Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): We’re talking with autistic disability advocate AJ Link. AJ graduated from the George Washington University Law School and also has an advanced degree in space law. In addition, he serves as the president of the National Disabled Legal Professionals Association, which he co-founded, and is a consultant and board member at multiple organizations that focus on disability advocacy and broader social justice movements.
AJ, welcome. You likely get this question often, but what is space law, and why should people outside NASA know more about it?
AJ Link: When people ask me that question, I normally just say it’s the law of outer space and everything that that pertains to. Not just beyond the atmosphere, but launches, space vehicles, spaceships, satellites, all those different types of things. For me, I think it’s really important that more people care about space law because lots of things are happening in space. The future of space activity, space exploration, human space exploration, is being shaped every day. The norms change constantly.
For a lot of people, the pushback is, “Space is so far away. It’s a waste of money. Why should I care about it?” [But] it impacts your ability to see the night sky when you go camping or you go to a dark sky park, because megaconstellations are everywhere. It impacts your ability to navigate around the world, your phone’s GPS, who has access to that, and who doesn’t. I think space is definitely a place where we have an opportunity—though it’s fading—to fight for a different type of humanity, to prioritize different values.
Space is being extremely commercialized, and capitalism and militarism are very, very drilled into space right now. There’s still the opportunity to push back against that. It’s one of the few places that humanity has an opportunity to course correct and be different. I think that’s what draws me to space, is the possibility of humanity being a little bit better than we’ve been. Even though that possibility is slowly fading away.
TPGA: Thank you, I really am fascinated by this area as well. My next question is, what got you interested in law? Why did you decide to use your degrees in ways other than being a practicing lawyer?
Link: I don’t think I was ever interested in the law. I got to law school in a very roundabout way. I tell people I went to law school because I was bored, which is really confusing for a lot of people. I was floundering in my life, I was homeless at one point. I was like, school is a place where I can thrive, if not academically, because I don’t care about grades. I thrive in the environment of being able to learn and stretch myself or, I guess, open myself up to new possibilities.
I was like, “I’ll try law school.” As I was going through that process, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do; as I thought through it, I was like, “I want to be an advocate. I want to be a lobbyist.” That’s how I ended up at GW [George Washington University], because it’s in Washington DC. I always shade GW because they don’t have a great career path program for people who don’t want to be lawyers, but who want to be lobbyists.
TPGA: That’s surprising, actually, given their location in the capital.
Link: As a prospective student, you assume one thing without doing the research and then you get there, and you’re really surprised.
To answer the second part of the question, I always knew that I didn’t want to be a practicing attorney. I had no desire to litigate. I had no desire to be really confined by the rules of the legal profession. When you’re a practicing attorney, there’s lots of rules you have to follow, professional ethics, and things like that.
I really appreciated the skills I would get and the people I would meet through law school. That’s why I wanted to go and that’s why I’ve done advocacy since before I graduated.
TPGA: I see. Where would somebody go to school if they wanted to be a lobbyist? Are there specific lobbyist tracks in law school or is it something you suss out through mentorships or connections?
Link: I would say it’s still something you have to suss out. I would say if you want to be a lobbyist, you should go to school in DC and then you have to figure it out on your own. I can’t speak for other DC schools because I didn’t attend them.
I do know that at least GW offers some lobbying classes. I took a class on lobbying. It was really helpful for me, moving into my professional work. Stuff that I learned there and the understanding of how to move through the apparatus or infrastructure of the government was really helpful. You can learn stuff on your own. You can learn that stuff in some higher ed government classes, like undergrad. Also, you don’t have to. A lot of people go to law school in other places, then move to DC. After a few years of either working on [Capitol] Hill or working Hill adjacent, they find themselves becoming lobbyists.
TPGA: Makes sense. Do you think law is a profession that attracts neurodivergent and autistic people, whether or not they are aware of their own neurodivergence? If yes, why?
Link: I’m not entirely sure. I know that more and more people are self-identifying as neurodivergent and are going through the process of applying to law school, becoming a legal professional while self-identifying. Also, the way that law school and the legal profession are disabling and cause people to become neurodivergent, depending on how broad you define the neurodivergent umbrella.
The legal profession, for a long time, has had huge issues with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and alcoholism. Again, depending on how wide you have the neurodivergent umbrella, all those things play into that. I think we have a question about that. Don’t extend it that far. For me, I think it’s more of not necessarily whether or not the legal profession is intentionally attracting those folks. It’s far more important to me that a neurodivergent person who thinks they want to become a lawyer or a legal professional has access to the profession in a way that’s really equitable, and it hasn’t always been. I know that’s not a great answer to the question.
