Delving Into the Complexity of Unmasking Safely

by Jade Farrington and Kieran Rose, The Autistic Advocate

There's a harmful myth that Autistic masking is about acting neurotypical.

In reality, this is just a tiny part of it. Most masking is unconscious, and is about projecting acceptability. It may even involve acting 'more' Autistic!

So why is this misconception harmful?

It leads to narratives such as the idea that those with higher support needs can't or don't mask. Many Autistics can't 'act neurotypical', but everyone masks in one way or another - even babies.

It gives the impression that it's a conscious - and potentially manipulative - choice. Very little masking is actively chosen.

It suggests that Autistic people can simply unmask and become their 'authentic selves', and that if they don't then they just need to try harder.

Find out what Autistic masking is really all about; why people do it; and the complexity of unmasking in this ebook.

As part of Neurokindred’s Thriving Autistically online wellbeing festival, we spent two hours discussing masking and answering questions from the Autistic audience.

The event wasn’t recorded, so this ebook is a curated and edited version.

Kieran began by conceptualising masking; busting some of the myths that surround it; and looking at why we do it. Jade then delved into how we might be able to start unmasking safely, and considered why it’s not as simple as a lot of the mainstream narratives suggest.

The webinar drew on our previous work, training, and resources, as well as adding new context, content, and practical application.

The piece below is necessarily long (more than 10,000 words). Masking is a topic that is frequently over-simplified to the point of being reduced to a caricature, and this all needs unpicking and recontextualising before getting to the idea of unmasking.

Masking touches on a range of experiences around stigmatisation, oppression, abuse and poor mental health, so please be mindful of this before reading.

You can download this book right here for £6 - or if you'd like more resources then sign up to my Substack for £5 per month at https://jadefarrington.substack.com. There's no tie-in and you'll gain a month's access to my full archive of articles and resources.

This is the ebook version of an article which is available free of charge at https://jadefarrington.substack.com/p/delving-into-the-complexity-of-unmasking

Release date: November 24th, 2025