Lydia X. Z. Brown

I am an openly disabled, multiply neurodivergent advocate, organizer, educator, attorney, strategist, and writer for disability justice and disability rights. For over a decade, my work has largely focused on interpersonal and state violence against multiply-marginalized disabled people living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and language.

Currently, I work as Policy Counsel for the Privacy and Data project at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Adjunct Lecturer in Disability Studies for Georgetown University's English Department; and Director of Policy, Advocacy, and External affairs at the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. I'm also founder and volunteer director of the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color's Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment. I serve as a founding board member of the Alliance for Citizen Directed Supports, presidential appointee to the American Bar Association's Commission on Disability Rights, and co-chair of the American Bar Association's Section on Civil Rights & Social Justice, Disability Rights Committee.

Three years ago, I led publication of the co-edited anthology All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism. Previously, I've worked on algorithmic justice and disability at Georgetown Law's Institute for Tech Law & Policy and advocated for educational civil rights for disabled youth as Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. I'm past chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, and former visiting lecturer at Tufts University. My writing appears in numerous community and scholarly publications.