Episode Details

I’m a 22 year old man on the autism spectrum who was medicated in kindergarten, experienced cruel abuse in special education, and was nearly transitioned at 14.I’ve now dedicated my life to making sure other people diagnosed with things like autism or ADHD can still have close friends, guidance, leadership, community, and to live full lives without constant interference from the school and medical systems.

My stance on how we are treating our youth.

The first crime is that we are offering our children no hope—just stories of climate disaster and AI replacement with no chance of owning a house — while leaving them a mountain of debt that they will never climb.

We believe that children should be left alone to be children as long as possible.

There is an innocence to childhood that cannot be repaired once lost.

These people who are asking children if they were born in the wrong body, and these other people who want to medicate them if the child seems incapable of focusing, are not only confused do-gooders who are actually abusing these children, but they are also thieves stealing their childhood.

A Message from Cafe Locked Out

Cafe Locked Out started life as Cafe Locked Down in Melbourne, right in the middle of the Covid years.

Six years on, we’re still here — and we’re now reaching between five and six million people a month. That number isn’t just interviews. It includes the rants, the posts, the conversations, and everything else that happens in this space.

In a purely commercial sense, the smart move would be to lock everything behind a paywall. Why do all this work and give it away for free?

But we’re not a normal podcast. We’re closer to an online community — and a lot of people in this community are doing it really hard. Some of us are living in tents.

We simply can’t, in good conscience, cut those people off because they can’t afford a subscription.

So instead of going fully paid, we want to say this:

To everyone who already supports the work — thank you. You are the only reason we’re still able to keep going.

And if you regularly take something from what we put out, and you can comfortably afford to chip in, we’d be genuinely grateful if you did.

Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on. It keeps this space open for the people who need it most.

Thank you for being here.

Kelli and Michael

Cafe Locked Out