Amina Phelps, an African American woman from Atlanta, Georgia, was raising her autistic 9-year-old son A.J. when she began to suspect that she herself may also be autistic. Sure enough, doctors diagnosed her with autism, even though she’s already in her 40’s. The shocking news and late diagnosis inspired her to write a book called Hidden in Plain Sight: A Journey of Autism, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery about how Black women with autism are often rendered invisible in conversations about neurodiversity, sidelined by systemic bias in research, resources, and public perception.
In her book, Amina courageously confronts this erasure while redefining what it means to thrive as a neurodivergent Black woman. Drawing from her lived experiences, she shines a light on the double-edged sword of being a Black woman with undiagnosed autism — a reality many women face due to the persistent white, male-centric lens of autism diagnosis and research. This deeply personal memoir is not just a call for representation but also an indictment of a system that routinely fails Black women and girls by misdiagnosing or overlooking their struggles altogether.
