🌈🌈 Neurodiversity and Gender: You Hit So Hard With All the Colors That There Are

When you consider our honesty, our preference for truthJustice, equality, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions.Very Grand Emotions: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently » NeuroClastic https://youtu.be/uPRa6G2a48E... More and fairnessEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes... More, then gender identity is likely to be more fluid and less binary. Why do we need to fit into a mode of social expectation if we truly don’t believe this is who we are? The non-autistic world is governed by social and traditional expectations, but we may not notice these or fail to see them as important. This frees us up to connect more readily with our true gender.

Listen to the individual, work together, and follow expert advice to support autistic people questioning their gender.

People who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times as likely to be autistic as cisgender people are, according to the largest study yet to examine the connection¹. Gender-diverse people are also more likely to report autismAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline.  If... More traits and to suspect they have undiagnosed autism.

“All these findings across differentOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... More datasets tend to tell a similar story,” says study investigator Varun Warrier, research associate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Autistic people are more likely than neurotypicalThe existence of the word neurotypical makes it possible to have conversations about topics like neurotypical privilege. Neurotypical is a word that allows us to talk about members of the... More people to be gender diverse, several studies show, and gender-diverse people are more likely to have autism than are cisgender people^2,3.

Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity

We like to think of neurodiversity as a social modelIn the broadest sense, the social model of disability is about nothing more complicated than a clear focus on the economic, environmental and cultural barriers encountered by people who are... More umbrella that, when opened to its broadest, includes Queer people.

Spectrums and rainbows, double rainbows.

It’s a double rainbow all the way.

Yosemitebear

Here comes the sun
It's shining right through you
On everyone
You came in so hot
You broke the ice up
Feeling so strong

I got to shine on
Through all the black and blue
I got it from you
It hits so hard with all the colors that there are

I want to know you
I want to see the sound
You're like a rainbow
But not the same though

I got to shine on
Through all the black and blue
I got it from you
It hits so hard with all the colors that there are

Here comes the sun
It's shining right through you
On everyone
It hits so hard with all the colors that there are
You hit so hard with all the colors that there are

--Rainbow Shiner by Ex Hex

Laura Harris Rainbow GIF By Merge Records via GIPHY

GenderpunkDue both to their ability to denaturalize social norms and to their neurological differences, autistic individuals can offer novel insights into gender as a social process. Examining gender from an... More: a colloquial term for culture and resistance against gendernormativity; an identity that in and of itself is a resistance against gender norms, homophobia and transphobia, oppression and societal status.

Your gender has nothing to do with your eligibility to be genderpunkGenderpunk: a colloquial term for culture and resistance against gendernormativity; an identity that in and of itself is a resistance against gender norms, homophobia and transphobia, oppression and societal status... More. If you agree with the mindsetThe marketing of mindsets was everywhere this year: “How to Develop Mindsets for Compassion and Caring in Students.” “Building A Tinkering Mindset In Young Students Through Making.” “6 Must-Haves for... More, no matter how you identify, you can be a part of the movement. 

Have A Gay Day : What is ‘Genderpunk’?

Here comes Dick, he's wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y'know she's sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who's gonna fuss?

And they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous

Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad
He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad
And she don't need advice that's sent at her
She's happy with the way she looks, she's happy with her gender

And they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous

Mirror image, see no damage
See no evil at all
Kewpie dolls and urine stalls will be laughed at
The way you're laughed at now

Now, something meets Boy, and something meets Girl
They both look the same, they're overjoyed in this world
Same hair, revolution
Unisex, evolution
Tomorrow who's gonna fuss

--Androgynous by The Replacements

Content Note: ableismable·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ nounA system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply... More, behaviorismUltimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it... More, ABAUltimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it... More, conversion therapy, homophobia, transphobia, abuse, dysphoria, suicide

Queer and Neurodivergent Liberation Are Entwined

“The fascinating part to me was to observe persons with eyes and ears, teeth and toenails, walking around yet presenting few of the behaviors that one would call social or human,” he wrote. “Now, I had the chance to build language and other social and intellectual behaviors where none had existed, a good test of how much help a learning-based approach could offer.” He explained to Psychology Today, “You see, you start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense— they have hair, a nose, and a mouth— but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person.”