TPGA: It is a great answer because what you’re saying is that there are so many roadblocks, that people who might have the interest might not actually pursue that goal because it’s so difficult. I know that it’s very difficult, for instance, to get accommodations for the LSAT. It’s even more difficult to get accommodations for Bar exams, depending on the state. Those barriers are huge, for people who need accommodations for testing.
If you can’t have your accommodations, how are you supposed to do well on your tests? That happens a lot in career paths for neurodivergent people. It’s not lack of interest, it’s lack of open gates, and lack of opportunities to be accommodated.
I haven’t worked in an office since I was 29 years old, because I couldn’t deal. It’s just not for me. I’m lucky that I was able to choose another path, but if I didn’t have a choice, like you said, I would be in pretty severe burnout with a lot of mental stressors affecting my quality of life.
Link: Yes, I think, also, the glamorization of the legal profession in media is really misleading, both how much money you’ll make—because most lawyers don’t work in big law and don’t make a shit ton of money—but also misleading about the types of things you can do as a lawyer. I think people don’t realize there are lawyers who never, ever, ever go to a courtroom, ever. Never, ever, ever have to write a legal brief. There are so many different ways to be a lawyer.
Me, as a non-attorney legal professional, there are so many different options. I think that’s part of it too, is that people don’t know that they don’t have to fit into a specific type of attorney to go to law school, and to graduate and be a lawyer.
TPGA: Fantastic. Thank you. My next question is that you have described your relationship with the neurodiversity movement as complicated. I wanted to hear more about that, if you’re willing.
Link: Yes. I’m so glad you used the word complicated, because I feel like I’ve used language that isn’t so nice before. I think for me, as someone who has developed a career and leads a pretty good life because of the neurodiversity movement, and my participation and existence in it, as a neurodiversity advocate and as an autistic person, I’m really grateful for so much of the work that’s been done that allows me to be myself and to be successful being myself.
At the same time, it’s really frustrating, as the movement’s grown, even if you think about how the movement’s started out, a lot of times, people use neurodiversity as a way to separate themselves from the rest of the disabled community and the disability movement. To try to say, “Yes, disability is bad, but I’m not disabled. I’m neurodivergent. I’m different. I’m not as bad as disabled people,” right? Things like that. We were talking earlier about how broad you have the neurodiversity umbrella, and what does that include?
For me, I don’t know, it’s really broad, but for some people, neurodiversity and neurodivergence is only autism, only autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder, what have you, right? Some people don’t, for whatever reason, include TBIs [traumatic brain injuries] under being neurodivergent, which—your brain process has been altered. That’s a type of neurodivergence, right? That intra-community tension is really frustrating.
Especially over the past, I would say, five years or so, you’re seeing a lot of professional organizations and companies really start to highlight how they are neuro friendly, neurodiversity-inclusive, neurodivergent-whatever. They’re doing that to the detriment of being more accessible across the board for all folks, all disabled people. Obviously, you do a shit ton of work, but I don’t know if you’ve seen this.
When companies are talking about all the great neurodiversity initiatives that they’re doing, it’s not like it’s like “we do great disability work, and we care about people with other types of disabilities.” It’s like neurodiversity, and that’s it. That tension, it is really frustrating for me, as someone who gets work and opportunities as a “neurodiversity advocate,” but at my core, and like the intro said, I’m a disability advocate. Neurodivergence is just part of that work.
That confluence of circumstances is really complicated for me. I don’t know if other people struggle with that, but for me, it’s definitely a struggle.
TPGA: I don’t think you’re alone at all. Do you think the issue is less the neurodiversity movement itself, which tends to be grounded in disability advocacy, and more the way that neurodiversity as a term has been co-opted, misunderstood, and diluted, because this is what I see.
I get a lot of pitches from ABA companies, applied behavior analysis companies, telling me that they’re “neuro-affirming,” and that ABA therapy isn’t “like that” anymore. They’re using the terminology of the neurodiversity movement, but, like you’re saying, without any of the broader disability inclusiveness.
Then, also, we will see things like you’re saying, in the community, you’ll see so much internalized ableism from the people, the term I’ve heard is Aspie supremacists, who want to be very clear that they are not like my autistic and disabled son, who’s mostly non-speaking and needs a capable person with him 24/7. I’m interested if you think it’s more blurry than that.
Link: I don’t think it’s blurry. I think it’s self-reinforcing. I think part of the reason the language has been co-opted is because people have found a home within the neurodiversity movement, but the home has people they don’t like. Families are complicated, right? What they’ve done is, they’ve taken that language and they’ve shopped it out. The language has been co-opted, but those folks who are co-opting the language were given access to that language.
They have individuals that will prop them up. You said no, but I’m sure there’s someone out there who identifies as neurodivergent or autistic or ADHD, who will go and work with that company, and that reinforces that they’re doing “the right thing.” It’s a perpetual loop. Movements are hard, right? Social movements are hard. Movements for freedom, liberation, and justice are hard. I just think it’s not even just the Aspie supremacists.
Even within the autistic community, you have that tension of the horrible people that are pushing profound and severe autism, and autism as the worst type of developmental disability anyone can ever have in the entire world. And then you have people who are like, “I’m sort of autistic, and yes, I’m cool, but I’m not disabled, right?” There’s that intra-community tension where both of those groups are using and manipulating, and sometimes using your word, co-opting the language of neurodiversity to get what they want.
TPGA: Yes. Yes, that totally makes sense.
Link: I can’t fix that, right? That’s where I am in terms of, yes, the neurodiversity movement as a tool, I think, has been incredibly helpful for a lot of people, but I do see that it’s starting to maybe have some unintended negative consequences for people both inside the neurodiversity community or the neurodiversity movement, but also from the people who are excluded from that movement and then are being left behind in terms of these company initiatives, these social initiatives, all that shit.
TPGA: No, I appreciate that. Thank you.
You are also the founder of several disability groups. Can you talk about why creating them was necessary and how those groups have affected their landscapes and communities?
Link: Yes, I don’t know if groups are always necessary. You can make the argument that if they come into existence, they were needed. I don’t know if I necessarily ascribe or subscribe to that.
For me, almost every time I’ve been asked to help found or create an organization or to join a new organization as it’s starting out, it’s been that people have felt like that space wasn’t being filled properly, whether that is by other organizations who have maybe lost their way, or other organizations who never knew which way they were going.
I think about, obviously, in the autistic community, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network being created as a response to a gap that wasn’t being filled and organizations that weren’t doing the right thing for autistic people. Lots of communities feel that way in lots of different spaces. I guess I have been really lucky, fortunate, or unfortunate, if you look at it that way, that the spaces that I’m in, the professional choices that I’ve made, the social choices that I’ve made, have led me to be in spaces where people have felt inspired to create organizations that represent them.
I’ve been fortunate and lucky enough that people have entrusted me to do that. I don’t know if I always think that’s the best decision. Sometimes, it’s just like no one else wants to do it. Everyone wants this thing, but no one wants to do the work, or put in the time to be kind. Some people don’t have the capacity. Some people don’t have the same resources that I do, the same privileges that I do, which goes back to being fortunate. I don’t consciously think about, “Hey, what’s the next organization or entity or group that I can create?”
In fact, a lot of times, I’m like, “Damn, I should stop doing this. There’s so much.” Personally, I won’t talk about other people that have been on this journey with me, but personally, I always feel really worried that these organizations won’t exist when I’m gone, when I outgrow them, or they, hopefully, outgrow me, and there are new generations of leadership. I don’t really have founder’s syndrome. I’m not tied to the organization, but I do really care that they exist and last, if people need them.
I don’t want to create something and then have it not exist, and then people are hurt or harmed by that, because they were looking for it. At the same time, I don’t want to create an organization that no one gives a fuck about and shouldn’t exist anyway.
TPGA: Got it. Next, autism and disability spaces are often criticized for lacking representation of and input from people of color, like yourself. That’s just a fact, and I don’t want to ask you a leading question. I just want to know your take on this topic.
Link: Yes. There are also spaces that are intentionally created by autistic and disabled people of color for themselves, and they really protect those spaces, to not be well known or popular, which is the point. I would also say that people of color oftentimes aren’t diagnosed as autistic, even if they are, for various reasons. Those could be medical reasons, that could be access to the diagnosis.
They can be social reasons, like their community doesn’t want them labeled, even though they know that they are different. Their community doesn’t want them put into the system, and they don’t want to affect a child’s education by labeling them, and having them segregated into special education instead of staying mainstream. I think there are lots of different reasons, and it’s just hard.
We live in a country and a society that is built on racism, and the neurodivergent community isn’t free of that racism, isn’t free of the erasing of marginalized experiences, the stereotypical understanding of what it means to be autistic. Yes, it sucks. It’s something that has to be worked on, something that is being worked on, but I will say that there are also communities that have formed. We know the organizations, the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network, the Autistic People of Color Fund, the Color of Autism.
There are lots of organizations who are specifically highlighting the experiences of autistic people of color, indigenous autistic people, Black autistic people. I think Crushing Colonialism is another one. These organizations do exist, and it’s just something we constantly have to work on. I think it’s one of those things where it would be nice to outgrow my usefulness. A lot of times, I get to do things because I am one of the few openly autistic Black people that’s public in doing autistic disability advocacy.
