude change, I guess. I don’t know if that’s just a culture that’s ingrained in the school or the school district. I’m not sure what was driving the difference, but there was a noticeable difference and I had a great high school experience. I’ve already told you that I had friends. I had teachers that liked me, but I did well academically. And I, for the first time engaged in like extracurriculars. I played bass in the jazz band, and I was on the trap shooting team and tried some other stuff. I played football as well, which is kind of an almost out of character thing for me, for people who know me, because I give off like the opposite vibes of the typical high school jock, but I did.

And, yeah, you know, it’s funny, I’ve been kind of telling my story. I’ve almost forgotten what question you asked me? But I, I, I have a tendency to ramble.

Carolyn Kiel: Well, it was about building your self confidence! So that was the story of all the ways you did that.

Quincy Hansen: Okay. Great. Then that’s the answer.

Carolyn Kiel: And it shows how important the environment is for, well, probably for all kids, but especially for autistic kids and just, you know, not just the physical environment, which obviously is important, but also the people around you and how willing they are to, you know, put those accommodations in, which a lot of times aren’t like, huge things. People think they’re like, they’re big and difficult, but really sometimes they’re pretty basic and people who are kind and people who just assume positive intent and see you in a positive way and such a difference that makes.

Quincy Hansen: For sure.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And now, another thing that you talk about in the book that I found very interesting, is you talk a lot about advocacy and self care. I’m sure you know, and other people who have been advocates know that a lot of times you go out and you talk about things and you face criticism, things are disappointing and I’ve even seen a lot of autistic advocates like get like really exhausted and disheartened from, you know, constant advocacy and just, you know, the whole process.

And you talk about how important it is for that self-care so that you can continue to be an advocate without just burning yourself out. So I’m curious, how do you take care of yourself and how do you know like when to rest as a young advocate?

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. So this is one of those cases where I actually wish that I took my own advice a little bit more. There are, there are a few of those. But ultimately it’s so easy to hold yourself to some standard, and I even still do that, and to compare yourself to others. So if other people are, are doing this, you have to do that too. And if other people have this kind of model, you have to do that too. And a big part of it is knowing yourself and not trying to tackle things for the benefit of other people. And that’s kind of an interesting concept to dance around because advocacy ultimately, not always, but very often is a selfless act. And so what do you mean not doing it for other people? But the point is that it should be driven by your own conviction and your own excitement rather than trying to do it for the benefit or the conviction of other people.

And so I right now am in a big session of practicing self care in that I haven’t published a post on my blog in a, in a long time. I’ve also fallen behind on my email chain. And one example of self care for that would be that it’s so easy to get stuck in this, “oh my gosh. I’m a failure cuz I haven’t published anything,” but it’s just to remind yourself that you’re, you’re doing this for you –or not, see again, this is why I hate, I hate speaking because concepts and such get hard! But not, not doing this for yourself, but you have to take care of yourself first.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Quincy Hansen: And so, it’s okay to take a step back. And you don’t have to put yourself on some kind of like schedule. So if you make videos, you don’t have to have an upload schedule. It’s not your job. There are professional advocates, but that’s very, very rare. And that’s not the sort of thing that I’m really touching on in the book.

Because when you post that video or write that blog or make that podcast or respond to that comment or do whatever you do, you’re doing it not because you feel an obligation to meet some sort of quota, but rather because, you’re doing it because you actually want to have it help it make a difference. That you’re driven through that sort of motivation rather than being motivated purely by scheduling and by standards and by trying to impress other people.

And so I hope that makes sense because I’m having a really hard time articulating that, but I hope I have done the neuro divergent thing and restated that as many different times as possible. So maybe one of those made sense.

Carolyn Kiel: I followed it!

Quincy Hansen: Okay. Okay. Good. Cause sometimes I feel like I talk in circles.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s the whole thing with social media is that there’s such a pressure to like, oh, I have to have this consistent, I have to publish once a week or I’m not gonna get any views. And then you put this pressure on yourself and then it’s like, why am I doing this? I’m just doing it for the algorithm or whatever.

Quincy Hansen: So yes, for the, the algorithm. Exactly. Yeah. Algorithms. I have to have engagement on my posts and drive engagement so that I get in people’s feeds! And it’s funny because I talk a little bit about that in the book, but I hope people understand when they read that, that I’m talking about that as a tool, not as an obligation.

Carolyn Kiel: Right.

Quincy Hansen: It’s something to keep in mind if you’re trying to reach more people and have a more effective platform, ultimately, but you don’t, you don’t have any sort of personal moral obligation to, to break yourself for your cause. Something that I’ve been working on is just making sure that I enjoy life a little bit more. I’d say that for everybody and that it’s true that it’s so meaningful and so great of even a personal benefit to be able to say that you’ve made a difference in the world and left some sort of impact. And I wanna encourage that for sure. But at the same time, we’re only on the planet for a small amount of time. And so we should not be afraid to take advantage a little bit of it for you. And so I’ve made sure that I’m not gonna compromise on doing the things that I enjoy and engaging in my hobbies at the expense of running a platform. I’ve made sure, if I have other things that are pressing, it’s okay to put the platform on a bit of a back burner, as actually I’ve been doing.

I’m a full-time college student. I have had internships. I’m doing undergraduate research. And I also want to give myself time to play some Minecraft. So I have, I have priorities. And it’s okay. You don’t, you don’t have to turn your platform into to be first thing all the time. And I think that’ll help a lot to get yourself, is just that mindset frame shift. To just be at peace with not being an ant that just runs around to serve the platform the entire time. And make sure that you leave room for yourself because I mean, from a utilitarian perspective, if you burn yourself out, well you’ve ruined your platform too.

Carolyn Kiel: Right. That’s true. And in some ways, one of the best things you can do in self-advocacy is as an autistic person is to live a good life. Cuz unfortunately a lot of times whether you’re looking at media or just the public image, we don’t have a lot of like, well known images of autistic people who are like just living a good life. However, we define what that is. So if you can do that, you know, you’ve got your hobbies. You’re

Quincy Hansen: Oh, absolutely.

Carolyn Kiel: Going to school or what lights you up. Like that in itself is like, that’s awesome.

Quincy Hansen: Oh, yeah. And I’m really glad that you brought that up because that’s absolutely true. Just living by example is itself a form of advocacy. And I mean, I didn’t bring this up earlier, but I had people going to school who outright told me that I would never go to college. People told me I wouldn’t graduate high school.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Quincy Hansen: And so I’m not gonna lie when, although I don’t think it’s healthy to hold onto the emotional baggage of having some sort of grudge, I’m not gonna lie that I do get a little smirk on my face when I think about how wrong everyone else was, and being able to prove that. So I’m glad, I’m glad that you brought that up.

Carolyn Kiel: Absolutely. And you talk about also the difference in your book between self-advocacy and more public advocacy. And, you know, you can be a self-advocate and not be like out publicly. And, and self-advocacy is really important as well to learn.

Quincy Hansen: Oh yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Especially as an autistic or a disabled person, just being able to voice what you need and, and because a lot of times you have to fight for it, as you show in your story.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah. Self advocacy is a necessary requisite for living as a disabled person. I’m gonna say that right now. It’s it’s again, each one of these questions, like, I feel like there’s always something you bring it up and there’s stuff that I’ve left out, but this is just such a complicated topic.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Quincy Hansen: And even, even, even in my my book, you know, I’ve only really scratched the surface, which is why I, I wanted to include those interviews and those case studies to show other people people’s journeys and perspectives, cuz there’s so many facets and bits to talk about that you can’t possibly do it justice from one perspective or through one person’s story or from one podcast episode or in one book.

Carolyn Kiel: And definitely we don’t wanna give the whole book away, so I’m just teasing out little bits and pieces! And yeah, so, I mean, you know, your book by the time this podcast airs, your book will be out. It’s coming out very soon, later in July.

So yeah. Quincy, it was awesome talking to you about your book and just learning more about your story and and just, you know, really exciting that you’re helping the, the next generation of autistic advocates in following along the path of really strong advocacy. So how can people get in touch with you if they either wanna get your book or just learn more about your writing or your other advocacy?

Quincy Hansen: Yes. So the book is obviously available through the publisher’s website. That’s Jessica Kingsley Publishers. I know it’s also being carried by Barnes and Noble and Target in the US, you can get it online there. Obviously on Amazon as well. Jessica Kingsley has a pretty large reach. So you should be able to find the book available at least online from whichever is your preferred book seller.

