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Original poster

autistic appropriation by trans women

160 replies

Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 01:33

NC for obvious scaredy cat reasons. Yes it’s another trans thread. No I’m not articulate or well versed in academic feminism but I do fear for women’s rights and safety.

I’ve noticed with alarming regularity that a large number of recently out trans women are also now calling themselves autistic and that a huge portion of the actually autistic community whether trans or not are becoming highly vocal TRAs.

I am an autistic women, uterus owner, born that way will probably die that way. I feel like I’m being pushed out of all my safe spaces by self identifying trans women who are also now self identifying as autistic. I fought so bloody hard to get a diagnosis and access to the pittance of support that is available for autistic women and now women seeking diagnosis after me may find themselves shunned, silenced or ignored in favour of self identifying autistic trans women. I have concerns on so many levels, not least because of the vulnerability of officially diagnosed actually autistic women and the insurgence and potential influence of highly vocal self diagnosed label collectors.

I’m writing this post because a once quite high profile “disabled” man who bullied me on Twitter and set hundreds of his followers onto me trying to doxx me and shut me up has not only in the past few years become a trans woman but also is now claiming to be autistic. They now claim, along with many other trans autistics to be vocal representatives of actually autistic women worldwide and people are listening... but they don’t represent me or my needs or the needs of so many other women formally having or currently seeking diagnosis. We haven’t been listened to for years and when the opportunities start to arise, transwomen are taking them from us. It’s so hard to be taken seriously as a woman seeking diagnosis and only now are diagnosticians recognising the differences in presentation between male and female autistics, I worry about women missing out on diagnosis because trans women present themselves as representatives of autistic women without having the lifetime experience of autistic women.

I was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and medicated as such despite never meeting the diagnostic criteria. Everyone agreed it was the wrong diagnosis but nobody knew what else could be causing my life’s problems and so I was parked there are told to accept it. This is not an uncommon experience for many autistic women diagnosed later in life (ie adulthood beyond teens) but it doesn’t appear to be the pathway to diagnosis for transwomen. If diagnostic practices and hard won victories of women to be recognised as autistic are lost due to men appropriating so many areas of their life, I fear women will return to a life of enforced misdiagnosis and heavy sedating medications. I feel so bloody helpless and I’m scared to speak up in my usual arena (twitter) because autistic appropriation and trans domination essentially silences me. I can’t be the only female, feminist autistic concerned about this.

I don’t think I have a point I just needed to get it off my chest and introduce an area I’ve not seen being discussed before.

OP posts:
Cliques · 14/12/2017 11:14

Cloud, it really is. I worry so much for young autistic people. We are so susceptible to mental heath issues already (more than 80% in those without a LD), I can’t imagine how much worse this could make the (already appallingly high) suicide rates amongst autistic adults.

CloudPerson · 14/12/2017 11:06

Cliques, agree with everything you say about puberty. I would also have argued that I was a boy as a teenager if I'd been handed it as an explanation for feeling "wrong". I'm so pleased I'm in my 40s now and not my teens.
Now is a scary time for younger people to be growing up in.

Cliques · 14/12/2017 11:05

It’s so nice to have a space I can say all this out loud. Normally dh has to bear the brunt Grin

That blog is great.

The point is that autistic people pick up on the loud messages, not the quiet ones. I knew girly stuff was rubbish and boys’ stuff was cool. I liked physical play more than imaginative play. I am logical and good at maths. I don’t understand fashion.

These are my autistic traits, not my womanly ones. I am enormously loving and caring, but not at all touchy feely. I look cold and distant, but I’m not. I prefer a pair of trousers with many pockets, than a dress (Although I am a sucker for a dress with pockets).

For a while I thought I must be agender. That must be how I define myself. But that would be accepting gender as something within us all, and it so clearly isn’t. Agender doesn’t fit with the fact that I really love being a woman now. I’m just a woman. Just an autistic woman. Both those things are a big part of my identity. I won’t have anyone telling me they’re not mine.

Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:58

*co-morbid not compendium. On phone feeding baby at same time

OP posts:
Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:58

@cloudperson thanks for the long no, I’ve bookmarked it as “we’re all a little bit autistic” is one of the most common responses to hearing I’m autistic. It minimises my experience as a woman who is quite severely disabled by autism in a way that wouldn’t be done if I had a compendium learning disability

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Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:56

@cliques totally spot on. As a child I wished I was a boy. Why? Because they could pee while standing up. I preferred and still do traditionally “boys toys” and “boys” clothes but I always knew I was a girl and would have argued with anyone who told me differently. Now I’d have had to fight people trying to convince me I was male growing up alongside people trying to convince me I was mentally ill etc. Oh I’ve forgotten the point I was trying to address. Too much going on here. Needless to say I agree with what you’re posting :)

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CloudPerson · 14/12/2017 10:54

This is a good blog post that has a look at "we're all a little bit autistic".

Cliques · 14/12/2017 10:50

It’s so very important that women’s presentation isn’t drowned out by the louder voices of transwomen. They have not been taught to be compliant from day one. They have not learned to mask and hide in the same ways.

There are many men who present atypically too, men who wouldn’t have been diagnosed without more and more women presenting atypically.

LoveDeathPrizes · 14/12/2017 10:49

Too right @cliques. I hated my body during puberty because I'd long intrernalised the patriarchal narrative of my body as a commodity - something to be objectified and externally appraised.

CloudPerson · 14/12/2017 10:48

Male brain stuff as an autism hypothesis is flawed as it relies on gender stereotypes and misses the fact that gender stereotypes are yet another unwritten rule that needs to be navigated.

There's a massive discussion to be had wrt diagnosed vs self ID. Self ID is something lots of us autistic women go through, and as diagnosis can be difficult depending on the expertise of the diagnosing team, self ID can be as far as some women can go. Problems arise when vocal sjw self ID'd people act like the mouthpiece for autism everywhere and act professionally offended at every turn, fully embrace the use of cis and think that trans women are indeed women, and it's impossible to get any other view across. Thinking of several on Twitter, they don't share my experiences as an autistic woman and they don't speak for me. Thinking of some autistic transwomen I know of (can't claim to know them personally), they come across as extremely self absorbed and possibly narcissistic, not helped by their legions of followers who agree with every word they say.

Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:48

@datum autism is an identity of sorts, it gets confusing but it’s also a formally diagnosed condition so the identifying as autistic gets twisted in political more. Being autistic is inherent in my personality, it is me, because without it I would be a very different person. I cannot be separated from it like an illness. It’s why much of the autistic community prefer identity first language (autistic person rather than person with autism) but that argument is also used as one to justify identifying as... Originally self identification was accepted because diagnosis was (is) so difficult to get in adulthood and for many it was an expense they couldn’t afford (mostly US based) but that’s changed now. The problem with self identification and as someone else hinted at above “we’re all a little autistic” is that it minimises the problems actually autistic people face in life, it waters down the condition, which has to be debilitating to get a diagnosis in the first place, to a set of common human traits. Autistic people share traits with neurotypical because we’re all a little bit human not because all humans are autistic.

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Cliques · 14/12/2017 10:46

Yes op, we are attacked for being different, and attacked for being women, and attacked for stating facts and attacked for having human drives. It’s hard to win.

I don’t respond if anyone tries to police my language. I am a woman and really proud of that. I hated my body when it went through puberty. Why? BECAUSE I HATE CHANGE. Not because I am not a woman. I don’t know any autistic (or NT) women who enjoyed that side of it, yet I’ve heard it used as another “well you must be trans and hate your female body” argument.

I know exactly how passionately I would have argued that I was a man. I would have done so as someone who knew the rules and was following them. I would have destroyed my identity and never had my children. If I had been told I was trans, I doubt I would still be here. The damage done to me would have been enormous and irreversible.

I am so happy now. Now that I know who I am and why I am. Now I know which rules are bollocks.