Silberman, Steve (2015-08-25). NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (p. 285). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

ABA and its conversion therapy kin are with us still, all too alive and well.

#ActuallyAutistic people reject ABA. None of the autistic people in our community support it. Some of us have been harmed by it.

Protecting queer kids protects also neurodivergent kids—and vice versa. The fight is for inclusion and acceptance—for all operating systems, for all of our different ways of being human. Supporting our kids means supporting all of their possibilities and expressions.

But I don't need a cure for me
I don't need it
No, I don't need a cure for me
I don't need it
No, I don't need a cure for me
I don't need it
I don't need it

Please, no cure for me
Please, no cure for me

--Cure for Me by AURORA

She is our miscreant
She is our detox
She is our dagger in the dark
She is the knot mess
She is the undressed
She is the boy borne in my heart

While you sit on the fence I will burn in hell

I think in the context of gender and being trans, autonomySelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and... More is heavily connected to what we do or don’t do with our bodies, because a lot of people don’t want to, or don’t careThe activities that constitute care are crucial for human life. We defined care in this way: Care is "a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue,... More to, transition medically. Either because they’re nonbinary and they’re comfortable with their bodies, or even if they are binary, they don’t have physical dysphoria.

It’s so different for everybody. It’s getting to do what we want with our bodies, how we want to do it, at the pace that—hopefully—we get to set without other people putting judgment on that, and still being respected.

Trust Kids! Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy

Gender Variance

Children on the autism spectrum are more than seven times more likely to show signs of gender variance, according to a study led by New York University. The study, published last month in Transgender Health, recruited the parents of 492 autistic children ages six to 18. When the researchers asked these parents whether their children often “wish to be the opposite sex,” a little over five percent of participants said yes, compared to less than one percent of the general population. Bolstering these findings is the fact that a previous study from the Children’s National Medical Center in 2014 found almost the exact same results. The NYU study found that 5.1 percent of children on the autism spectrum showed signs of gender variance. The 2014 study put that number down at 5.4 percent.

Both studies show that counselors working with autistic children should ask about their gender identity. Being both autistic and gender non-conforming, some children face a double-challenge in responding to society’s biases.

Study: Autistic kids more likely to be gender non-conforming | PhillyVoice

Ollie’s parents wondered if his gender nonconformity — behavior that doesn’t match masculine and feminine norms — might have something to do with his autism. Ollie had been diagnosed with sensory processing disorder at age 2: An extreme sensitivity to sounds, light, the texture of some foods or the feel of a particular fabric can send children like Ollie into a meltdownMeltdowns are alarm systems to protect our brains.Without meltdowns, we autistics would have nothing to protect our neurology from the very real damage that it can accumulate.I don’t melt down... More. He also had difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. It would take his parents four more years to find a doctor who recognized the classic symptoms of Asperger syndrome — above-average intelligence combined with social and communication deficits, and restricted interests. (Ollie was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome before the diagnosis was absorbed into the broader category of autism spectrum disorder in 2013.)

Ollie’s parents are not aloneAloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can... More in pondering this puzzle“Participants associated puzzle pieces with imperfection, incompletion, uncertainty, difficulty, the state of being unsolved, and, most poignantly, being missing,” “If an organization’s intention for using puzzle-piece imagery is to evoke... More. A handful of studies over the past five years — and a series of case reports going back to 1996 — show a linkage between autism and gender variance. People who feel significant distress because their gender identity differs from their birth sex — a condition known as gender dysphoria —have higher-than-expected rates of autism. Likewise, people with autism appear to have higher rates of gender dysphoria than the general population. Between 8 and 10 percent of children and adolescents seen at gender clinics around the world meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, according to studies carried out over the past five years, while roughly 20 percent have autism traits such as impaired social and communication skills or intense focus and attention to detail. Some seek treatment for their gender dysphoria already knowing or suspecting they have autism, but the majority of people in these studies had never sought nor received an autism diagnosis. What’s more, roughly the same numbers of birth males and females appear to be affected…

Over the past decade, people with gender dysphoria have developed new ways of expressing their sense of self. Whereas many once identified as transsexual or transgender, some now call themselves ‘genderqueer’ or ‘non-binary.’ Rates of autism and autism traits appear to be higher in those identifying as genderqueer. Like Ollie, these people generally say they don’t feel fully masculine or feminine, and explicitly reject the notion of two mutually exclusive genders. The word ‘trans’ is often used to encompass all of these identities and the phrase ‘affirmed gender’ to convey a person’s sense of self.

Inspired by the Dutch study, Strang and his colleagues approached prevalence from another angle. Instead of measuring the incidence of autism among gender-dysphoric children and adolescents, they assessed gender variance — defined as a child “wishing to be the other sex” — in children with autism. “We found rates that were 7.5 times higher than expected,” Strang says.

Still, she cautions that sometimes, what looks like autism may actually be untreated gender dysphoria. “So much of the experience of being trans can look like the spectrum experience,” she says. People who don’t want to socialize in their birth genders may seem to have poor social skills, for example; they may also feel so uncomfortable with their bodies that they neglect their appearance. “That can sometimes be greatly alleviated if you give that person appropriate gender support,” she says.

Others agree with these insights. A 2015 study by researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital reported that 23.1 percent of young people presenting with gender dysphoria at a gender clinic there had possible, likely or very likely Asperger syndrome, as measured by the Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale, even though few had an existing diagnosis. Based on these findings, the researchers recommend routine autism screening at gender clinics.

Source: Living between genders | Spectrum

Gender norms should not be imposed on people with autism to make the restWe urgently need a society that's better at letting people get the rest they need.Fergus Murray WIP by Kristina Daniele I’m in pain. Mental. Physical. The result’s the same. Retreating... More of the world more comfortable. Why teach girls with autism how to apply makeup, dress in a feminine manner and shop? Therapists, educators and parents only consider these to be important goals because our society imposes strict gender norms.

As a member of the LGBTQ community who is also autistic, I encounter inequalityEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes... More based on my gender identity, my sexual orientation and my disability. Societal barriers in housing, employment, transportation, healthcare and education systematically exclude queer, gender-queer, transgender and disabledThe label "disabled" means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself... More people; outdated and negative attitudes about gender, sexuality and autism affect our social relationships. Queer environments don’t often account for our sensory processing issues or social differences, whereas autism services don’t often recognize that we may identify beyond the gender binary or have queer relationships. Shifting the focus from the tired narrativesWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required... More of delayed diagnosis and sex differences can help the autism community take responsibility for improving our day-to-day quality of life, whatever our age at diagnosis or gender identity.

Source: Focus on autism must broaden to include non-binary genders | Spectrum

Nearly a quarter of young persons diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or who are transgender, screened positive for Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, according to a new paper in the academic journal LGBT Health. The study was a small retrospective review of intake files of 39 children at Boston Children’s Hospital. Lead author Dr. Daniel E. Shumer explains, “We found that 23 percent of kids fell into the ‘possible, likely or very likely category’ when using the evaluation tool to screen for Asperger’s.”

“Having autism is a burden; a lot of things in the world change when you have autism,” says Strang. “But adding transgenderism, or maybe some of them aren’t transgender but they are just exploring gender, that is complicated in itself.”

“Knowing how to navigate in a world that is not really friendly with people who are trans can be tricky when you are missing social cues.”

Shumer says it is important that parents and medical providers be aware of the increased possibility for co-occurrence of autism and gender variance. If treating patients for one condition, they should screen for the other and be prepared to treat it. “There also may be implications for how to provide informed consent for things like hormonal interventions,” he adds.

Source: PrideSource – Transgender Youth More Likely to Have Autism

In a case report that would go on to become a classic in undergraduate psychology courses, Rekers and Lovaas wrote that Kirk (called “Kraig”) possessed “a remarkable ability to mimic all the subtle feminine behaviors of an adult woman.” They framedWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required... More his “offer to ‘help mommy’ by carrying her purse” as an example of the boy’s devious manipulation of his mother to “satisfy his feminine interests.” Their descriptions of the little boy’s behavior, compared with the transcripts of Green’s intake interviewsWhile the autistic individual is interviewing, they will often be acutely self-aware and preoccupied by their own nervousness and internal coaching, and be simultaneously experiencing two conversations at once—one that is shared... More with Kirk’s parents, were decidedly more extreme, as if the boy were clearly a world-class drag queen in the making at age five. They claimed that he had an elaborate “history of cross-dressing” that included plundering his grandmother’s makeup kit for cosmetics and “swishing around the home and clinic, fully dressed as a woman with a long dress, wig, nail polish, high screechy voice, [and] slovenly seductive eyes.” (In family photographs, Kirk more resembles a Mouseketeer.)

