Ash and Dusty discuss how ADHD traits (hyperfocus, justice sensitivity, rejection sensitivity, and perfectionism) shape the way people approach allyship. Ash opens with a vivid story about feeling unintentionally objectified at a conference after coming out as transgender, illustrating how well-meaning curiosity and requests for education can put emotional labor on the person with a marginalized identity. Dusty describes common ADHD patterns—the over-eager ally who wants to demonstrate knowledge, the panic after a misstep, and the tendency to seek drama online—and explains how those patterns can derail genuine support. Both emphasize that intention alone isn’t enough: allies must match intent with respectful action.
They offer practical guidance for managing capacity and making meaningful choices: focus on a few causes you can sustain, donate or volunteer locally, and pick moments where conversation can lead to real change instead of getting into futile online fights. Learn independently rather than relying on marginalized people to educate you; when interacting, meet people as people first and let them set the boundaries for how much their identity becomes the topic. Small, thoughtful actions (checking safety, providing accessible spaces, following diverse voices) often create outsized positive effects and are more valuable than performative gestures.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I am Ash, [00:00:03] Dusty: I’m Dusty [00:00:04] Ash: and this is Translating ADHD.So Dusty, do you want to tell our listeners what we’re gonna be talking about today?
[00:00:14] Dusty: Yeah, we’re gonna be talking about ADHD and allyship, or really just more allyship than ADHD, I suppose. But ADHD can be in there somewhere. [00:00:23] Ash: Absolutely. ADHD does have an impact, and we will be diving into that. I, I wanna start by saying that I think I have a unique perspective on allyship because I’ve lived on both sides of privilege. I lived 38 years as a cis white heterosexual woman with all of the privileges that came with that identity.And now I’m living as a transgender man, very visibly trans, very open about my transness. And the stark difference in those experiences is actually really fascinating now that I’m far enough through it to not be so affected by it.
But I wanna start by talking about my first CHADD conference after I came out, because it was such a difficult experience for me. Here I am showing up at an industry conference where I’m well known, where more people know me than I know them. I’m seeing a lot of people that I hadn’t seen in quite some time because that was also my first conference back since the pandemic.
I was also about a year into transition at this point, so I was feeling more comfortable in my skin and more comfortable with my identity coming in, expecting it to be a really great experience. And it was so strange to have people treat me so differently. And by the way, I don’t mean badly, and that’s part of why we’re doing this episode today.
Nobody was bigoted or awful to me, or transphobic or anything remotely like that. I never felt unsafe. But the way that people sort of insisted on centering my transness in everything was just.
Hang on. The way that people insisted on centering my transness was something I was not expecting or prepared for, and it was really getting under my skin to the point that I reached out to a colleague, a person of color who that Saturday night I asked her if I, I could just come talk to her about this experience because it, it was really weighing on me and.
She looked at me and said, you know, that conversation we had a while ago, this was prior to me coming out about emotional labor. Well, this is what you’re going through, right? People, people wanting me to make it okay for them to talk to me, because it wasn’t just about centering my transness, it was about people not like approaching me like they don’t know how to talk to me.
[00:03:06] Dusty: And I’m, I’m guessing that there were a bunch of people who were like. Wanting advice or info, like just wanted information, probably wanted you to educate them about transgender identity or transitioning. I bet there were lots of people who were like, oh, my son or my daughter, or like this person that I know.Like what should I say to them? Like were people asking you for like just telling you stories and asking you for advice that also like weren’t about you? Or was it always like more about you?
[00:03:31] Ash: . It was definitely both. I’ll, I’ll start with my very first experience walking into the conference. So, day one, a woman approached me. She knew me. I did not know her. She explained how she knew me. I don’t remember if it was via the podcast or something else. Had some very nice things to say about my work, which I really appreciated.And then said, and you look great by the way. And if she would’ve stopped there, that would’ve been awesome, by the way. Because I was at a point in my transition where I was still not necessarily comfortable with how I looked. So that felt really good to hear, but then it was followed by, is that okay to say?
Is that okay to say to you? Now, would you ever say that to a cisgender person? Would you ever walk up to Dusty and say, you look great. Is that, is that okay to say? And so it was a lot of small interactions like that just piling up. People telling me how brave I am, which again, coming from a great place, but I’m here to be a professional.
I’m here to be amongst my ADHD colleagues, just like everyone. Else. And so again, this isn’t about my transness, but it’s understandable that this happens. According to research, less than 50% of adults in the United States, only 44% of adults in the United States personally know somebody who is transgender.
So for a lot of people, I may be the first transgender person that, you know, the first one you’ve interacted. The first one you have. Any sort of relationship with. And so it’s natural to sort of want to ask questions, to want to better understand, but on the flip side of that, you need to understand that, well, I may be the only transgender person, you know, this type of interaction for me and environments like that is not abnormal.