And as far as getting in touch with me, at least from the time being that is pretty easy. Head to my blog at SpeakingOfAutism.com. There’s a contact page where I have my email address on there. You might have to email me twice if I don’t respond the first time, so just keep that in mind.

You can also go ahead and leave a comment on my blog. You can message me on Facebook. I have my Facebook page, Speaking of Autism Quincy Hansen. You can send me a message on Instagram, leave a comment. I try to keep up pretty well. And if you have a specific question I’ll be sure to answer.

So any of those avenues, I’m, I’m pretty open. You can get in touch with me fairly easily for the time being.

Carolyn Kiel: Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I’ll put some links to your socials and your blog and a link to, to get the book as well. So they’ll be in the show notes so people can get that pretty easily. Very cool. So, yeah, Quincy, you know, last question is, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything they can help or support you with?

Quincy Hansen: Buy the book. I would definitely say that. Get your friends to buy the book. In fact, if you wanna order like 200 copies, like I’m not gonna stop you. So that’s, that’s totally fine. Uh, no, um,

I just wanna say like, support people who are putting themselves out there. And that includes myself, but also just others, in that it’s such a hard, vulnerable thing to do. And that myself and other people who have committed to autism advocacy, we have forever outed ourself as autistic. You Google my name. That is the first thing that comes up. And I had my first experience this summer, actually, where an employer, without me saying anything about it, figured out that I was autistic just from Googling my name. And other advocates, even if you’re not an autism advocate, if you have a public platform that’s out there, you are forever outing yourself as holding these specific opinions or being for this specific thing. And that’s a really really scary thing to do, and vulnerable thing to do. And so I just like to ask everybody to be supportive of people who are putting themselves out there and to be open minded and just think a little bit more about kind of the toll that that can take. And don’t be afraid to offer up some encouragement or to assist, however you can.

And. I mean, the big thing is just listen to advocates. We, we, we put a lot of work into what we’re saying. And you know, there’s that phrase in the autistic community, “nothing about us without us.” And so, listen to the people who have firsthand experience, obviously autistic people on the topic of autism, but also listen to people in your community who are directly impacted by certain things and hear what they have to say and just take that into account because those words don’t come easily. And so it’s, it’s not a light thing. As fun and exhilarating as it is to run a platform and get a lot of feedback and feeling like you’re changing the world, there’s just so much negativity out there. And so, even small acts of kindness can make huge differences.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. No matter how, how big or well known your name is as an advocate, positive comments always make a huge difference. And just to let people know that, Hey, you know, you’re, you’re enjoying their content or you know, reading their blog, watching their videos, whatever it may be. So, yeah. Very important.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Quincy, thank you so much. It’s been great talking to you today.

Quincy Hansen: Yeah, thank you so much. It’s been a blast being on the podcast. I’m so happy to spread the word. I’m very excited about the book and about the project as a whole, and I hope it can help a lot of people.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, I’m sure it will!

[Giveaway and discount details]

Thanks so much for listening to the show today! Ok, here are the details for the giveaway and discount that I mentioned.

Beyond 6 Seconds is running a giveaway for 2 lucky listeners in the United States to win a free copy of Quincy’s book, “Shake It Up! How to be Young, Autistic, and Make an Impact.” Check out my Twitter post on August 9, 2022 for how to enter. I’m @Beyond6S on Twitter. I’ll put a link in the show notes so you go right there. The giveaway ends at 11:59PM ET on August 19, 2022.⁠ Up to 2 winners will be selected at random. This giveaway is valid for listeners at US addresses only.

Also, Beyond 6 Seconds has partnered with Jessica Kingsley Publishers to offer a discount on Quincy’s book! This discount code is valid until August 31, 2022, for listeners with shipping addresses in the US only. If you’re interested, here’s what you do. Go to the Jessica Kingsley Publishers website, which is jkp.com, add “Shake It Up!” to your cart, and enter the discount code Hansen20 at checkout to get 20% off that book. Again, the website is jkp.com and the discount code is Hansen20 for 20% off of “Shake It Up!” I’ll put the website link and the discount code in the show notes for you too. Remember, this discount code is valid until August 31, 2022, so if you’re in the US and you’re interested, go and place your order soon! Enjoy!

Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.