Silberman, Steve (2015-08-25). NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (pp. 319-320). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

To nip the little boy’s inappropriate behavior in the bud, they devised a program of total immersion based on Lovaas’s work on autism. This time, instead of hand-flapping, gaze aversion, and echolaliaEcholalia is the repetition of sound, words, phrases. For example: repeating a phrase you've just heard, repeating a line from your favourite film, repeatedly pressing a button on a device... More, the behaviors targeted for extinction included the “limp wrist,” the submissively yielding “hand clasp,” the notorious “swishy gait,” the girlish “hyperextension” of the limbs in moments of exuberance, and prissy declarations like “goodness gracious” and “oh, dear me.” At home, Kirk’s “masculine” behaviors were rewarded with blue chips that could be redeemed for candy and other treats, while his “feminine” behaviors were punished with red chips that were subtracted from the total. In interviews conducted by blogger Jim Burroway, who undertook a thorough investigation of the case in 2011, Kirk’s brother, Mark, recalled their father punishing the boy— with Rekers’s approval— by converting each red chip into a “swat.” Mark broke down sobbing as he confessed to hiding red chips from his brother’s pile so that Kirk wouldn’t have to endure the abuse.

Source: Silberman, Steve (2015-08-25). NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (pp. 320-321). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The intersection of being both autistic and transgender is more common than one might think. While the dialogue around autism and gender identity is expanding, I have a bit of trouble figuring out where I fit into the whole picture. So, I decided to do my own research, and while this subject is a fairly new field of study, I found some pretty astounding statistics: In 2014, a U.S. study of 147 children (ages 6 to 18) diagnosed with ASDAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline.  If... More found that autistic participants were 7.59 times more likely to express gender variance than the comparison groups. Another study, conducted in the UK in 2015, involved 166 parents of teenagers with Gender Dysphoria (63% were assigned female-at-birth.) Based on parents’ report of their children on the Social Responsiveness Scale, the study found that 54% of the teenagers scored in the mild/moderate or severe clinical range for Autism. The relationship has only begun to be explored in research in recent years, but I’ve come to realize that there are a lot of autistic trans people out there in the world. As someone who very much valuesRemind yourself that shared values, rather than shared beliefs, are what matter when it comes to interacting with others, and that there is no replacement for doing the hard work... More human connection and simultaneously struggles with it, I have to say that looking at those figures provided me an amount of comfort. I discovered that there are a lot of people just like me. Being autistic and being transgender certainly each has their own respective challenges, though one that they share is a lack of societal acceptanceAcceptance means training mental health service providers to look at autism and other disabilities as a part of a person's identity, rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. Acceptance... More due to stigma. Many people still believe that who I am as a transmasculine person is inherently invalid, just like many other people still believe autism is some kind of tragedy that is to be cured. In contrast, I feel very strongly that who I am as a person is heavily dependent on both my trans and autistic identities, and that they are beautiful things. 

Source: THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: Autism, Transmasculine Identity, and Invisibility

According to Garcia-Spiegel, autistic people often don’t pay attention to the same set of societal norms as everyone else, and with that freedom comes a vision. “We can see that a lot of the social rules around gender are”—he paused, trying to find a way to put his thoughts delicately—“bullshitCredulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that’s what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But it can be much more dangerous... More, basically.”

And research supports the idea that a large swath of genderqueer people are also autistic. In 2014, a survey in the Archives of Sexual Behavior showed that “gender variance was 7.59 times more common in participants with ASD than in a large non-referred comparison group.” Gender variance is defined as “an umbrella term used to describe gender identity, expression, or behavior that falls outside of culturally defined norms associated with a specific gender,” according to Pediatric Annals. Another article published in LGBT Health in 2019 found that children who were diagnosed as autistic were four times more likely to experience gender dysphoria.