And it’s, it’s not what I’m there for.
[00:05:29] Dusty: Yeah. Well that’s what made me kind of wonder like how much you were getting questions that weren’t even about you, because that’s the thing, right? As a, as white people or as like. Sis or het passing people. We are never expected to represent our entire group, right? But then when you become some kind of visible minority in any way, you’re expected to represent your whole group.And I don’t know why the, I don’t know why the actually I’m reading a really, really great book about this right now. It’s called white Tears, brown Scars, and it’s about like white women and fragility. But, but, I was thinking as I was reading that book and as you were speaking, I remember like in the early, like after like nine 11 and in the early two thousands when I was around only communities of white people in some sort of like, quote, you know, like a, like a terrorist attack would happen. People would always be like, well, why isn’t like the Muslim community, like denouncing terrorism? And it’s like, and I found that such an interesting comment ’cause I’m like, okay, Muslim people are just like people. They’re just living their life. They’re just, but like, imagine, you know. Some trans person somewhere does something and now like, you know, you’re expected to like make a public statement about it either being like, yeah, or like, no, right?
Like all of a sudden you’re a part of a group that is representative of every other person in that group, right? Like when women, if some woman does something somewhere, I’m never called upon to explain why women anything. Right. And, and maybe we get that a little bit with like ADD like if you ever talk to somebody who doesn’t have a lot of people with ADD in their life, I, I found that like that’s where, you know, I’ll get into some conversations about ADD and doing a little bit of emotional labor that way.
But largely like we, we never have to be like the other, we’re, we never have that experience of being othered. Right. And it sounds like. You know, like people didn’t mean to necessarily cast you in that role and didn’t know that they were doing that, but you like, that’s what I’m hearing you say, right?
Like you weren’t just you at the conference anymore doing the same thing that everyone else was doing, doing the same thing that you’ve al always done. Now, there was this other layer of like people of like self objectivity or like objectifying yourself in a way where now you’re seeing yourself as this person that everyone else is seeing you as, and. You have to like represent and you have to answer questions about who you are and why you are that you weren’t expecting to maybe.
[00:07:43] Ash: Exactly, Dusty It certainly threw me for a loop because up until that point, you know, this was still at a time where a lot of people were practicing COVID safety. So in my daily life I was mostly around. Friend, close friends and family. So this was really kind of a first experience being out in the broader world.And again, in a place where I am kind of visible because I do this podcast because more people know me through my work than I know them. And it was, it was definitely an eye-opener for me. , But let’s pivot here and talk about some of the uniquely ADHD things that can show up in an allyship situation.
[00:08:28] Dusty: Oh yeah. As soon as you said that thing about the conference, I, my mind just went to like, you know, with ADHD and autism and sort of that binary all or nothing thinking and, and partnered with justice sensitivity like, I think. I think of the over enthusiastic ally, like the one who’s so eager to prove that they know everything, right?Because we very much care about justice. We very much want to be doing things like the quote unquote right way. And then sometimes we like really go a long way to educate ourselves about what is the, the right way to be an ally. But then we’re like. It and coming from a legitimately good place, but we’re very eager to like perform that allyship and like demonstrate it and be like, look at me like I’m a safe person to be around.
Or like, I’m a person who’s, who understands racial dynamics. Let me demonstrate that in the conversation so that you know that I’m a good ally. And again, not, not, I’m not, when I say perform like they wanna perform it, I don’t mean that they’re being performative. I’m sure they really are. You know, they have those values, but like I can just imagine the level of enthusiasm that like a.
A person with a DC who’s gone down a rabbit hole about a certain issue, who’s very into justice sensitivity and Right, right, wrong, sort of all or nothing rules. Brain is like really eager to like show that off as soon as they get the chance. Right. And then maybe unintentionally you kind of like do some harm or you like go away overboard in your quest to be like the perfect ally.
[00:09:53] Ash: Sure. That is something that I’ve experienced. I would say I almost experience that more than I experience any bigotry in my day-to-day life. Is is the over enthusiastic ally, the one that feels like they have to show me right away that they know the things, or even worse, the ones that will kind of. Talk over me or tell me what my experience is.Not intentionally, but again, trying to demonstrate like I’ve read up, I’ve done, I’ve done the research, I’ve done the homework. I, i know my stuff. Well, yes, that’s great, but you are not trans. So if I am standing right next to you, do not attempt to speak for my experience.
