BANNER MAKING WORKSHOP for Canterbury PRIDE

We began the workshop with a ‘Mind Map’ of ideas for slogans and images for our banners. We decided upon making one more visual and painting the whole banner as the LGBTQIA+ flag, and incorporating the Neurodivergent+ infinity symbol in the middle of it! 😀 with our slogan (which we would later chant at the pride event ‘NEUROQUEER AND HERE!’

For the other Banner, we wanted to be more ‘wordy’ and represent MixMatched, so we decided that we’d try painting our logo (two MM), and incorporate the ‘ADHD butterfly into the word Mi X Matched – as the X could be used as the centre. We then brainstormed several slogans including ‘Never Too Much… Autistic Don’t Touche!’ (referring to Neurodivergent+ people often being expected to ‘tone down’), and ‘AUTISTIC TRANS LIVES MATTER’ which acknowledges the difficulties Autistic Trans individuals face with not being believed and being bounced between differing services (services that focus upon autism often don’t cater directly to Transgender needs, and places that focus upon Transgender needs often don’t cater for Autistic individuals). 

We eventually decided upon ‘Neurodivergent+ (plus) Listen to Us!!” as we thought that this encapsulated the whole of our community, and wrote a number of the more specific Neurogenders below it such as:

‘GenderVaugue’ being ND and feeling as if this gives you a more nuanced/less solid understanding/appreciation towards gender. Term Coined by Lydia X in her paper ‘GenderVaugue’

‘Bordergender’ – A gender that can be identified with by individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder/Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, meaning that at differing points of vulnerability, they may identify differently with gender (e.g, identify with another gender, or feel more dissociative towards a specific gender) 

‘Neurogender’ – both a specific gender and an umbrella term for specific genders that are influenced by Neurodivergent experience/perception/identity. Understanding that one’s gender identification/experiences are linked/entwined with Neurodivergent+ experience. 

Auti-Gender – This is a gender that autistic individuals/people who identify as autistic may identify with. Autism/being autistic can be greatly linked to one’s sense of self and can have associations with being less included in following and/or being indoctrinated by social trends/structure and having a higher likelihood of independent thinking/questioning. Additionally, many Neurodivergent+ individuals may have felt excluded/alienated from their gender for a variety of reasons, such as not being able to ‘perform’ certain social expectations adequately. They may still identify with being ‘Man or ‘woman’ (though they might not), but are sometimes more comfortable with ‘Auti-gender man/woman’. 

… After discussing and deciding what we thought would work we split off into two groups to do the actual designing and painting. We’d fortunately invested in a number of ‘big’ painting brushes to help us with the block colours. After stencilling out the letters and pictures, we proceeded to add colour, culture and contour to our flags!!! – Breaking only for Pizza … dedication and hyperfocus took over and it took us almost four hours to complete our masterpieces! 

We left them to dry and we were all ready for Canterbury Pride!