I’m a recently late diagnosed autistic and I’m starting to really struggle in the autistic community. I have been a member of many groups for the last 8 years or so whilst self diagnosed and on the self discovery journey. I always found it a very welcoming and accepting place where I finally felt at home with my tribe. But now it is all changing. I’ve grown up in LGBTQ+ circles and always been very open and understanding to others and I’m asexual myself, due to autism and struggling with alexithymia, interoception, identity and connection. Further compounded due to sexual trauma. All very valid reasons to struggle with identity and sexuality and where we fit in the world.
I’ve never been gender conforming and have struggled with other females, so I have mostly spent my life hanging around with males. This has led to more sexual traumas and disconnect from my female peers. I have been getting more interested in feminism and have started trying to connect with my fellow females (at last! 36 yrs old, ha) and I am struggling with the journey I’m on. I’ve been trying to connect more with other autists, but now there is an overlapping dilemma. We all know autism and LGBTQ+/gender incongruity overlap, so there are a lot of us in the autism community. Now I’ve been reading more and more on the subject I have become gender critical, whilst still holding caring views about trans people. (It’s possible you know! Being able to look at sex differences doesn’t make you a bigot, it’s an interesting subject and it’s multi-layered and far reaching across society – it makes for a never ending topic of special interest!)
But I can’t seem to have conversations with other autistics because they automatically assume I’m transphobic and this is really gutting me up. I’m also a lefty, but all my leftist friends are against gender critical ideas and I’m just feeling politically homeless, autistically homeless, friend homeless.
I’m growing increasingly concerned for young undiagnosed autistic females entering gender clinics and the doctors noting autism traits but not being able to provide their duty of care by questioning their gender distress in relation to their possible autism because it is now considered transphobic and conversion therapy to do so. This is literally stopping autism care!
We already know females get misdiagnosed all the time leading to even further compacted mental health disorders, suicide and more misdiagnosis because the real diagnosis of autism has been overlooked. We know autistic people struggle with identity for myriad reasons and so surely our autism should be taken into account when we are in distress about our gender identity? It’s not saying autistics aren’t capable of knowing if they are trans, it’s being responsible as a provider of care to make sure you have thoroughly explored all aspects of mental health before enlisting them on a medical pathway that could potentially further impact them if they do not address autism first, which I truly believe is the most important diagnosis and identity an autistic person can ever receive in their life. All else will follow after that diagnosis. You can be gay, non-binary, trans, heterosexual, asexual, you can be anything you are, but I don’t think anyone can be truly who they are or happy without realising they are autistic first.
Imagine if these gender clinics were a first point of care for undiagnosed autists? There are literally thousands of young undiagnosed autistic females queuing up round the block at these clinics in distress and if autism specialists were placed there there could be much faster and efficient diagnosis available for us. It’s not transphobic or conversion therapy to recognise and address autism! It is important to look at sex and gender when addressing autism and gender distress. It’s important to address sexual trauma in trans, gender distressed people and autistic people, especially because sexual trauma is rife in those communities – which gives good reason to want to opt out of your sex! I’m going a little mad over here and just need to hear other autistic people talk about this too and tell me I’m not crazy.
I hope that as a community who cares about autism and receiving diagnosis and support, we can come together to discuss the different viewpoints we may all have. There is a lot of information online but hardly any about this important part. I’m hoping that with having the courage to step outside the lines (we autists are famous for!) we can build rapport about topics that are so important to this community.
I’ve added these two links below as they makes some interesting points about this you might be interested to read
First link
https://www.verywellhealth.com/gender-dysphoria-and-autism-4134405
Second link
https://statsforgender.org/neurodiversity/
I’d love to hear from other people, whether autistic or neurotypical, male, female, trans.
Share in the comments or find me on other social media to engage
Read my other article about the potential consequences of adopting identities, here:
“I Identify as….” 3 Thought Provoking Scenarios
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https://auntieautism.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/gender-critical-autism/
#Autism #AutisticFemale #FemaleAutism #Femaleautism #Gender #GenderClinic #GenderCritical #Gids #MemntalHealth #MentalHealthCrisis #Misdiagnosed