“When we’re forcibly distanced from social rules anyways, a lot of us kind of look at them and see, ‘Oh, these social rules shouldn’t really have an impact on how I carry myself through the world, and what my relationship to my body is,’” Garcia-Spiegel said. The large contingent of transgender autistic people is like the large amount of gay autistic people (to say nothing of autistic people who are queer and transgender): discovering one’s gender identity can offer a road map to understanding one’s autism. Learning that they are autistic can show people that they are not wrong for living outside prescribed social rules and norms, including ones for gender and sexuality. Once they accept that they are autistic, they realize that a lot of social norms are constrictive and should be questioned

We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation

If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman
My mother once told me she would have named me Laura
I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her
One day, I’d find an honest man to make my husband
We would have two children, build our home on the Gulf of Mexico

Our family would spend hot summer days at the beach together
The sun would kiss our skin as we played in the sand and water
We would know we loved each other without having to say it
At night, we would sleep with the windows of our house left open
Letting the cool ocean air soothe the sunburned shoulders of our children

There is an ocean in my soul where the waters do not curve
There is an ocean in my soul where the waters do not curve
There is an ocean in my soul where the waters do not curve
There is an ocean in my soul where the waters do not curve

--The Ocean by Against Me

Our Dual Identities Are Not Competing; They Are Complementary

Don’t use this information to “blame” trans identity on autism. Don’t threaten identity or reduce agency.

To blame trans identities on autism is to say that autistic people cannot understand or be aware of their own gender. If an autistic person cannot know they are trans, how can they know they aren’t? How can they know anything about themselves?

When a person’s gender is doubted because they are autistic, this paves the way for removing autistic people’s agency in all kinds of other ways. If we can’t know this central aspect of our identity, we surely can’t know how we feel, what we like, or who we are. In short, it implies that we are not truly people, and that our existence, experiences, and identities are for other people to define. This is just another facet of dehumanising autistic people, and gender is certainly not the only area in which this happens.

In itself, the very urge to find a ‘reason’ that someone is transgender is a result of believing that being transgender is a problem, and that it would always be better not to be. The fact that clinicians like Zucker are focused on why someone is transgender, instead of focusing on what kind of help they need and how to best provide it, demonstrates clearly the belief that it is fundamentally bad to be transgender. Not only that, but the belief that it’s even theoretically possible for anyone besides the individual in question to know what someone’s gender is. That’s just not how gender works! No-one really understand what gender is, or what it means, or where it comes from. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s internal, subjective, and personal. You can’t prove or test someone else’s gender any more than you can prove or test their favourite colour. The idea that it can be tested is constantly used to invalidate trans people. Our genders are doubted or disbelieved if we fail to adequately ‘prove’ ourselves to everyone else – if we express too many or too few gender stereotypes, if we are too old or too young, if we claim to be nonbinary or our description of our identity is too complicated or confusing.

The best option is to allow someone to explore their feelings, support them in gaining self-understanding, and accept their identity whatever it turns out to be. It is not complicated, and it’s only scary if you are still holding onto the belief that being either autistic or transgender – or, perish the thought, both – is a terrible thing to be. Which it’s not. I am, along with countless others like me, living proof of that.

Source: Blaming trans identities on autism hurts everyone | autisticality

Misperceptions about what it means to be transgender or about autistic people’s ability to understand their gender or make decisions about their bodies often prompt service providers or family members to stand in the way of transgender autistic people’s attempts to live life with authenticity and dignity. This can include denying transgender autistic people access to transition-related care, subjecting them to “normalization” treatments aimed at suppressing their gender expression, or placing them in guardianship or institutional settings that restrict their decision-making powerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important... More. While research suggests a large overlap between transgender and autistic communities, trans autistic people often lack access to services and supports that understand and respect all aspects of their identity.

“Too frequently, autistic people are denied basic rights to make decisions about our own bodies and health care, including when it comes to expressing our gender identity,” said Sam Crane, Legal Policy Director for the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. “Whether we’re transgender or not, autistic people’s gender identities are as real as anyone else’s and should be respected and supported, not dismissed based on baseless stereotypes.”

Source: Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, LGBT Groups Release Statement on Needs of Trans Autistic People | Autistic Self Advocacy Network

“A common misconception is the assumption that gender and sexuality are irrelevant to autistic people, or that our sexuality and gender identities are symptoms of our autism,” said Bascom. “These beliefs are not only inaccurate but also profoundly harmful to autistic people and are often used to prevent autistic LGBT folks from accessing LGBT spaces, authentic relationships, and transition-related health care. The reality is that autistic people can have a beautiful diversity of gender identities and sexualities, and we have the same right to self-determinationSelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and... More as anybody else.”

Source: How doctors’ offices and queer culture are failing autistic LGBTQ people.

Now I am home
I can feel wind on my skin
Feel true love from within battle scars
Now I'm reborn
Can occupy space in my body
Surgery gave me freedom

How long can you put up
With doctors making decisions about your life
My body, my choices
I am so fed up
Of asking for approval and being doubted
Seen as abnormal

Now I am home
I can feel wind on my skin
Feel true love from within battle scars
Now I'm reborn
Can occupy space in my body
Surgery gave me freedom

No more waking up at 3 o' clock
Panic mode, trying to accept this body is yours
Seeing in the window of a crowded street
'I'm still not as flat as the boy next to me'
Your binder in the closet, it gave you too much pain
But mentally this is suffocating too in a way
There's no one here, no one there,
No one that looks like you,
Your life is the joke in a hollywood cartoon

Home
I've been searching for it
Like a snail, lost without it
Home
I've been searching for it
Now I have found my

Home
I can feel wind on my skin
Feel true love from within battle scars
Now I'm reborn
Can occupy space in my body
Surgery gave me freedom

--Reborn by Eyemèr

Gender Copia and Bricolage

The deconstruction has begun
Time for me to fall apart
And if you think that it was rough
I tell you nothing changes
Till you start to break it down

And break apart
I'll break apart
I'll break apart
Right now it's going to start
I'll break apart

The reconstruction will begin
Only when there's nothing left
But little pieces on the floor
They're made of what I was
Before I had to break it down

--The Deconstruction by The Eels

A friend shared “Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender: Women’s Studies in Communication: Vol 35, No 1” in response to my “Autigender and Neuroqueer: Two Words on the Relationship Between Autism and Gender That Fit Me” piece. I really like this graf:

Due both to their ability to denaturalize social norms and to their neurological differences, autistic individuals can offer novel insights into gender as a social process. Examining gender from an autistic perspective highlights some elements as socially constructed that may otherwise seem natural and supports an understanding of gender as fluid and multidimensional.

Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender: Women’s Studies in Communication: Vol 35, No 1

Confronting and denaturalizing social norms describes the terrain of many autistic lives. We’re social construct canaries.

The article goes on to propose a gender copia that sounds like our kind of bricolageIn the arts, bricolage (French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or... More.

The sources considered here imply not a binary model (masculine=feminine) or even a view of gender as a continuum, but something more like a copia, the rhetorical term Erasmus used to describe the practice of selecting ‘‘certain expressions and mak[ing] as many variations of them as possible’’ (17). Copia provides a strategy of invention, a rhetorical term for the process of generating ideas. To be specific, copia involves proliferation, multiplying possibilities so as to locate the range of persuasive options available to a rhetor. I find the concept of invention fitting to describe the kind of rhetoric in which many autistic individuals engage when they discuss sex and gender, a rhetoric we might consider, following Mary Hawkesworth, a feminist rhetoric, insofar as it seeks to ‘‘call worlds into being, inscribe new orders of possibility, validate framesWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required... More of reference and forms of explanation, and reconstitute histories serviceable for present and future projects’’ (1988).

Individuals who find themselves engaged in this rhetorical search for terms with which to understand themselves can draw on a wide array of terms or representations, such as genderqueer, transgendered, femme, butch, boi, neutrois, androgyne, bi- or tri-gender, third gender, and even geek.

Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender: Women’s Studies in Communication: Vol 35, No 1

I Don’t Feel Like a Gender, I Feel Like Myself

The discussion looks at how autistic people are sometimes forced to act in certain ways to fit in, and how this can make them feel confused and depressed. The research design was led by the participants and this meant that a group who have rarely been asked their opinion were able to have a say.

Notably, all participants in this discussion felt that they did not relate to the typical presentation and activities of the female gender. 

“I Don’t Feel Like a Gender, I Feel Like Myself”: Autistic Individuals Raised as Girls Exploring Gender Identity

A number of participants described occasionally enjoying activities that they considered to be typically female as well as activities they considered to be typically male: 

Most participants reported having a fluid sense of gender, being gender-queer, or feeling male and female and seeing others in the same way. For example, Clare described: 

An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should ‘‘feel’’ was another common report: 

Many participants also described feeling agender or not identifying with a gender: 

Only one participant reported themselves as being trans- gender: 

Participants also noted that some of their experiences reflected prevalent attitudes when they were children. As Sally reflected: 

Participants also described ‘‘masking’’ their autistic be- haviors during childhood but tended to view this as some- thing they resisted as adults. 

Source: “I Don’t Feel Like a Gender, I Feel Like Myself”: Autistic Individuals Raised as Girls Exploring Gender Identity 

Participants also discussed how discovering their autistic identity has helped them accepting themselves. Sally said: 

Of particular note is the extent to which interests played a role in defining both gender identity and identity in general. Most participants within this study characterized their sense of identity as ‘‘fluid’’ and defined more from their interests: 

Participants also discussed ways in which the discovery of their autistic identity had helped them to accept themselves. Sally wrote:

Here, participants spoke passionately about areas of iden- tification related to personal interests. Autism in this context served as an explanation for their personal outlooks, perceived to be at odds with typical nonautistic perspectives. These were accounts of more fluid identity constructions, less constrained by social expectations. 

These accounts, although very different, conveyed a common experience of individuals finding themselves unable to identify with the typical gender expectations within their environments, and their individual struggles to make sense of themselves against these.

Participants in this study provided powerful narratives de- scribing feelings of alienation provoked by the pressure to con- form to ‘‘gender-typical’’ and ‘‘neurotypical’’ expectations of them. Gender identity is traditionally perceived in terms of bi- nary categories, which is not useful for those who do not con- form to them. 

Autistic individuals have described feeling pressure to ‘‘mask’’ their autism.14,41,42 They often do that by ‘‘per- forming’’ normativeNormal was created, not discovered, by flawed, eccentric, self-interested, racist, ableist, homophobic, sexist humans. Normal is a statistical fiction, nothing less. Knowing this is the first step toward reclaiming your... More gender roles. In doing so, they are often adopting behaviors that are not instinctive to them and pre- tending to be someone they are not. For the participants of this project, this attempt to conform stopped as they grew older, but was a practice many of them adopted at a younger age and may have been part of the reason they were uncertain of their gender identity. This may also provide some expla- nation for the high occurrence of mental health problems in autistic individuals. Participants in this study articulated these challenges and their own efforts to navigate them, de- scribing struggles that persisted over many years. 

Davidson and Tamas16 highlight that ‘‘doing’’ gender as socially expected can be incredibly draining for autistic individuals. Dis- covering their autistic identity might help autistic individuals process their gender identity as well.

The connection between participants’ interests and gender identity was an important and unexpected finding of this re- search. Participants’ questioning of their gender identity often stemmed from their interests not conforming to those typically associated with femininity. 

Participants in this study provided powerful narratives de- scribing feelings of alienation provoked by the pressure to con- form to ‘‘gender-typical’’ and ‘‘neurotypical’’ expectations of them. Gender identity is traditionally perceived in terms of bi- nary categories, which is not useful for those who do not con- form to them. 

“I Don’t Feel Like a Gender, I Feel Like Myself”: Autistic Individuals Raised as Girls Exploring Gender Identity

Call me a girl again
Not asking for the hell of it
Call me a girl again
My gender's not your business
Call me a girl again
Not asking for the hell of it
Call me a girl again
Non-binary resistance!

(Woah-oh) They them, they them!
(Woah-oh) They them, they them!
(Woah-oh) Not asking for a friend
(Woah-oh) They them, they them!
(Woah-oh) They them, they them!
(Woah-oh) Not asking for a friend

--They/Them by Dream Nails