[00:10:35] Dusty: And I, I, I swear, I don’t mean to be like putting anybody down or like, I think it’s good, but I always think it’s like so funny when like I’m with a group of people who are all clearly cisgender and they’re like, okay, and like, what are everybody’s pronouns? Or like, or we’re in a room full of white people and we’re like, okay, let’s do like land acknowledgement, right?Like there’s a, you know, again, there’s this kind of like. Over enthusiastic wanting to, and it’s good, right? Like it’s good that we change that paradigm and we always ask about pronouns or that we always think about whose land we’re on. But there’s even, like here in Canada, I think we do a lot, a lot more, but there’s like a lot of criticisms of like, for example. Land acknowledgements because they are sort of an empty gesture. Right. While we’re still actively oppressing indigenous people and so there yeah, there’s, it’s, it’s cute. It’s good. I think it’s good we do it. But I also think it’s funny when people go way overboard with like really wanting to be like, yeah.
Show that they are. Like they really wanna show it, you know?
[00:11:30] Ash: So Dusty, what else do you think is uniquely ADHD when it comes to struggling with good allyship? [00:11:37] Dusty: . I think there’s sort of like two scenarios where that can pop up, right? One is like in your quest to do everything so perfectly. Like if you’re really, if you’ve hyper-focused on like, learning everything about a certain group of people and you really wanna show what you know, and that you’re a good ally and you, and perhaps you make a misstep or you don’t get the cookie.Right. Like someone doesn’t go like, oh my God, like, thank you for being such a great ally to trans people like you. Really, you know, you really make me feel comfortable, right? Like maybe you, you kind of, again, you may not mean it, but you sort of want that feedback. Or maybe you make a misstep even though you have tried so hard. Or on the other hand, maybe you don’t know anything about this group of people and you unintentionally say something offensive, which again, huge shame trigger with a DC, right? Like, how often do we put our foot in our mouth and say something unintentionally harmful? And then, you know, like again, if you have a DC and you think of yourself as a good person, it’s so tough when you accidentally upset or offend someone and you didn’t mean to. And it can make it hard not to like get into rejection sensitivity, right? Like, I had that happen personally, like, when I was first coaching and I started realizing just how many autistic clients I had or clients that, that were ADHD. Like I wasn’t trained anything about autism and I had had a handful of autistic clients. Or like IDHD clients and they were really comfortable with their autism, so they talked about it all the time and they kind of joked about it. And then I remember I had a client and I don’t actually know that this is the, the reason, but I had a, a client in a group coaching and they were IDHD and I. I remember at one point I made kind of like an offhand lighthearted comment. Like I, I said something like, and there’s the autism showing up. ’cause that was something I had heard, like other autistic clients kind of like say, right? Like the person said something and I kind of like made a, a lighthearted comment like that, that was their autism showing up. And then a few groups later, they disappeared from the group. And this is the only time this has ever happened to me. This has never happened to me before or since. So it was really jarring and I was kind of like, Hey, like where’d you go? Is everything okay? And they were like, yeah. They were like. They basically said that they were like not comfortable in the group and that like someone had made them feel uncomfortable and they didn’t say it was me.
So, to be fair, I don’t actually know, but of course with, with my rejection sensitivity, I’m immediately like, it must be that one thing I said, right? And so to be fair, it could have been. Some other thing that some other person in the group said, and maybe I just didn’t catch it, or it could have just been about them and their own rejection sensitivity.
But I was a bit like, oh my God, what if it was this one comment that I made and I was like, well, I’m not autistic. I probably shouldn’t be like making lighthearted cracks about people’s autism. ’cause even though like I had heard other clients do that, maybe that’s not okay. But it was so hard for me. Like I had a lot of rejection sensitivity, especially because being that person’s coach, I was like, oh no, what have I done?
And I think I handled it really well, but it was really hard because I wanted to be like, was it me? Am I the one who said that thing? Did I make, I’m so sorry. Right? Like it was hard, really hard for me not to make it about myself and have my. Emotion about being rejected, override that person’s experience.
And so I think with rejection sensitivity too, it can really get in the way of us being good allies, because most of the time when we say some dumb crap, we are really not meaning to harm that other person. But when harm has been done, especially if you’re in a more privileged, like that’s what this whole book that I’m reading is about.
Right. The book that I’m reading is about the way that when people of color like wanna bring up an issue that they have that like. White women’s tears. Basically like override everything, right? Like if a white woman cries when you talk to her about a racial misstep, like you’ve, you’ve lost, they’ve won like the, the whole, you know, the whole conversation gets shut down. And so our own sort of fragility when we are in a position of privilege is something to be careful of because our tears or our rejection is still something that wields power and can end up, you know, like let’s say if I offend you, I say something, you know, transphobic unintentionally, and you go, Hey, dusty, like. That was kind of uncool of you. Like that was transphobic. If I, if my emotions get really big and I’m like, oh my God, Ashley, I’m so sorry. I just shouldn’t mean you too. And then the next three conversations we have are all about how bad I feel and how sorry I am, and how I didn’t mean to do that. Well now I’ve made it about me.
