There is something quietly powerful about seeing your reality reflected back to you in a way that feels honest, dignified, and rooted in care, and that is what the Same Chance report from AsIAm has offered many of us. As a Black autistic person living in Dublin and working in advocacy that centres intersectionality and anticapitalist approaches to care, being part of this report feels less like recognition for its own sake and more like a collective moment of truth telling that opens up the possibility for real change. It reminds me that even within systems that have often overlooked or misunderstood us, there are still opportunities to push for something more just, more humane, and more grounded in the realities of our lives.
At the same time, there is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from having to explain yourself before you can even begin to be understood, and for many of us who are Black and autistic in Dublin, that exhaustion is not occasional, it is constant and deeply embedded in how systems meet us. The Same Chance report puts language to what many of us have been living with for years, which is that assessment and diagnosis are not neutral processes, and they are certainly not culturally informed in the ways they need to be. Being part of that report is not just about visibility, it is about naming harm while also insisting on something better, something rooted in care that is liberatory rather than extractive.
When we talk about a culturally informed approach, we are not asking for small adjustments or polite acknowledgements of difference. We are asking for a fundamental shift in how autism is understood, assessed, and supported, especially for those of us who exist at the intersections of race, disability, migration, and class. Too often, diagnostic frameworks are shaped by narrow, white, middle class norms that do not account for the ways culture shapes communication, behaviour, and expressions of distress. This leads to misdiagnosis, late diagnosis, or no diagnosis at all, and each of those outcomes carries real consequences for access to support, for mental health, and for a sense of self.
Improving this area requires more than training modules or diversity statements. It requires investment in community led knowledge, in hiring practitioners from diverse backgrounds, and in valuing lived experience as expertise rather than anecdote. It means recognising that trauma is not just individual but structural, and that the process of assessment itself can be retraumatising when it ignores racism, poverty, or the legacy of colonial systems that still shape Irish institutions today. A trauma informed approach in this context must be honest about power, about who gets to define normal, and about who is believed.
We also have to question the systems that profit from gatekeeping diagnosis and support. When access to care is tied to resources, waiting lists, and private assessments, those already marginalised are pushed further out. We have to want to imagine something different, where care is collective, accessible, and not contingent on fitting into rigid categories that were never designed with us in mind. It asks us to centre dignity over efficiency, and relationships over transactions.
Allyship in this space is not passive and it is not performative. It is about showing up consistently, listening and being willing to challenge the systems that benefit you even when it is uncomfortable. For professionals, it means interrogating your own biases and being open to unlearning. For organisations, it means redistributing power and resources, not just inviting marginalised voices into spaces that remain unchanged. For individuals, it means recognising that solidarity is a practice, not an identity.
What the Same Chance report makes clear is that inclusion cannot be an afterthought, it has to be built into the foundation of how we approach mental health and disability. If we are serious about justice, then we have to be serious about transformation, not just reform. Because at the end of the day, inclusion is not about being invited into systems that harm us, it is about remaking those systems so that we can all exist with dignity and care.
Until we are all free to be fully human in systems that honour our differences, inclusion is not inclusion, it is simply a more polite form of exclusion.