How one UM student is reclaiming story and redefining support for their community.
Aimée-Mihkokwaniy McGillis (they/them) knows firsthand how transformative change becomes possible when institutions create space for Indigenous neurodivergent people to show up as their full selves. At UM, McGillis is a driving force behind that change. They’re using their expertise and lived experience to strengthen research, build community and develop first-of-their-kind supports.
McGillis is a Two-Spirit, Michif-Nehiyaw person with autism and ADHD. The projects and advocacy they engage in are rooted in these aspects of their identity, and in their legacy as a descendant of storytellers, Knowledge Keepers and ceremony people.
In 2025, they completed a bachelor’s degree in Indigenous studies and psychology at UM and they are currently working on a master of science in community health. They’ve had great success in school, but as the granddaughter and niece of residential school Survivors, McGillis avoided going to university for a long time.
“There are a lot of wounds that Indigenous students come in with and fears about being in this colonial system because of their lived experience,” McGillis says. For them, neurodivergence added an additional layer of complexity.
“I wasn't able to come to UM until I was in my 30s and I had really started to understand the rhythms and the support that I needed and the kind of environment that I could create within myself and within the spaces I went, to be able to learn,” McGillis says.
They see the brilliance inherent in neurodivergent people who recognize patterns, understand systems and are great problem solvers.
“I see a similarity in my Indigenous communities in that we have found ways to survive in these systems that were built to destroy us,” they say. They also see how neurodivergent people can thrive when they're given the right kind of care, nurturing and environment and have people who advocate for them and advocate for change.
When viewed through a western lens, autism, ADHD and other types of neurodivergence are foremost seen as disorders, but this perspective ignores the gifts and strengths of neurodivergent people and the disabling impact of systems that require conformity to a neurotypical “ideal”.
Indigenous perspectives on neurodivergence are different. Before Europeans arrived, there weren’t names for autism or ADHD.
“The community would have just identified, ‘Aimée may need this’ and my needs would have been supported, and my gifts would have been found,” McGillis says. “The same would be true for everyone.”
A key characteristic of neurodivergence is elevated sensitivity, something McGillis believes is a connection to Spirit and as a result, they have a responsibility to their communities to share about what they’re feeling.
“Those feelings are a signal, but they’re not just for us,” they say. “When we talk about how we're feeling in spaces and how spaces impact us and ask that our support needs are met, that has impact not just for ourselves, but for others too. When we create spaces that feel good for everyone, that are equitable for everyone, every single person benefits.”
One thing McGillis learned while working their way through their undergraduate degree is that there are a lot of people who don’t understand neurodiversity and therefore, don’t know how to support neurodivergent learners. There is also a huge gap in research; there are thousands of studies on autism, but almost none that speak to the lived realities of Indigenous autistic people. McGillis’s goal is to change this.
“I want to have research that's done by Indigenous autistic people for Indigenous autistic people so that we can have resources that are really rooted in who we are, using research methodologies that have an autistic Indigenous world view,” McGillis says. “I want people to understand the value that we bring to our communities and how to support us. This is what my whole journey at school, and my career is dedicated to.”
As part of their advocacy, McGillis has gotten involved in a variety of projects and initiatives both on campus and in the wider community.
They sit on the board of directors for the Autism Alliance of Canada and are a member of the Indigenous Advisory Committee for the National Autism Network. They co-founded the Indigenous Neurodivergence Summit last fall, an effort to reinvigorate kinship networks and ensure those who are speaking on behalf of the community are actually Indigenous and neurodivergent.
As a project coordinator at Ongomiizwin at UM, McGillis’s focus has been education— creating an online module for the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. Their goal is to enhance supports for Indigenous neurodivergent learners by creating culturally safer resources that students and staff have access to.
Their most personal project is an educational video on Indigenous neurodivergence they created while they were a Fellow in Equity, Anti-Oppression and Social Justice, an initiative of the university’s Office of Equity Transformation (OET). OET’s program provides students from diverse backgrounds with nine-month fellowships to work on projects that advance equity, anti-oppression, accessibility and social justice.
“I think a lot about Reconciliation within colonial spaces, and how that can happen in a meaningful way,” McGillis says. “For me, reconciliation means being able to show up authentically as the Michif-Nehiyaw Two-Spirit neurodivergent person that I am and have the ways in which I exist differently be a part of the way changes are made.”
McGillis’s fellowship gave them the opportunity to work in the way that they needed to work on a project that was very meaningful. They were able to create an educational tool rooted in storytelling and include the way their family members have been storytellers for generations. They were able to use Indigenous research methodologies to interview others about their experiences and they were able to shoot the video on one of their ancestral homelands in Manitoba— land where their great, great grandparents lived.
“I think that it's deeply important for the university to share who we are as Indigenous people in the way that we want to be seen, in the way that we want to share. I think it's important for autistic people and neurodivergent people too,” McGillis says. “The fellowship gave me the space to do that in a way that I never expected to get from university administration and that gives me hope that there can be meaningful systemic change.”
McGillis knows that change, especially systemic change, can be a slow process with many ups and downs along the way, but they are committed. In the moments when they are feeling discouraged, it’s their family that keeps them going.
“My dad always reminds me when I talk to him about feeling upset about the world right now, he's like, ‘I know that we still have a long way to go, but I want you to know how far we've come,’” McGillis says. “Sometimes, I'll read my projects or show him and he just cries. Not because he's sad, but because he says ‘your Kookum would be so proud. She wouldn't even believe the things that you're saying and the things that you're doing, and it's just incredible.’”
As a parent of children who are “neurodivergent and brilliant,” McGillis also wants to create opportunities for youth to have the space to be who they are.
“I am so honoured to do this work for my community, and my descendants,” McGillis says. “Indigenous neurodivergent people are ready to be the voices for the resources that we need to have safer experiences within the systems that we are going to change with our presence, and our ways of knowing.”
Creating space for everyone to thrive is more than a goal—it’s who we are. Fostering a vibrant community is among the commitments you’ll find in MomentUM: Leading change together, the University of Manitoba’s 2024–2029 strategic plan.
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