LoveDeathPrizes · 14/12/2017 10:41

Wow I'd never thought of that. You're right - ASD presents so differently in men and women. And presumably, a transwoman will still very much exhibit signs and symptoms as a man would. The last thing that the female autistic community needs is to become subsumed within that model. How to render female ASD invisible!

elliejjtiny · 14/12/2017 10:36

As a mother of 1 autistic son and another who is going through the assessment process this scares me and it must be worse for women who have autism.

Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:35

@cliques -I hear you! I’ve been jumped on for saying I was a pregnant woman and not person and then I couldn’t be that autistic as I have had sex and a baby and can type. The attacks come from all directions and they’re designed to silence us.

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Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:31

@notafish the male brain theory I thought was disproven and actually quite a barrier to autistic women getting diagnosis. Do you have links to research identifying differences? Presentation and “symptoms” (for want of a better word) are different in men’s and women but the physical brain afaik is the same.

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BeyondAssignation · 14/12/2017 10:26

Just in case you can't read it...
aspergirlsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/List-of-Female-Asperger-Syndrome-Traits.pdf

BeyondAssignation · 14/12/2017 10:24

Might be helpful if I post this, so people understand the difference between how they think of autism (often "Male" presentation) and the presentation more common in females...

autistic appropriation by trans women
Cliques · 14/12/2017 10:23

One of the problems with female autistic socialisation, is that you learn compliance early. There is a real problem with autistic women ending up in abusive relationships, but staying because of rules like “all relationships are hard”, and many messages over the years about how we are always wrong about our bodies.

If you are told that sounds and textures cannot be causing you pain (when they are), then you can easily be convinced by an abusive man that what you are feeling is wrong.

Autistic women desperately need feminism.

One of the problems with condemning those who “identify as autistic” is that many will be autistic women who cannot get a diagnosis because they do not present in the same way as autistic men. If we say that all those without a diagnosis (mostly women) cannot access autism support, then once again it is women who will suffer the most.

Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 10:19

@thiswillbemyusername the danger lies not in their vocalisation but in their being heard as the voice of autistic women. Men present differently, they respond differently and theyre said to experience it differently they cannot be any more representative of how it is to be an autistic women than they can of being a neurotypical woman.

I think it needs looked at, the seeming prevalence of autism in the trans community but when self identification is all that’s needed it becomes hard to accurately assess. Are trans people adopting autistic self identification because they feel like outcasts and that label garners marginally more sympathy and tolerance, and/or are autistic people adopting trans identity because they’re confused about their place in society and trans appears to offer some answers?

@iwasjustabouttosaythat you clearly are speaking from a position of neurotypical privilege. Doesn’t affect you therefore doesn’t exist. May I politely suggest you “go fundraise” yourself.

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Original poster
Autisticappropriation · 14/12/2017 09:53

So many points to address/questions to answer. It might take a while. I’ve not abandoned the thread just have a baby to deal with.

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BeyondAssignation · 14/12/2017 09:41

I don't have anything to add, apart from a yanbu (ignoring that we aren't in Aibu!)

Also an autistic woman (the diagnosed kind, and with xx chromosomes!) and struggled until late diagnosis, so I understand completely where you are coming from

pisacake · 14/12/2017 09:36

"One doesn’t identify as autistic, surely? "

Well tbh it's slightly more reasonable than identifying as a woman when you're a man.

I mean if you've believe you are autistic based on certain traits then you might choose to say 'I am autistic' even if you are actually not

Some people say you are either autistic or you are not, but I don't think that's necessarily true - it's a behavioural evaluation, not a gene test or something, and some cases might be interpreted differently.

RestingGrinchFace · 14/12/2017 09:33

Self identifying really has gone too far. People think that because they are literate they can read medical literature, understand it and, self diagnose. Pure arrogance.

Datun · 14/12/2017 09:29

I think we need to be thinking about why trans is over-represented among autistic people.

Yes! That puts a different complexion on it, doesn’t it?

I know there are lots of articles and studies to find the correlation.

So people are aware of it.

But it does need to be brought more into the mainstream.

The entire ideology is so multilayered. Untangling it will take time.

Thanks for the info and tips.

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