About

I'm Ashleigh Sternes, founder of The Equilyst.

I've always asked why.

Why things are done a certain way.

Why systems work the way they do.

Who they work for – and who they don't.

I don't stop asking until the answer makes sense.

I've always felt a deep sense of difference.

As a queer, late-diagnosed Autistic woman, I'm used to adapting to a world that wasn’t built for me.

At work, that looked like minimising or ignoring my needs, forcing myself to conform at the expense of my comfort, and being grateful for the minimum anyone should expect.

At some point, I realised something – the problem isn't difference.

It's systems that aren’t built for it.

Most systems are designed around an assumed default – built for the middle of the bell curve, not the full range of people within it. Everyone else adapts, works around, makes do.

This work exists for the people that assumption leaves out, and it starts by naming that the system, not the person, is where the problem lives.

I'm not interested in adjusting systems.

I'm interested in questioning them.

Real change doesn't come from adding people to broken systems.

It comes from designing better ones.

My work is for the people systems weren't built for.

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