Georgia Harper

@mindtheflap

Autistic autism policy wonk. Co-hosts a podcast about Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker. Views my own. She/Her.

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Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· 1d

Buried in the final, paywalled, paragraph of the latest Times article about autism: Uta Frith "very much regrets" her comments on Chris Packham. Those comments (while inexcusable) were a response to a direct question about Packham's autism. Almost like it's been deliberately stoked up for clicks...

Text reads: "An enterprising documentary maker, I think, might ask [Uta] Frith to go along next year and record what conversations ensued. They might not all be confrontational. Both sides of the argument certainly mean well, and Frith has since written to me to say that she now realises she crossed a line by discussing Chris Packham: "I very much regret what I said." And, [Mary] Doherty, who has exchanged emails with Frith, says she would love to chat to her. "I do have compassion for her. I do understand where she's coming from. But, ultimately, I think she's completely wrong."

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jul 18

we are so back

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jul 16

To be fair, this did get front page coverage when it was published back in March. Unfortunately, it was this front page. Compare and contrast what was reported here vs the actual interim conclusions below. No wonder people don't recognise it!

Part of The Times' front page, 1 April 2026. Headline: "Children 'incentivised' to get ADHD and autism diagnoses."

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· May 31

Home office is almost ready, but somehow I still need to book a desk in advance

Hacker, our cat, is sat on a Doctor Who cushion on a chair at my desk. The desk is half set-up and still littered with Command hooks and box cutters.

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Mar 13

I WAS KIDDING

Facebook post by me, 22 Feb: "Credits roll on Battlefield episode 4 - not quite the end of classic Doctor Who, but it does mean I've now seen every surviving episode!! (Now, if you could all just quickly look under your beds and double-check you haven't dropped The Daleks' Master Plan down there, I'd be very grateful)" Image is of a TV showing the end card of Battlefield

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Mar 6

(CW: suicide) After another week of high-profile debate around autism - particularly, again, focusing on women and girls - this pair of Google Alerts hit me hard earlier. Rhetoric vs Reality.

Screenshot of two links from a Google Alerts e-mail.
The first says "The feminization of autism Most teenage girls 'mask' - UnHerd. ...autistic females - previously undiagnosed - whose presentation differed markedly from the largely male stereotype, but who somehow had autism too.
The second says "Jennifer Chalkley: Camhs and Surrey County Council Failures Contributed To Death Of... - Inquest. Jennifer Chalkley: Camhs And Surrey County Council Failures Contributed To Death Of 17 Year Old Autistic Girl. CONTENT WARNING: Please read with care..."

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Mar 2

Hacker is concerned that you're taking "lack of instant hot takes on 250+ pages of schools policy, including a huge number of changes that would otherwise each get widespread attention in their own right, only published partway through the one day it was in the news" to mean "it must all be fine"

A concerned looking cat on an office-style chair at a desk

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 27

Fake Telegraph headline from the Allister Heath Headline Generator reads: "Allister Heath: Britain's obsession with the Allister Heath Headline Generator has turned us into an international laughing stock." The generator can be found at tinyurl.com/tnw-heath

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 9

Just a stone's throw away from @ftw.bsky.social, despite the fact he isn't actually on the map

Screenshot from the BlueSky map. I (@mindtheflap) am in the middle of a cluster labelled "Autism Research & Neurodiversity Advocates". Nearby is a smaller cluster labelled "Synthwave & Electronic Music Artists".

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jan 1

What was your biggest impact on the internet? Mine, I fear, is this:

Screenshot of a tweet by me, Georgia Harper @mindtheflap: "My brain at 3am." Image shows a screenshot of the YouTube video "Every mistake I've made since 2014" by Tom Scott. In the thumbnail, Tom Scott from 2023 is gesturing towards a photo of himself from 2014.

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Dec 24

POV: You find a "serves 4-8" mini cheesecake recipe and decide to make 1.5x the quantity so you'll definitely have enough to take back to your parents on Boxing Day

A scene from Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, showing Time Lords watching previous incarnations of the Doctor on hologram screens, but all the Doctor's faces have been shoddily replaced with empty Gu ramekins. Caption: "I didn't know when I was well off! All 12 of them!"

Close up on Androgar's concerned face. Caption: "No, sir."

The TARDIS zooms through space. Caption: "All 13!"