I’m not the only one. I want to be clear. I’m not the only one, but a lot of times, I do get opportunities because I am an easily findable one. It would be nice to lose those opportunities because there are other people who are known and available.
TPGA: I hear you on that. That’s the goal, right?
Link: Eventually, yes.
TPGA: I appreciate that. Here’s a complete topic switch. I consider you to be extremely online, and that is a compliment, because I would like to be more online, but I just don’t have the capacity. Do you see your online activity as complementary to or separate from your professional work, or do you keep specific boundaries?
Link: That’s a great question. My wife has huge concerns about who I am online, in terms of how I post, what I share, and our professional life, which impacts us materially and financially. For me, I have decided, and I made this decision before I met my wife, which complicates things. I always want to be the same.
I don’t draw a distinction between me being a “professional” or my professionalism, and some of the things that I say online that may turn some people off, because I’m the same person. I know that lots of people don’t make that distinction, or do make that distinction, of, “This is my professional life. People don’t have access to how I feel personally, and blah, blah, blah.” I have made the decision that I always want to be the same.
I don’t want to have to code switch linguistically. I don’t want to have to code switch in terms of my beliefs or my preferences, or how I speak out. For me, it’s all the same thing. I try to communicate to my wife that a lot of times, being online informs how I do my “more professional work,” because I’m getting access to non-traditional stories and people who are experiencing things that aren’t necessarily highlighted by the media, or things I can read in a major newspaper, or even a local newspaper.
People’s struggles, their fears, their concerns, the things that are happening that aren’t being highlighted in other places, that all informs the work that I do. The people that I am both fortunate and unfortunate enough to interact with online help inform how I do my advocacy and how I do my work. I think it makes me a better advocate, especially when I get to meet, experience, and befriend people whose stories are ones I’ll never experience, but sometimes they entrust me to share.
Going back to the privilege, a lot of people don’t have the privilege that I have to speak up and to not have to fear social or professional repercussions. I’m very fortunate, but I’ve built a life where whoever I work with or for understands who I am in a way that I don’t have to be or hide who I am online in order to do my work and to do it well. Then the caveat, to circle back to my wife, is that means that I lose financial opportunities.
A lot of people do not like who I am, how I speak, the way I communicate, the things I communicate on and about. In a capitalist society, that means I leave money on the table. I’m still very, very fortunate. I have a very good life. We could all use more money, it seems like, but I have a really, really great life. Part of that is because I’ve been able to make a small reputation for myself online, in specific spaces where the people I care about value me, and know that I am good at what I do.
That’s a trade-off that I decided to make a long time ago. Yes, I would say I’m extremely online, but I think what people don’t see is, part of being extremely online is absorbing a shit ton of information. I think we were talking about this before we actually started, but absorbing a lot of just dreadful shit. It’s not always just fun, joking around, which comes off of it. Some of it’s really dark shit. I’m trying to find a way to balance that part.
TPGA: That’s a fantastic answer. I’m hoping that more people will feel empowered to follow your model, where they don’t have to use their limited energy on switching modes. Maintaining those boundaries, that’s a lot of mental effort. Like you said, not everybody has the opportunity to do that, but I think that’s fantastic to hear. I think people will value that.
I did want to know if there’s anything that I haven’t brought up that you wanted to talk about, that you think that the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism community needs to focus on, needs to know about, that we haven’t covered here.
Link: I think one of the things I’m working on in my day job is dreaming of a better future and how we get there. I know that, especially for the disabled community, things are just really, really dark, and really shitty right now. We need people who have hope and who dream of a better future. We also need people who are willing to work, fight, and exhaust themselves for it. That sounds so wrong and so fucked up. I try to communicate this to people, but we don’t get to a better world without people making sacrifices.
I think that’s really hard for people to really internalize. Sometimes you’re going to have to work when you’re tired, and that’s not fair. Sometimes you’re going to have to pick up the slack because other people don’t have the capacity, and we respect that, but if we have the capacity, we have to keep going, and that’s not fair. To build a better world, it’s not going to be fair on the people doing that, but we need so many people.
We need so many people to care, so many people to say that, “I am willing to make financial and social sacrifices, professional sacrifices, in order to build a better world.” Whoever is questioning whether or not they should do that, I want them to know that they can, and it’ll be okay. That there are a lot of us out there that are ready to support them. All they have to do is come and find us, and they will have a network of support.
This is a terrible thing to say, and this is not to celebrate it, but almost all my friends are exhausted and they’re still doing the work, right? Not to celebrate some evil capitalist work ethic, but they care, they do it because they care. They’re exhausted out of love, care, and desire to build a better world. That keeps me going.
TPGA: Yes, oh, that’s just a wonderful way to end this discussion. Thank you, I really appreciate your time.
