Speaking & Keynotes

Bridgette Hamstead, MS delivers dynamic, research-informed talks that combine lived experience with systemic insight, sparking action and inspiring change. With a background as Founding Director of Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism and Chairperson of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, Bridgette speaks with a rare combination of scholarship, lived expertise, and cultural critique. Her keynote talks move beyond surface-level “awareness” to address the deeper structural and cultural shifts required for justice. Whether addressing a room of educators, health professionals, nonprofit leaders, or corporate executives, she makes complex ideas accessible, challenges entrenched systems, and offers concrete paths forward.

Bridgette has delivered talks across the globe, from the United Nations World Autism Acceptance Day to Global Neurodiversity Pride Day, as well as at universities, corporations, professional associations, healthcare institutions, and social justice conferences. Her audiences consistently highlight her ability to reframe familiar issues in bold new ways, revealing the systemic roots of exclusion while also offering strategies for change. Known for her ability to connect emotionally while grounding every talk in evidence and context, Bridgette brings both rigor and resonance to every stage she steps onto.

Her keynotes are not passive experiences. They are invitations into cultural and systemic transformation. Drawing on cutting-edge research in neurodiversity studies, disability justice frameworks, gender studies, and organizational change, Bridgette helps audiences identify the barriers embedded in everyday practices and reimagine how institutions, workplaces, and communities can function differently. Each talk is tailored to the context and needs of the audience, ensuring that participants leave with insight that is both practical and movement-aligned.

Sample Keynote & Speaking Topics

• Neurodiversity Justice: Beyond Awareness and Inclusion
  A call to move past awareness campaigns and token inclusion efforts toward a justice framework that centers neurodivergent leadership, dismantles systemic barriers, and builds sustainable cultural change.

• The Trouble with Being Good: Late-Diagnosed AuDHD Women and the Cost of Compliance
  Drawing from her forthcoming book, Bridgette examines the survival strategies of late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD women, reframing burnout, estrangement, and unmasking as acts of resistance and systemic critique.

Justice & Systems Change

• The Politics of Autism: How public policy, media, and advocacy have shaped the narrative of autism, and how those narratives continue to impact rights, justice, and daily life.

• Neurodiversity and Homelessness: Why neurodivergent people are disproportionately impacted by housing insecurity and homelessness, and how justice-informed housing policy could intervene.

• Aging While Neurodivergent: The overlooked crisis of neurodivergent elders navigating bias in long-term care, healthcare inaccessibility, and a lack of systemic supports.

• Financial Insecurity and Systemic Barriers: How inequities in education, healthcare, and employment entrench cycles of poverty for neurodivergent people.

• Discrimination Across Systems: The compounding effects of discrimination in healthcare, employment, courts, and schools, and strategies to confront it.

• Infrastructure Is Liberation Work: Building sustainable systems, boards, and structures as a model of justice and longevity for movements.

Healthcare & Body Politics

• Reproductive Justice Must Include Neurodivergent People: Confronting systemic denial of reproductive autonomy in neurodivergent and disabled communities.

• Reproductive Control and Eugenics in the Exam Room: The ongoing legacy of eugenics in medicine and how queer, disabled, and neurodivergent people are denied reproductive autonomy.

• The Overlap Is Not Accidental: Why gender-affirming care must also be neurodiversity-affirming.

• The Economics of Avoidance: Why neurodivergent queer people delay or refuse medical care, and how to design systems of trust.

Culture & Community

• Neurodiversity in Festivals, Conferences, and Parades: What true neuro-accessibility looks like in public gatherings, from Mardi Gras to academic conferences.

• Neurodiversity in Tourism and Hospitality: Rethinking travel, tourism, and hospitality industries through a lens of accessibility and cultural belonging.

Higher Education & Professional Practice

• Neurodiversity in Higher Education: Why the time has come for neurodiversity studies as a field and how universities can lead.

• From Awareness to Action: What institutions get wrong about neurodiversity and how to build authentic, justice-aligned practice.

• The Business Case for Neurodiversity: Why equity-driven neurodiversity practices strengthen innovation, retention, and organizational resilience.

Bridgette’s presentations are catalysts for transformation. Audiences leave not only with a deeper understanding of neurodiversity and disability justice but with practical strategies for reimagining their work, communities, and institutions. Her speaking style combines intellectual rigor, lived authenticity, and cultural resonance, creating a space where participants feel both challenged and empowered.

Bridgette is available for keynotes, plenary sessions, workshops, and fireside-style talks. Each presentation is customized to meet the needs of the audience, ensuring alignment with both organizational goals and the broader movement for neurodiversity justice. Price upon request.