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.