Queer and neurodivergent liberation are entwined. We’re celebrating both at once — because for many of us, the two rainbows are one.
Tonight’s Infodumplings lands on the opening night of Neurodiversity Pride Week, which runs June 11–17 with Neurodiversity Pride Day itself on June 16, all of it nested inside queer Pride Month. Two prides, one calendar, one room. So we’re throwing the kind of party we know how to throw: a show-and-tell, a fashion show, and a glimmer share.
Bring the thing you love that you’ve been waiting for someone to ask about. Wear the outfit that says who you are — or the one that finally stopped hurting your skin, which is often the same outfit. Bring a glimmer: the tiny moment of awe, the sensory delight, the small thing that sends cues of safety to your nervous system and reminds you the world has good in it.
We’ll start by watching Lilypad Library’s Pride Month reel together. Lilypad Library is the neurodivergent-created children’s show we became fiscal sponsors of in May, and their Pride reel celebrates libraries as places where queer people find proof — proof you existed, proof you weren’t the first, proof you’re not the only one in all of history who has ever felt like this.
Then the room is ours. Show what you love. Wear what you are. Share what glimmers.
Come as you are. Come as all the colors that there are.
Left: Lydia Santos (she/they), autistic, epileptic, demigirl lesbian. 26 y/o (if they care)
Right: Maxine Fields (she/her), adhder, bisexual cis woman and Lydia’s girlfriend. 28 y/o (again, if they care)
Art: itsyagerg_zero
Here comes the sun
It's shining right through you
On everyone
It hits so hard with all the colors that there are
You hit so hard with all the colors that there are
Rainbow Shiner by Ex Hex
You hit so hard with all the colors that there are.
Header Image Art: itsyagerg_zero
Videos
What we’ll watch together, and the context around it.
Celebrating Pride Month with Lilypad Library — Stimpunks Foundation
The Lilypad reel is short and joyful — libraries as places for learning, belonging, and community. The Smithsonian piece goes deeper into why that matters: for centuries, queer stories were hidden, burned, destroyed. History and objects are umbilical cords to the people who came before us and the people who come after. If your story is not told, you can’t find yourself in the record. Lilypad Library keeps the record. So do we.
The Stimpunks Frame
Stimpunks is a neurodivergent- and disabled-led community built on a few bedrock beliefs. Tonight, all of them are wearing their colors.
Two Rainbows, One Root
The same impulse that tells an Autistic kid to put their hands down tells a trans kid their gender is a phase. Both are orders to perform a self that isn’t yours. Both name the performance “normal” and the person underneath “disordered.” This is the opening of our Neurodiversity and Gender course, and it’s the reason we celebrate Pride Month and Neurodiversity Pride Week as one celebration, not two.
Many of us live under two rainbows. Two coming-out stories. Two minorities. Gender-diverse people are far more likely to be Autistic, and Autistic people are far more likely to be gender-diverse. We are not a coincidence the literature keeps stumbling over. We are a population the pathology paradigm was never built to hold.
We name the hard part squarely — ABA and gay conversion therapy were built from the same behaviorist research, by some of the same people — because you can’t celebrate a thing you won’t look at. And then we celebrate it, all the way, with all the colors that there are. We’re a Double Rainbow All the Way is our composition of music, art, and history for two entwined liberations. Tonight is that page made into a room.
The Fashion Show Is an Unmasking
Masking is wearing a self that isn’t yours so that other people stay comfortable. Clothes are where masking gets literal: the scratchy professional outfit, the gendered uniform, the costume of normal you put on to get through the day at the cost of your sensory system and your sense of self.
So a fashion show, here, means the opposite of a runway. Show us the clothes you wear when nobody is grading you. The texture that doesn’t hurt. The hoodie with the weight in exactly the right places. The outfit that’s genderpunk or gendervague or autigender or simply, finally, comfortable. The Pride shirt. The vest covered in pins. The same shirt in five colors because it’s the right shirt. The clothing that accommodates your bodymind instead of disciplining it.
Sensory comfort and identity are not separate categories. For a lot of us, the clothes that feel right on our skin and the clothes that say who we are turned out to be the same clothes — we just had to stop wearing everyone else’s idea of us first. Wear that tonight. Or describe it in chat. Or show us a photo. The dress code is: yours.
Glimmers Are How We Keep On Livin’
Glimmers are the opposite of triggers — tiny moments of awe that spark joy, evoke inner calm, and send cues of safety to our nervous system. Our friend Helen Edgar of Autistic Realms describes glimmers as small but powerful moments when everything aligns: focus, sensory needs, and emotions coming together in a way that feels right. For Autistic people, glimmers are often woven into our passions and interests — which is why a glimmer share belongs in an Infodumplings.
Pride is also survival. The parades and the colors are real, and so is the onslaught they’re celebrated against. Keep on Livin’ is our philosophy for the days the systems don’t get fixed: we show up for each other anyway. Glimmers are part of how. Not the inspirational kind of hope — the nervous-system kind. The sparkle that catches your eye. The soft yarn. The song that hits. The micro-moments that let us feel hope when we’re lost, accumulated deliberately, shared freely.
Bring one tonight. A photo, an object, a sound, a sentence. We’ll pool them. A room full of glimmers is mutual aid for the nervous system.