The famous close-up of then-new Doctor Peter Capaldi's "attack eyebrows", but with an empty Gu ramekin shoddily pasted over his eyes

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Dec 3

I don't know what I expected

Word cloud visualization for 2025 showing my 50 most-used words, sized by frequency. Top 10: "autistic" (30×), "autism" (30×), "waiting" (17×), "doctor" (15×), "support" (15×), "those" (12×), "needs" (11×), "least" (11×), "children" (10×), "likely" (10×) (from Anisota's Annual Bluesky Harvest)

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Sep 18

Your last saved pic is your moral philosophy (cc @ftw.bsky.social)

The "society if..." utopia meme, captioned "Society if Filip refilled the filter jug after use"

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Aug 19

Today was my last day at @autistica.org.uk 😭 After 7 amazing years, I've made the difficult decision to take on a new challenge... From next week I'll be joining the policy team at @ambitiousautism.bsky.social, back where I got my start! Cleo and her new boyfriend Theo are nervous but excited.

Theo and Cleo are adorable woollen cacti with faces. Theo is taller, with a moustache and the label "THEO" on his pot. Cleo is smaller and round, with a pink flower on her head. Their second date is taking place on a Doctor-Who-themed mouse mat.

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Aug 19

Screencap from SpongeBob SquarePants - Patrick mimes pushing something in front of a crowd ("...and push it somewhere else!")

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jul 21

It took a very long time, but for once I eventually got to the Firkin Point

View of Loch Lomond from Firkin Point. Lots of very big hills surrounded by very big clouds

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jul 4

Wrote to Kent Libraries, wrote similar e-mails to my local Councillors and MP. If you've only read the headlines: The book in question is specifically for autistic trans adults, and was on a general entrance display. The ableist assumption that autistic adults are children refuses to die.

"I am writing to express my deep concern over reports that The Autistic Trans Guide To Life by Yenn Purkis and Wenn Lawson, and potentially other books relating to trans people, are being removed or made less prominent in Kent’s libraries. I have been registered with Dover Library since moving to Kent in 2023, and have previously worked as a library assistant in my hometown of Corby.

Libraries give us access to in-depth information and expertise that many residents could not afford otherwise, and offer opportunities to explore new ideas we may not have otherwise encountered. To give a recent example, I was amazed at how quickly Kent Libraries were able to lend me a copy of The Age Of Diagnosis, Suzanne O’Sullivan’s highly-publicised new book claiming that conditions such as autism are overdiagnosed. I wanted to read The Age Of Diagnosis precisely because I fundamentally disagree with that premise; reading the book did not change my mind, but it did give me a better understanding of the arguments, and my own thinking in this area is richer for having read it. A knee-jerk reaction to censor or remove books with ideas we do not understand feels antithetical to the purpose of a library, and history has repeatedly shown us the dangers of this approach. Indeed, the reactions from some Councillors on social media – which appears to be where they learned of the decision – suggest that this has been carried out at the request of a single Councillor rather than an official mandate from Kent County Council as a whole.

The Autistic Trans Guide To Life is a book aimed at adults, as its blurb makes clear, and is therefore very unlikely to be appealing or accessible for young children. According to the statement from Kent County Council, it was never located in the children’s library at all, but “in a public display at the entrance” – almost certainly a temporary display, perhaps to celebrate Pride or showcase new acquisitions alongside other books for adults..."

"...almost certainly a temporary display, perhaps to celebrate Pride or showcase new acquisitions alongside other books for adults. The decision to remove the book from this display carries a significant chilling effect – does it follow that all books whose covers refer to transgender people are unfit to display with equal prominence to other similar books, and must be hidden away where all library users are less likely to find them? The implication of this decision is that the very existence of trans people is somehow inappropriate for children to know about, or that trans people are an inherent threat to children. This is simply not true. In decades past, people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual faced similar stigma, and we as a society now recognise that this was unfounded and discriminatory. Now is the time to learn from those mistakes.

I am not transgender myself, but I am autistic. Autism is lifelong, and autistic children grow into autistic adults. Yet, while there has been great progress in recent years, many people still hold the misconception that autism is a childhood condition. The result is that autistic adults like me are frequently disbelieved by others and even overlooked in service provision. The singling out of The Autistic Trans Guide To Life by a library user and by Councillors, and especially the assumption that this book displayed near a universal entrance was being targeted at children, seems to me to be based on this misconception. The growing narrative against trans people has weaponised autism on many occasions, referring to autistic trans individuals as “children” well into adulthood, and suggesting that autistic people cannot really know their own minds and must therefore be under undue influence from others. That rhetoric is damaging for all autistic people, whether we are trans or not..."

"I would be very grateful if you were able to share more about:
• the nature of the display The Autistic Trans Guide To Life has been removed from, its proximity to the children’s section of the relevant library, and its new location;
• how the decision to remove this book from the display was made, and what procedure was followed beyond, as reported, a complaint from a single library user and subsequent complaint from a single Councillor;
• which, if any, other books are potentially affected by this decision;
• what processes are in place to protect Kent’s libraries from undue political influence;
• how Kent Libraries will continue to ensure transgender people can continue to access books and information that reflects their lives on an equal footing with others.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I understand you probably have a very full inbox at the moment, but I felt it was important to add my voice and show that while those hostile to transgender people often shout the loudest, they do not reflect the majority of Kent library users.

Best wishes,
Georgia Harper"

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Apr 2

@autistica.org.uk's #WorldAutismAcceptanceDay campaign at Westfield Stratford City, and coming to billboards across England and Scotland in the next two weeks! We want you to see us as individuals, not just stereotypes. Find out more: www.autistica.org.uk/get-involved...

A very windswept selfie of Autistica's External Affairs team. Billboard reads: "Don't assume autistic people lack empathy. Maybe your relationship drama is just too predictable."

Billboard reads: "Don't assume autistic people struggle to follow a conversation. Maybe your story is just really boring."

Billboard reads: "Don't assume autistic people lack a sense of humour. Maybe your joke just isn't that funny."

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Mar 14

If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery

Heathrow Terminal 4 hotels bridge - taken internally so it's basically a white corridor with a distant Premier Inn sign

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 21

Meme showing unanswered iPhone text messages which read: "Ashford tonite [eyes emoji]" "Ashford tonight queen??" "Ashford tonite [eyes emoji]

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 21

He must be REALLY adamant about his decision

Screenshot from BBC News homepage. Three headlines read: "Man, 87, 'staying put' in home near sinkhole." "Neighbours cancelled again, two years after revival." "Man, 87, 'staying put' in home near sinkhole."

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 9

Heathrow Airport is a surprisingly fun place when you cut out the whole plane thing. Look at this roundel!!!

Roundel reads (with only the first letter capitalised) "Ticket holders only", with an arrow pointing round the corner

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Feb 9

I also ticked off Walthamstow Central Tube station for the first time, and used the Windrush Line for the first time since its renaming, but had no time to take photos ☹️ On the plus side, our choice of accommodation gave me a few more new roundels over the weekend:

Roundel for Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 (now officially renamed Terminals 2 & 3)

Roundel for Heathrow Terminal 5, with airport-style signage for departures and arrivals to its left

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jan 29

I still can't believe there is now an app that lets you do this

Screenshot from Nintendo Music app showing a playlist called "Area Zero". The thumbnail image are the cover Pokémon from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Tracks include Area Zero, Area Zero Underdepths, Battle! (Area Zero Pokémon), Battle! (Area Zero Pokémon 2), and Battle! (Zero Lab)

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jan 23

2. London's transport network in general and the Tube in particular. Look at it it's got roundels and disused tunnels and everything

Photo of Green Park Jubilee Line platform, taken through a grille from above

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jan 8

First day back in the office today, and my laptop is really getting into the spirit:

$Microsoft Word pop-up reads: "Word has detected a problem with the existing \Normal.dotm. Would you like to create a new \Normal.dotm? Yes/No"$

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Jan 1

Perfect, 10/10, no notes (though seriously, I'm not a fan of this situation where the first line of the most popular search engine people have learned to trust is completely, demonstrably wrong)

Screenshot of Google on my phone. The search bar says "can you trade eggs in pokemon s...". The AI Overview says (incorrectly): "No, you cannot trade eggs in Pokémon Scarlet." Below it, pulled text from the first suggested result begins "Absolutely, you can trade eggs in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet!"

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Dec 28

Without downloading any new pics, what's your energy going into 2025

That meme with the teacher from Glee, caption edited to read: "I am going to create a chat that is so reac'd"

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Dec 15

Christmas market time, finally got the obligatory @garethdennis.bsky.social book/railway photo en route as well

The book "How The Railways Will Fix The Future" by Gareth Dennis, held up in front of a Class 375 Southeastern train

Georgia Harper@mindtheflap· Dec 11

Update from the @autistica.org.uk Secret Santa: