Interview: Christa Holmans

A person with glasses and a shirt that reads “Autistic,” posing in front of a wall with painted rainbow wings. Photo from Neurodivergent Rebel

Today on Neurodiversity News, we’ve had the honor to interview Christa Holmans, who runs the blog, Neurodivergent Rebel. This is what they had to say.


Neurodiversity News: Tell me about yourself and what you do.

Christa Holmans: I’m currently employed full-time as the VP of Marketing and an Organizational Change Agent, specializing in neurodiversity at the Austin Alliance Group – but outside of “office hours,” I run a popular neurodiversity blog – Neurodivergent Rebel.

NN: What inspired you to become an autistic advocate?

CH: When I was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 29, I went to Google to learn more about autism, but the results I found were depressing. I was at a crucial fork in the road. When autistic people are diagnosed, we can go down one of two paths when learning about autism – the path towards accepting ourselves and living our best autistic lives OR the path towards self-loathing and resentment for being “different.”

NN: How do you think your YouTube channel and social media platforms have impacted the autistic community?

CH: People have sent me countless messages and DM’s saying that finding my page has helped them to do one of the following: Realize they are also autistic, accept themselves more as a neurodivergent individual, and my personal favorite would be a parent who ALMOST tried ABA but read something on my page and realized that was NOT what they should be doing. I get a LOT of these – THAT brings me a great joy.

NN: I know you do public speaking as well. How has that been going?

CH: In March, before COVID-19 hit, I had a full tour lined up this year. I already had an average of about one flight a month booked from March until November. I was gearing up to start traveling to conferences all over the country… then the flights started canceling. Some of the events have moved to virtual, and I’ve been doing a lot of Zoom presentations. It’s funny when I started traveling to do public speaking the entire adventure of traveling alone, and speaking in front of people was often overwhelming… I was JUST starting to get used to and even look forward to these trips when they canceled. The truth is, presenting virtually IS easier for me. I can also do more work with less downtime to recharge in between.

NN: Who are your greatest inspirations?

CH: Fred Rodgers, Bob Ross, Martin Luther King Jr., & Marsha P. Johnson.

NN: What do you hope to achieve in the future?

CH: I really hope that the work I do and the content that I create helps people. That’s really my only goal with everything I do. I’m just trying to do some good with the time I have on this planet, and leave this earth a bit better than I found it.