Autistic in NYC

Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.

Online forums and social media spaces for autistic people

For now, this page contains listings of:

Later I'll add links to some relevant resources within other social media platforms.

Listings on this page will be limited to online forums and social media that allow pseudonyms and do not require photos. Autistic in NYC will NOT list Facebook groups or pages, due to Facebook's policy of requiring legal names, a policy that I, the owner of this site, regard as a violation of the privacy of marginalized people of all kinds, including autistic people, especially autistic womenr. (For some of the reasons why this is an important issue, please see Warnings about online harassment. While lots of people do use pseudonyms on Facebook despite Facebook's official policy, Facebook does occasionally -- and unpredictably -- crack down, requiring some users to prove their identities or else lose their accounts.) Autistic in NYC also will not list any other forums or social media that require legal names and/or photos.

Message board forums created by and for autistic people

Here are some of the more popular message boards for English-writing autistic people all over the world, listed in order from oldest to newest:

These message boards are moderated by small teams of volunteers (who are, themselves, people on the autism spectrum).

Many autistic people will probably find the above message boards to be more helpful than social media. Discussions on message boards tend to be friendlier, more informative, and more in-depth, with less pressure toward ideological conformity. Controversial topics, such as politics, are confined to particular sub-forums, so that members can easily avoid them if they wish.

Besides the above-listed message boards that are specific to the autistic community, there's also:

Hopefully there will eventually be some online forums specific to the NYC area, for members of local groups, and hopefully there will eventually be some online forums for autistic workers in specific categories of careers / occupations / jobs.

Autistic Twitter

Below are lists of Twitter hashtags frequently used by autistic people.

But first, a general note about Twitter: Unless you already have lots and lots of followers, including lots of followers within Twitter's autistic community, original tweets by you with these hashtags are likely to disappear soon and be ignored. So, to interact with others, it is usually best to write replies to other people's tweets rather than write your own original tweets.

NOTE: When you click on the Twitter hashtag links below, only the most popular/recent tweets will show on the page, and in some cases no tweets at all. To see more tweets, click the search bar at the top of Twitter's page for a given hashtag. Also, you can help revive a seemingly dead hashtag by using it yourself.

First, here are some of the most popular Twitter hashtags commonly used by English-writing autistic people all over the world:

And here is an organized weekly Twitter chat:

Other hashtags for adults on the autism spectrum include:

For older and/or late-diagnosed autistic adults:

For autistic people with various co-occurring conditions:

For parents and families:

For women:

For people of color and ethnic minorities:

Autism in relation to society as a whole:

Regarding employment and various professions / occupations / jobs: See separate listing of Twitter hashtags here.

For those of us in the NYC metro area: #AutisticNYC and #AutisticInNYC.

Autistic Reddit forums (subreddits)

Note that each Reddit community is run by a different set of moderators. Different communities may vary in how friendly, supportive, and useful they are.

Personally I think it's much easier to have sustained discussion in old-style message board forums than on any social media platform including Reddit, but YMMV.

Autistic Discord servers

Miscellaneous

Featured pages: