Lakan Ubaya Nagsalad on Ancestral Connection, Traditional Medicine, and Gender
39m | Nov 24, 2025- Support Lakan Ubaya’s traditional medicine practice at https://www.the-atang.site/
- The BIPOC autistic evaluator he mentioned - the link no longer works sadly: https://www.breakingbarrierstogetherllc.org/
Help us sustain this project by contributing to our fundraiser: https://rewilding.cc/book
In this episode:
00:42: Lakan Ubaya Nagsalad (he/it) introduces his Tagalog and Chinoy ancestry and the interconnectedness of his gender, queerness, and neurodivergence
01:33: How Lakan Ubaya’s couple’s therapy session led to an unexpected realization — and why it was difficult for it to see itself in the diagnostic criteria at first
05:35: The gift of being evaluated by an autistic BIPOC therapist
07:13: How an AuDHD diagnosis transformed his relationships and career
09:05: How Lakan Ubaya’s traditional Chinese medicine training influence his views on neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, and other common co-occurring health conditions
15:08: How whiteness, colonialism, and capitalism shape our views of neurodivergence
18:45: Lakan Ubaya’s gender identity journey — and looking beyond whitewashed, colonial concepts of gender
22:42: How traditional healers in the Philippines exist beyond colonial concepts of the gender binary and neurotypicality — and why seeking pre-colonial “authenticity” is a myth
26:59: “People just assume that I don’t struggle mentally as much as I actually do” — all the tools and scaffolds it relies on to survive
28:54: The financial, career, emotional, and energetic costs of being a multiply-disabled queer autigender Asian American person in a capitalist society
32:15: Food as a nonverbal, somatic way for Lakan Ubaya’s bicultural and possibly neurodivergent family members to communicate
33:42: We gushed about mooncake, Mid-Autumn Festival, and why some Asian autistics prefer it to Lunar New Year
35:28: “We have kindred spirits around us all the time” — on connecting with other autistic BIPOC and ancestral practices
38:19: How to support Lakan Ubaya’s practice in traditional medicine
Access the transcript for this episode by supporting us at: https://rewilding.cc/book
#autistic #actuallyautistic #adhd #audhd #queeraudhdbipoc #audhdbipoc #qtibipoc #bipoc #neurodivergence #neurodiversity
