A FLASH OF PERSPECTIVES: NEURODIVERSITY & QUEERNESS
Venue: Fitzgerald Hall 5:00pm - 6:00pm
A Flash of Perspectives: Neurodiversity & Queerness is the opportunity for four members of the queer neurodivergent community to share short 10 minute talks about their lived experiences, and share their perspectives. The speakers are Blezzing Dada, Felix O’Connor, Chloe Victory and Ollie Bell. The event will be facilitated by Dr. Mary Doherty.
Dr. Mary Doherty (She/Her)
Dr Mary Doherty is an autistic Consultant Anaesthetist and Clinical Associate Professor at University College Dublin School of Medicine. As founder of Autistic Doctors International, Mary has brought together a vibrant community of autistic doctors from across the world, with a focus on peer support, advocacy, research, and training. Her research interests include healthcare for autistic people as well as experiences and support needs of autistic medical students and doctors. Current projects include the experiences of autistic psychiatrists and reasonable accommodations for autistic clinicians. She developed the Autistic SPACE framework for meeting the needs of autistic people in healthcare and other settings including education. As mother of 2 neurodivergent young people, Mary is passionate about optimising mental and physical health for autistic people and she believes that moving from traditional deficit framing of autism to a neurodiversity affirmative approach is the way forwards.
Chloe Victory (She/Her)
Chloe Victory is a trans, autistic writer, filmmaker and performer from Dublin. From 2022 to 2025, Chloe worked on Screen Ireland Skills team as skills development coordinator for Section 481 and work-based learning. In 2022, her feature-length documentary A Far Green Country premiered at the Irish Film Institute; this film exploring her challenges with autism, while traveling to Lord of the Rings filming locations in New Zealand, is now available on the IFI Player. In 2023, she performed a martial arts solo show called Elementaller at Smock Alley Theatre for Scene & Heard Festival. And in 2025, she received a black belt in the martial art Silat.
Felix O’Connor (He/Him)
Felix is a writer, stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker. He is a queer trans man and often explores that experience in his work.
He is a graduate of Bow Street Academy of Screen Acting’s full time course (year of 2023), where he trained with world renowned acting coach Gerry Grennell, and directors such as Cathy Brady, Marionne Quinn, and Lance Daly.
Felix is co-founder of Hysteria comedy, a comedy collective founded in lockdown of 2020 online and brought onto the live club scene in 2021 in Sin É. He has opened for Rosie O'Donnell and Joel Kim Booster, and played at the Paddy Power Comedy Festival. His first solo show "Bad Girl: A One Man Show" was nominated for the Little Gem Award in Dublin Fringe 2024. His short film Bike was selected for funding by Screen Ireland’s Actor as Creator scheme; it is currently in pre production.
Blezzing Dada (She/They)
Blezzing Dada from Dublin, Ireland, is a multiple award-winning Black-Irish mental health activist, speaker & blogger who’s an outspoken passionate on various social justice issues, especially on a focus of intersectionality within the mental health spaces, shaped by liberatory care, transformative justice, harm reduction & anti-capitalist frameworks.
Accompanied with her own lived experiences with all things, being multiple disabled (chronically ill & neurodivergent) and mad, they shed perspectives, uncommonly heard for Black & other ethnic minority + further marginalised communities in Ireland. Being involved with numerous community groups, she can be found participating in mutual aid work, podcasts & writing to spread awareness: through empathy and education