Show-and-Tell Is a Love Language
For neurodivergent people, special interests are love languages. Sharing the thing we love — at length, in detail, with our whole chest — is how many of us say I trust you and I want you to know me. Infodumping is intimacy. That’s the whole premise of Infodumplings, and tonight it’s the main course.
It’s also how chosen family gets built. Queer communities have always known this: when the family you were born into can’t hold who you are, you build one that can, and you build it out of exactly these materials — shared joy, shared survival, shared rooms where you don’t have to explain yourself. Show-and-tell is omnidirectional learning and kinship-formation in one move. The knowledge is in the room. So is the love.
Join Us
Infodumplings happens every Thursday at 7PM Central, online via Discord. No preparation needed. No expertise required. Come as you are. Our Pride show-and-tell, fashion show, and glimmer share is Thursday, June 11 — the opening night of Neurodiversity Pride Week.
You can participate by video, voice, text chat, or just by being in the room. All modes are welcome.
Cameras optional. Chat-only participation fully valid. Stims, movement, and fidget tools encouraged. No one will be called on. Silence is participation. If you want to model your outfit on camera, do it. If you’d rather post a photo or describe it in text, do that. If you’d rather just soak in everyone else’s colors, that is equally valid.
Join our community to get access, then find us in our online space. Our Infodumplings page describes what to expect.
How the Hour Goes
| Timestamp | Session |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | Welcome & Grounding — Brief framing: two prides, one room. Why queer and neurodivergent liberation are entwined. No wrong way to be in this space. |
| 0:05 | Watch Together — Lilypad Library’s Pride Month reel, screen-shared. Libraries as places to find yourself in the record. |
| 0:15 | Opening Infodump Round — Anyone who wants to share what Pride means to them, what they brought, what they’re wearing — no filter, no order. Pure neurodivergent passion mode. |
| 0:30 | Bodymind Break — A few minutes to move, stim, stretch, breathe. Intentional and encouraged. |
| 0:35 | Fashion Show & Show-and-Tell — Model your outfit, show your treasure, tell us the story. Camera, photo, or text description — all formats valid. |
| 0:50 | Glimmer Share — Pool our glimmers: the tiny moments of awe and cues of safety we’re carrying into Pride Week. Sharing welcome, silence equally welcome. |
| 0:57 | Close & Resources — Links, gratitude, gentle goodbye. Happy Neurodiversity Pride. |
Related Glossary Entries
Reflection Questions
On the colors you were told to hide
The hand stilled and the gender denied come from one root: the demand that you be legible to people who were never going to look closely. Most of us learned early which parts of ourselves to put away — the flapping, the infodumping, the crush, the pronoun, the outfit, the joy that was too loud.
Which of your colors were you told to hide? Which ones have you taken back out? Which are you still keeping folded in a drawer, waiting for a room safe enough to wear them in?
What would it take for tonight to be that room?
On dressing your bodymind
The clothes that feel right on your skin and the clothes that say who you are — when did you discover they could be the same clothes? What did you have to stop wearing first?
Think about the outfit you’d wear if nobody was grading you. The texture rules your body insists on. The colors and shapes and pins and patches that do identity work. The garment that is simultaneously a sensory accommodation and a declaration.
What does your wardrobe know about your bodymind that took you years to admit out loud?
On glimmers as cues of safety
Glimmers are micro-moments that send cues of safety to the nervous system — the opposite of triggers, and just as real. Most of us can list our triggers without hesitation, because we’ve had to. The glimmer list usually takes longer, because nobody ever demanded we make one.
So make one. What sparks the tiny mood shift? What fills you with what Bec Secombe calls fervent ecstasy — the sparkle, the softness, the song, the pattern, the particular light? When everything aligns — focus, sensory needs, emotion — what were you usually looking at?
What glimmer are you bringing tonight, and who first taught you it was worth noticing?
On chosen family and the room that doesn’t need explaining
Queer communities and neurodivergent communities arrived at the same technology from different directions: when the world won’t hold who you are, you build a smaller world that will. Chosen family is that technology. So is a Discord room on a Thursday night.
Who is in your chosen family? How did sharing what you love — the show-and-tell, the infodump, the special interest offered like a gift — help build it?
What does it feel like to be in a room where you don’t have to explain yourself? How do you know when you’re in one?
On finding yourself in the record
For centuries, queer stories were hidden away — records destroyed, letters burned, anything that referenced a life outside the norm erased. The question the archives answer is the one every one of us has asked: am I the only one in the world who has ever felt like this? And the answer, kept safe in libraries, is no.
Lilypad Library does this work for kids right now. Where did you first find yourself in the record — the book, the show, the song, the person who proved you weren’t the first?
Whose record are you keeping? What proof are you leaving for the ones who come after?
Resources
Celebrating Pride Month with Lilypad Library — Stimpunks Foundation
Neurodiversity and Gender: Queer and Neurodivergent Liberation are Entwined — Stimpunks Foundation
🌈🌈 We’re A Double Rainbow All the Way — Stimpunks Foundation
Behold the Spectrum — Stimpunks Foundation
🫀🧠 Keep on Livin’ — Stimpunks Foundation
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