Right. And I think that’s, you know, probably something that I’m certainly like guilty of earlier in life when I had less awareness. But something I think could really get in the way of allyship. I don’t know. What do you think?
[00:15:54] Ash: Dusty, funnily enough, something I have been guilty of myself up to and including the white woman tears, which is really funny to say now, but is also really true.I actually had a moment after George Floyd was murdered. I was doing a hap, a regular happy hour. That was kind of a holdover from COVID times with two colleagues who are both black women and had a moment where I showed up in a way where I shouldn’t have showed up that way, where I was putting emotional labor on them.
I was looking at them, asking them. What can I do? Actually, the question was what can Cam and I do? Right?
Cam and I at the time were feeling like we wanted to do something with this platform, but I’m turning to them, asking them, what can I do? What should I do? So this is right back to the beginning. We were talking about that experience at the conference where people are asking me what, what they’re supposed to do, how they’re supposed to do it.
So. When you have a moment like this, and this was my, my learning and my takeaway from this experience that I had myself, that is your opportunity to do your own work. Don’t lean on marginalized populations to give you the answers to tell you how you’re supposed to do. Better take the opportunity to learn something about those experiences.
And that’s precisely what I did. I went into my own bit of hyperfocus and learned a lot about blackness in America something that I really hadn’t studied in any meaningful way , up until that point. Not because I wanted to demonstrate to them. I, I’ve never even said this out loud until now, that I, I’m doing better.
I’m a better ally, but because I realized that I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and it was up to me to learn what I didn’t know. It wasn’t up to them to, to educate me.
[00:17:45] Dusty: It’s kind of like if you never played an instrument before going up to like, you know, slAsh from Guns N Roses and being like, Hey, could you like show me how to play something on guitar? Like you could, like, not that that’s the wrong thing to do, but like you could start with some like intro to guitar books, right?You could take a class, you could, there’s a lot of things that you could do to teach yourself those early things. But to like go to someone who is like, you know, a world class guitarist and be like, could you teach me the basics? Is like, it’s just sort of not the dumb thing, right? Like, and I think that’s kind of a bit what it’s like, right?
Because I think we do often forget with a DC, we skip steps, right? And we forget there are so many things that we could teach ourselves. Like you said, Ash, like you went and you did some learning. And I don’t want people, it’s hard ’cause like with ADHD and making so many missteps, I can see how we get ourselves tied in this, not where like now, oh, well, but who can I ask?
Who can I talk to? Like how, what if I don’t know how to learn Like I don’t want people to get stuck in the perfectionism of like, who is it okay to ask and who is it not? And like, I don’t wanna get in trouble, you know, that like, I don’t want people to feel like they’re, they’re gonna get in trouble, but. But I do think it’s, as you say, we forget that there’s a lot we can do on our own. And just going right to that person who’s lived that marginalized identity and asking them to teach you something is akin to going to like a world famous guitarist and be like, can you teach me how to play like a. You know, like a scale, right?
There’s a lot of other ways we can get that knowledge and that’s where being a good ally too means educating like our peers, right? So part of being a good ally, like for me as a cisgender person, is to be willing to have those conversations and, and like do some educating of the people around me so that they don’t have to go like to the Ashes of the world, just trying to mind their businesses at conferences.
Right. And, and that’s really hard too, because I feel like. There’s like some weird threshold that I crossed where like after I learned a certain amount at a certain point, like I just. I just internalized and, and sort of impli implicitly understood this issue about like whiteness, where like I just, I, I feel like it kind of clicked at a certain point and now I’m like, not offended.
Like I’m never, if anyone’s ever like mad at white people in general or says like, I don’t like white people, I’m like, yeah, I get it. Right. Like I’m. Or CIS people or whatever, right? Like I get it without, like, I don’t take it personally. I kind of understand, but in a weird way that’s almost made it harder to like engage with people who don’t get that.
And I feel like now those people kind of look at me and if they’re not. On my side of politics, they’ll just sort of like write me off as a person who’s like sort of brainwAshed by the woke left. Right? And so it almost makes it, it’s harder for me to engage with those people now. ’cause I’m like, if you don’t get it, like I get it.
You don’t get it. I don’t know. Like, I don’t know why you don’t get here, but I have to not be lazy. Right. And I don’t use that term lightly because I know obviously that’s a very shame triggering word with ADHD. But like sometimes I’m just like, ugh. Like I don’t wanna talk to this. Person who has these, you know, bigoted views, but like that is also good allyship because there is no perfect allyship.
