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Joey Matsuda

Joseph William “Joey” Matsuda was a mixed-race Japanese American and white attorney born in Pasadena, California, on June 20, 1987. He was the youngest of Ellen and Greg Matsuda’s four children. Joey later practiced disability-rights and LGBTQ+ justice law and founded Matsuda Law Group in 2012.

Early Life and Family

Joey grew up in Pasadena with his older siblings, Susie, Cody, and Pattie. Greg was a Japanese American professor of educational psychology, and Ellen was a white disability-services oversight official and advocate.

Joey was seven when Cody attempted suicide in spring 1995. Cody survived an anoxic brain injury, became nonspeaking, and began using American Sign Language and augmentative and alternative communication. Joey learned ASL with the rest of the family and used it to communicate with Cody.

At the family meeting after Cody’s attempt, Joey curled against Susie and asked what suicide meant and whether Cody was still alive. He drew their house with all six family members together and smiling, labeling each stick figure by name. Ellen brought the drawing to Cody’s hospital room and placed it beside his bed. Joey took quickly to ASL and thought Cody’s AAC device was cool.

Joey was affectionate and physically energetic as a child. He hugged freely, sought Susie when frightened, and followed Pattie from game to game, trying to climb the trees and jump from the places she did. Pattie was the coolest person he knew; he defended her when others called her a bad child: “Pattie’s not bad! She just gets mad sometimes!” Ellen and Greg had to stop him from attempting stunts beyond his own coordination.

From ages eight through ten, Joey was often nearby while the Matsuda-Davis Homeschool Cooperative met at the family home. Although Cody and Andy Davis were its students, Joey sometimes observed lessons and participated informally.

Personality and Communication

Joey communicated directly and often interpreted language literally. He preferred concrete explanations and explicit rules to implication or euphemism. These traits were familiar within a family that included several other autistic people and used direct communication routinely.

As a child he could press a question through several rounds of “why” and report an observation without softening it for the listener. When a classmate said boys could not have boyfriends, Joey asked why and challenged the claim. At the summer 1995 family dinner where Cody introduced Andy as his boyfriend, eight-year-old Joey asked Andy, “Are you and Cody gonna get married?” He explained that Ellen had said people who loved one another sometimes married, and he had heard Cody say he loved Andy. The adults’ discomfort puzzled him; to Joey, the rule applied as stated.

As the youngest sibling, Joey sought information from his parents and older siblings during family crises. His questions were often blunt, particularly when he encountered rules or social judgments that appeared inconsistent.

Cultural Identity and Heritage

Joey was mixed race and multi-ethnic (Japanese American through Greg and white through Ellen). He grew up within both the Matsuda and Moore family networks.

Health and Disabilities

Main article: Autism Spectrum

Joey was autistic and did not have ADHD. He self-identified as autistic in his late twenties and never pursued formal diagnosis. His traits included direct and concrete communication, literal interpretation, pattern recognition, and difficulty with unspoken social rules.

Reading about autism and neurodiversity as an adult gave Joey a name for traits he recognized in himself. Within the Matsuda household, directness and literal speech had long been familiar, so his traits had not separated him from the rest of his family in the way they sometimes did outside it.

Personal Style and Daily Life

As a young child, Joey often had scraped knees, untied shoes, and hair left messy by play. He sought comfort through touch, especially by curling close to Susie during frightening conversations. His days included school, family dinners, Susie’s bedtime reading, and following his older siblings around the house and yard.

After Cody’s crisis, Joey sought repeated reassurance that his family members were safe. He counted the days until Susie’s visits after she left for Stanford and sent her letters and drawings with Ellen’s help. Pattie’s difficult pregnancy in 1998 renewed his fear. On the night she came home almost too exhausted to walk after the Backstreet Boys concert, eleven-year-old Joey watched her breathe with Ellen and Greg. He asked to sleep in his parents’ room in case she needed help, explaining, “Sometimes people stop breathing when they’re really tired.” On October 28, 1998, Pattie’s daughter Lila was born, and Joey became an uncle.

Career

Main article: Joey Matsuda (Career and Legacy)

As a teenager in the early 2000s, Joey used JoeyM1987 in online conversations where he challenged homophobic claims through direct questions, evidence, and close attention to contradictions. Some of those exchanges circulated among LGBTQ+ teenagers.

Joey completed undergraduate study from 2005 through 2009 and legal education from 2009 through 2012. His training included internships with Disability Rights California and an ACLU unit working on LGBTQ+ rights.

Joey became an attorney whose practice focused on disability rights and LGBTQ+ justice. He founded Matsuda Law Group, LLP in 2012 after accepting his family’s recommendation that the formal practice use a conventional legal name rather than his preferred ‘’Heather’s Law’‘. The firm’s disability-rights, LGBTQ+ rights, family, healthcare, education, and institutional work often centered clients whose disabilities and queer or transgender identities interacted.

Family and Core Relationships

Ellen and Greg Matsuda

Ellen’s disability-services oversight work and Greg’s educational-psychology career were part of Joey’s family environment. Both parents supported the family through Cody’s 1995 medical crisis and the communication changes that followed.

Susie, Cody, and Pattie Matsuda

Joey was the youngest of the four Matsuda siblings and remained close to Susie, Cody, and Pattie. He learned ASL after Cody became nonspeaking, and the brothers later worked in different areas of disability rights.

Susie was nine when Joey was born and became his “second mom.” She read to him at bedtime, helped with homework, played with him when her own work kept her busy, and offered the warm hugs and reassurance he sought when frightened. During Cody’s spring 1995 crisis, she held Joey and tried to answer his questions while concealing much of her own fear.

Her departure for Stanford in fall 1995 was painful for Joey. He asked, “Don’t go, Susie! Stay here! Why do you have to leave? Who will read to me when you’re gone?” Susie promised to call, visit, and write. Joey sent letters with Ellen’s help and drew pictures telling Susie he missed her; she saved every one. Their relationship continued across the distance, and Susie later supplied medical expertise for his disability-rights cases.

Joey admired Cody’s intelligence and Pattie’s courage. He followed Pattie into physical play but also watched her defend Cody when other children mistreated him. When Cody and Andy began dating, Joey took their relationship as an ordinary fact of family life and argued against classmates who said it was wrong. His eventual legal work offered a different way to act on the family’s commitment to protecting one another.

Heather Moore

Heather Moore, Ellen’s youngest sister, had cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and autism; used a wheelchair while retaining some difficult walking; and was part of Joey’s extended family throughout his childhood. Her experiences were central to the Moore family’s disability-rights work and to Joey’s original choice of ‘’Heather’s Law’’ as the name for his practice.

Characters Supporting Characters Living Characters Legal Professionals Japanese-American Characters White Characters Mixed Race Characters Mixed Heritage Characters Disabled Characters Neurodivergent Characters Autistic Characters ASL Users Matsuda Family