Hello everyone, and thank you for joining me for GeekDis 2023, the annual event discussing disabled and neurodivergent representation in pop culture.

If you’re new here and have never heard about GeekDis, a quick explanation (want more?). In 2021, I wanted to spread awareness about disability and neurodivergent representation and why it is important for accurate representation. GeekDis was born, and for the past two years it has been held in September. After some consideration I decided to move GeekDis to July this year to coincide with Disability Pride month. Originally when I came up with the idea for the event there were various reasons why I chose September (more details here), and then last year during Disability Pride month there were so many horrific examples of disability representation being listed by non-disabled people.

So this year the plan is to respond to ignorance with education. Myself and others from across the world will be discussing disability representation in books, movies, TV shows, video games, cosplay, the Internet and more.

Welcome to GeekDis 2023!

It is not too late to join in with the event! The event runs until the end of July 2023, so you can take part at any time, even on the 31st July (it’s still July, it counts!). GeekDis is one of those events that you don’t need to sign up for; the sign-up form I had up was only to help me organise.

There’s only two guidelines you need to follow to take part in GeekDis:

1. You need to identify as disabled or neurodivergent: All types of disability are accepted (please see here for more details), as is self-diagnosis and no one is “not disabled enough”. We don’t do elitism here. The only exceptions are those who are posting on behalf (as in, with consent) of people with intellectual disabilities.
2. You must post new content: GeekDis is a discussion event, so I ask that people contribute actively to the discussion by bringing something new to the table. That could be a discuss point that links back to previous content, but please don’t just reblog or reshare something that you’ve posted before.

Otherwise, the general guidelines of play nice with others apply and GeekDis is a safe space.

You can post about anything related to disability and neurodivergent representation. Not sure where to start or what to talk about then check out these discussion topic ideas for GeekDis.

GeekDis is a collaborative discussion for the disabled and neurodivergent community, and at the heart of this event is awareness. It is imperative that only our voices are heard talking about disability representation. It gets confusing when non-disabled people enter the conversation as their opinions can muddy the water, offering alternate perspectives that do not correlate with the disabled community.

What we need is your support and you can learn more about what that looks like by heading to the GeekDis support page.

There will be some activities open to everyone, including non-disabled people, such as challenges and tags. These are listed below:

• The GeekDis Book & Film/TV Shows Bingo Challenge

Remember to use the #geekdis hashtag on social media and WordPress, so I can find your content! If you’re on Twitter tag @geekdis2023, so I can retweet you. On Facebook and Instagram please tag @justgeekingby, so I can share!

There is a Facebook group for participants to planning and discuss content here and a Twitter account to follow for content announcements throughout July.

https://twitter.com/geekdis2023

---

Support Just Geeking By

I hope you enjoyed this post! If you did please consider sharing it on social media using the nifty buttons at the end of this post <3

If you enjoyed this content please consider helping to support my blog. You can do this in multiple ways (click here to find out how!) or by donating via Ko-Fi to help me reach my current goal.