We all started out somewhere, we all started out as ignorant, like idiots, for lack of a better term. And it, it is through the many, many patient conversations that people have had with me, both marginalized people who occupied. Whatever identity it was and good allies, that helped me to develop my more nuanced understanding of, of whatever the case may be. And, and as a good ally, like it’s my job and my responsibility to not be unwilling to have those conversations with other people because it takes the weight off of the shoulders of people like Ash or you know, a person of color or a person from a different, you know, background who doesn’t wanna have to like explain one more time. Why it’s not okay for you to, for you to touch their hair or whatever, or like why all Muslims shouldn’t have to apologize for nine 11, you know?
[00:21:32] Ash: Dusty I agree with you that having tough conversations can be a part of good allyship, but I also think it’s really important to pick your battles. There is no sense in trying to talk to somebody whose views are not going to be changed. . That is really just an exercise in futility, but I think the real opportunity there is to pay attention to who’s in your circles, who’s in your life, how did they talk about people like me or people of color, and are you signaling acceptance of those views or not?You don’t have to change everyone’s mind, it’s impossible to do so. I I personally do not even engage with people with bigoted views in 2025. There’s, there’s no point. It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s difficult on me and gets me in a bad emotional state, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t add anything to my life.
There’s just nothing positive to come from that. So. Those conversations can be good if there’s an opening for change, if there’s an opportunity there to help someone do better. But if you’re just gonna be slamming your head against a brick wall, I think there are other better ways to show allyship.
Which kind of brings us to our next point, which is the ADHD of it all in terms of matching our intentions with action. So we can carry around a lot of guilt for what we’re not doing. And this is something, by the way, that is showing up in all of my coaching sessions right now with the state of the world being what it is.
It’s having an impact on all of my clients emotionally. I think that ADHD folks in general are particularly justice sensitive because I do think that ADHD folks understand something about being othered in a way that the general population doesn’t. We live this experience where people don’t get us, don’t understand us, where we don’t tend to fit in, in normative spaces.
And so, at least among my client population, justice sensitivity. Empathy, these things are all really, really high. And so the world is on fire and all of my clients are like, what? What can I do? What can I possibly do?
[00:24:00] Dusty: Yeah. And, and I just before, before I move on to that, I just want to quickly address what you’re saying about banging your head against. So I’ll totally agree a hundred percent. And I wanna clarify like. Like I’m, I do mean like the people who, like you said, there’s a, a crack there. Like for example, recently,, this past year I had a, a coaching group where I had one client who was like a young able bodied, cisgender man say something that he didn’t mean to be like fat phobic, but that came across fat phobic, which is something I totally don’t tolerate at all in my group coaching. But I could, I could tell that he felt bad as soon as he, like it was something about like exercise and weight loss and. I could tell that as soon as he said it, he like kind of knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, but he didn’t know why and he tried to backpedal and I just shut the conversation down and we moved on and then I spoke with him later and he was really struggling with because he was like very you know, all or nothing thinking about, you know, well. This is what healthy means and this is what healthy looks like and everyone should wanna be healthy. And I don’t really like I under, I understand that this is like hurtful or harmful, but I don’t quite understand why. And so it, in that situation, I was comfortable to do a little bit of teaching about like the concept of fat phobia and like, and like, and you know, and we had a really good conversation and it was, I think, really helpful to him because he was struggling with understanding that. Trying to figure out like where he was missing something. Do you know what I mean? Because he was struggling with like, oh, but this is the, these are the rules, right? The rules are like, you know, eat healthy and exercise is good for you, and so why wouldn’t everybody want that? And like, I can do it and why can’t everyone else?But at the same time, I’m not trying to make everyone feel bad. And he was like spiraling a bit. So that was like, that’s an like, was a really good opportunity. And so, so that’s kind of what I mean, right? Like there, there are times that I meet people. With whom I’m like, Ooh, we could have a really good conversation, but I’m so tired.
I’m like, I, I need to rally because this is worth it. But yeah, the people who like you know that you’re not, you’re just gonna get in a fight. And that’s the thing, right? Like there’s also, I think something about ADHD and. Drama, right? And like these online, like we can get into these online fights with, you know, bigots and idiots and that can be a real source of dopamine.
That was my sole source of dopamine for years. It was like, Facebook fights with like dudes, but like, is that allyship? Is that changing anything? No. Like, and I, and I needed to be honest with myself about that, that that was like, that was filling my cup in some other way. Like, that was just me getting my rage out and getting my, you know. Rocks off online basically, and not really actually helping anybody. Right. It was just a cheap source of dopamine. And now I, I’m a proud I’m a proud, recovered drama addict. I’m drama sober for several years now. You know, it’s a battle every day, guys. It’s a battle every day. But here I am anyway. . So, and as to what you were saying, like we did that episode a while back on ADD and activism, which I would strongly encourage people to go back and listen to if you are struggling with this, but this is something that I personally struggle with like all the time, right, is it’s so hard to just get through your day.
Sometimes with ADHD, especially, you know, if you’re a student or you’re a parent or you have other chronic illnesses, there may be very little space and capacity for doing good in the world. And again, we take things so literally sometimes, right? It’s like, okay, well if you’re a good person, you care about these issues, then like you should be doing like everything you can to do good in the world. And there’s that co there’s that thing that people say about like, you know, giving your best every day doesn’t mean like giving your a hundred percent best every day. But I think that when it comes to being an ally, especially, it’s easy to feel like we’re all not doing enough. And if there’s very little capacity, it’s like, well, where do you pull from and how do you do it? I have thoughts on this, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts
[00:27:35] Ash: first of all, dusty, none of none of us can do something for every marginalized community that exists. That’s just not possible. Even, even if you are independently wealthy enough to not have to work, there is simply not enough time in the day, not enough resources. You are one person. You cannot. Enact meaningful change for every marginalized community that exists.So if there’s one in particular that’s near and dear to your heart, put your focus there. Local organizations are a great place to look for either volunteer opportunities or donation opportunities. Here in St. Louis, we have the Metro Trans Umbrella Group, which does the most in our community for trans people.
And so that is an organization that gets my charitable dollars because they’re local, they’re here, they’re serving trans people. In my community. It’s also really important to remember that tiny little actions can make a huge difference here in the state of Missouri. We are a red state, unfortunately. A couple of years ago, a form was put up on the Governor’s website that was a transgender tattle.
It was, it was called Transgender Concerns Form. Right? And it was really alarming. And the. Perpetuity goal of this was to give citizens a outlet to share any concerns they have about transgender people in the state of Missouri. That form was taken down in a week because people flooded it with nonsense, with nonsense submissions, basically made it unusable and so it did not last long and.
Every single person that took the time to even put in one silly nonsense submission. And by the way, it was really cool to see this wasn’t just a statewide effort. There is a subreddit that I just love called Witches versus Patriarchy, which is just as awesome as it sounds. And this. Ended up on that subreddit.
And so people all over the world were participating in this effort to have this form taken down and it worked. And I could give you dozens more examples of little things like this, that small actions. Made a huge, huge difference. So don’t feel like you have to do everything, but if you can do something, if you have a little extra money, find an organization for a marginalized group in your community that you can.
Start making a regular donation to, if you’ve got a little extra time, find a volunteer opportunity. If you have neither, find little moments like this that may just be a one time action, but that can make a meaningful difference. And if you can’t do anything. Right now, maybe make it your work. And this is something I do with my clients.
Make it your work to have the time and space and resources to live up to the person that you want to be. In that regard, I.
[00:31:05] Dusty: Yeah. You know, it’s really hard for me to say like, get out to protests and things because I, I don’t live, I live in the suburbs and I have a child, and so like, you know, protests. Often take place at times that are in the evening. And , feeling between like being a bad parent and getting my home, my kid home like way too late or maybe letting them not go to school the next day or like showing up at, you know, something that’s really important to me.But like, for example, i, one thing I could do was like I was buying a lot of Eims, like for Gaza online. ’cause like there was not, not a lot of internet connectivity and people needed eims and so they’re not even that expensive. So I could buy multiple of them and I could, you know, like send them to this. Thing. And that was just a couple clicks online, right? It took a few minutes or something I’ve started doing. ’cause I feel very, I mean this isn’t exactly allyship, but I feel very concerned about the environment. But again, you know, very powerless is trying to follow more accounts that talk about environmental issues and looking for like little emails I can send to like my elected representatives. As you say, Ash. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s nuance between all or nothing, right? Like, being the perfect ally, showing up at protests, like, you know, shopping only at businesses, owned by like this one, you know, group. Or like avoiding businesses that support the wrong thing or, you know, doing all the stuff and things right?
Like even if you can just do one small thing a day, that’s so much more than nothing because days are gonna pass anyway. And if a hun if 365 days pass and there’s some sort of issue affecting a group of people that you love or care about or wanna be a good ally to, that’s 365 chances to do something and that something is more than nothing.
[00:32:46] Ash: And Dusty, I would say the goal doesn’t even have to be to do something every day. Just doing something when you can is better than doing nothing. And to speak to what you said earlier about the internet, just get off, get off the internet. In that regard, right? I think the internet can still be a great resource for learning.As you said, you follow environmental accounts, so one thing you can certainly do is follow people with lived experiences that are different than yours, that are talking about those experiences, and not in a, in a shout down way, because that serves nobody, but in an informative way, you know, start to bring voices that are different than yours.
Into your world is one thing you can do, but otherwise just don’t even bother with the, with the online quote unquote activism stuff. It’s an emotional sink. It does nothing and it’s not real, right? So much so. So many of the problems we are living with today are because the internet makes it feel like we’re way more divided than we actually are because everything is sensationalized and it’s easy to be as awful as you can possibly be Hiding behind a screen slAsh there are.
There’s money being put into people being awful like that on purpose to to paint a particular picture, to make it look like this is the way things actually are.
[00:34:24] Dusty: yeah, I Think I’ve learned like so much from following different like accounts and so speaking of being a good ally, like there’s a lot that I don’t need to ask for education for that I have learned passively through just following different accounts.And, and again, even this, I think even this concept that we’re sort of. You know, landing the plane around has so much more nuance. Like it’s not all or nothing. When we talk about, essentially we’re talking about performative allyship now, right? And I said that earlier, like, people wanna perform allyship.
And I kind of was talking about how like, I think it’s funny, you know, budget way people do land acknowledgements. But, but here’s the thing is there’s not even an all or nothing or a right or wrong, like it is still a really good practice for us to deconstruct and de to de-center. Cis genderedness as the norm.
So even in a room full of cisgender people, when we go like, Hey, what are everyone’s pronouns? Knowing full well that all our pronouns are like, you know, going to she, her if you’ve got a vagina, and he, him, if you’ve got a penis, even if we, even if we know that right, it’s still good because it’s, it’s practicing normalizing.
You know, decentering, cisgender this, or like even if we’re in a room full of white people and none of us are doing dick all for like indigenous people, it’s still good I think for us to do land acknowledgements because it’s just changing our consciousness. Right. And even, you know, like posting stuff online, you know, even if you’re posting it to an audience of people that all you know, agree with you or don’t agree with you, like. I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things that we do that can be kind of a bit simultaneously performative, but then also shift that paradigm and also maybe helpful to like one person. Right. So I think the, the thing is to like get clear about what is your motivation, like when I was going online. And fighting with men’s rights trolls about feminism. I wasn’t changing any hearts and minds. I certainly wasn’t making the world a better place for myself or anyone else. I was actually just distressing myself as a, like, as a woman. And, and at, at a certain point, I had to sort of get real with myself that like, this wasn’t about activism or about feminism, or about whatever.
It was actually just about. Like engaging with drama, right? And so WI think with perfectionism and with hyperfocus and with justice sensitivity, a a lot of us do wanna be that perfect ally, which also means sidestepping, like quote unquote performative activism. But like, sometimes those things are tangled up in a way where you, you know, you sort of can’t, I think the key thing is to get clear about it, right?
So like, for example, you know, going back to your. Your story about sort of showing up at the conference and a lot of people wanting to do the right thing so badly that they ended up unintentionally putting the work on you. Like if, just like we say, if you’ve met one person with a DC, if you’ve met one, you’ve met one person with A-D-H-D-I think it is really important to remember that like, if you’ve met one trans person, you’ve met one trans person and like they don’t all share the same attitude towards, you know, anything. I used to be friends with someone who was a lesbian and she was like the least lesbian, lesbian you’d ever met. Like, she like did not care about gay issues. She didn’t really care about like going to pride.
She, she like her sexuality was like the least interesting thing about her. She was like, I hate, she told me one time I remember like, as I thought, I found it really surprising having known a lot of queer people who, for them that queer aspect. Of their identity is so important for her. It was not an important part of her identity.
She didn’t really care that much about it. She didn’t like when people made it a big deal. Like she just was, she just happened to be gay. You know what I mean? Like, and she was like kind of going off about how she hated like that this was this like big first thing that people knew about her, this big aspect of her identity.
Because for her, there were all these other parts of her identity that were the things she would prefer that people focus on. So again, like if you’re meeting someone who is from a marginalized group. I think like let them lead in terms of how much they want to talk about and make. Whatever aspect of their identity, a thing, they might wanna talk a lot about it.
They might wanna educate you. And I think like when somebody leads and they start talking about that aspect of I, their identity, it’s appropriate to like maybe start bringing up questions that are in context. But like if they don’t bring it up or they don’t talk about it, they may not be wanting to center that part of their identity.
And being a good ally might actually look like not calling attention to that part of their identity ’cause maybe they’re just not in the mood. Or like maybe that’s not the thing that they wanna talk about. Right. Being a good ally might look like not bringing up trans issues or making the conversation about trans related things every five minutes when you’re talking to a trans person. ’cause like maybe they’re tired of that too, right?
[00:38:51] Ash: Yeah, I think something that we can all work to do better at is just meeting people as people first, and that requires unlearning a lot of bias that you may not know that you are carrying around. And I, I speak from experience the experience that I would like to have at the Chad Conference this year is just that just., Meet me as a colleague and an ADHD coach first, right? And I, I do talk about my trances. My life is pretty freaking queer. Like it’s very, very Capital Q queer. And so if I end up in a conversation with someone about my actual life, queerness, transness, those things are going to come up and that is okay.
But, let me decide whether or not those things are in the room, right? Just as you would, you wouldn’t pry into a, a white, cisgender man’s personal life without permission to do so. So a good starting place is to just think about how you would interact with anyone else. Treat, treat me, treat people of color like you would treat anyone else.
And if you’re having trouble doing that, then there’s an opportunity to look inward. And to figure out what your work is to do better there.
[00:40:17] Dusty: Can I add one thing that, to that Ash, [00:40:20] Ash: Sure. [00:40:20] Dusty: I think like, I think Okay. Treat everyone like everyone else. But then also, like maybe if you’ve done your own education, you can know, you can sort of know the hotspots that you can be sensitive about without making a big deal about it. Right. Like, I’m trying to think of an example, but like, okay, so. Have that. I don’t have that many like Muslim friends. I only have a few Muslim friends, but I know that marshmallows are not halal and I, I don’t know where I learned that, but I learned that somewhere along the way. And so like when my, a friend of mine and I wanted to go to this one event in the winter, I checked to make sure that they had halal marshmallow. Right. And again, I wasn’t like, I just want you to know that I like checked that the marshmallows are not halal. Right. But I was just like, Hey, just by the, just so you know, like they’ve got halal marshmallows. And my friend was like, oh, great. Right? Like little like, they’re like, you could, whether that person has, you know, an ethnic identity you know, a, a queer identity, like you can educate yourself about what are maybe the kind of like. Piles of shit, you don’t wanna step in and then you don’t have to like, make a big deal about it, but you can just like create a little bit more accessibility for them in different ways. And I can, I can’t think of like a great example there with like how you might do that for a person who’s trans without making it like this big stinking deal.But you know what I’m saying. Right.
[00:41:31] Ash: I actually do have a great example of that, Dusty So, about a year into my transition. So I’m still in a pretty tender place and I’m still very visibly queer at this moment in time, whether I want to be or not. I just am, you know, it’s not something that I can hide.My best friend from high school turned 40. Now we grew up in a pretty rural area, in a rural high school. We’ve been friends all the while. His reaction when I came out was actually, huh, that makes sense. So we were cool on that level. But he’s having this 40th birthday party gathering at a bar that’s.
Deep enough into the county and in a location where I’m not sure if it’s safe for me to be there being visibly queer. So when he texted me the invite, I texted back, is this going to be a safe environment for me? And he answered. Oh, I already thought about that. I actually went and checked out a couple of different locations.
There were a couple I ruled out because they definitely wouldn’t have been safe for you. This place is really cool. And by the way, they also have single stall gender neutral bathrooms, so you don’t even have to worry about that. So here he was sort of. Thinking ahead to the things that I might be concerned about, but again, not not bringing them up or showing that to me until I asked.
Right. I asked about safety and that’s when he, he shared with me that I thought ahead about these things because I care about you and I want you to be able to be here. And so part of my decision making included thinking about your safety.
[00:43:12] Dusty: Yeah, that’s a great example, right? Because again, if he came, if he led with that, if he was like, so everyone, we need to pick a place we’re at where they’re gonna have gender neutral bathroom, so that Ash will feel comfortable, like that might have made you feel weird or like this, like, you know what I mean?Or like. He didn’t like lead with that necessarily. It’s the, you know, you’re just you. But then also as friends or allies, we are expanding our consciousness of like, what a person with this background, what might not work for them. Just the same way that we would eat. Like do that for somebody with like a shellfish allergy, right?
We’re not making this big stinking deal, but like if I have a friend in my friend group who has a shellfish allergy, then I’m gonna check like that we’re going somewhere that they can eat. And there’s so many ways that like as allies, we can make. Things more accessible for the people that we love who have marginalized identities or maybe not even the people that we love.
Just anybody. Right. And that’s, and that, and that’s why we do pronouns and that’s why we do land acknowledgements even when we, you know, know that it’s not super relevant to all of us because we are practicing creating spaces that are more accessible for people who have historically been dis included.
[00:44:15] Ash: Well said Dusty, and I think that is a good place for us to wrap up for this week. So until next week, I’m Ash, [00:44:23] Dusty: And I’m Dusty [00:44:24] Ash: and this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
