autistic appropriation by trans women

[Autisticappropriation]

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.

I have also seen several autistic women being told on Twitter that the fact they have babies isn’t an expression of womanhood, they are probably trans because they don’t wear make-up. Anyone who questions the rhetoric is attacked (both by the autism community and the trans community). I cannot say my fears out loud, or point out that having a baby is a female thing to do and make-up is not.

And as someone who has always longed to belong, there are few spaces that are mine. I do not want to be shunned by the autistic community. It’s not like I have many support networks to fall back on.

Sorry for rambling on.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that transwomen claiming to be autistic actually are, but that doesn’t mean shared experience with me.

My particular worries at the moment surround autism and menopause.

We need women’s spaces, men’s spaces and trans spaces. I absolutely don’t want to see anyone going without support. But I need support too. I am vulnerable too.

We are also black and white thinkers. If you had told me at the age of 10 that my short hair and love of all things “boy” and hatred of pink, meant that I was a boy and not a girl, I would have believed you. I would have “followed the rule”. That’s what I do

Yes & I think this is what happens when teenagers with autism stumble on trans forums. I do share your concern. Unfortunately the narrative doesn’t seem to be to question the identification as trans.

Excellent post OP, I’d never thought of this before.

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

^^this

Does anyone know whether when information is gathered/studies are done in relation to autistic women is the ‘trans’ taken into account/noted anywhere or is a MTF who goes through the diagnostic process just put down as a woman?

I imagine they are recorded as ‘female’ in the same way offenders are now.

So actual female autism is going to disappear in a puff of bad statistics.

Thank you for writing this OP, I think there are a lot of us autistic women out there with very similar concerns, but scared to speak out as the self-identified trans/autistic infiltration of autistic spaces would mean ostracism (and worse).

I believe that Tania Marshall has written and shared gender critical stuff, but I've yet to come across any autistic academics who are challenging the nonsense. As a fledgling academic, I'm very conscious of how well the activists mobilise and target people who question the self-identification (trans and autism) thing or indeed anything that suggests autism is more than a difference.

It is all incredibly worrying

Can I just apologise in advance if what I say causes offence. I’m not autistic and I don’t know anyone who is. So I might get this wrong in terms of the way I’m saying it.

Although I knew that autism was overly represented in the trans community, it hadn’t occurred to me that would be used as leverage against women. Or could put women at even more of a disadvantage in terms of how the sexes present differently.

There is no end to the ways in which women are being erased, is there?

I’m really sorry OP. As I said, I’m not autistic, but have found talking to the women on here who are autistic, very enlightening.

Transgenderism relies on society’s definition of gender. I’m guessing people who are autistic don’t recognise that, so basically have to pick a side? If they thought about it at all. What I don’t understand is why they would pick a side that didn’t make sense.

I can understand the autistic transwomen who transition for fetish reasons, because at least that makes sense. There is a definite marker for wanting to change.

Plus the social contagion that can make someone, who was floundering with gender markers, at least feel included.

But it does seem to obscure autism in a way that must be very distressing.

And the language used. One doesn’t identify as autistic, surely? As though it’s a choice.

It’s more of the same, though. Identifying as something means you are that thing. Whether you are or not.

God. More appropriation and blurring.

Regarding the female presentation of autism (and autism plus female socialisation does look different to autism plus male socialisation), there was a lot of criticism by the usual self-ID trans/autistics on Twitter of the recent NAS women and girls conference, a ridiculous amount of 'what about men and boys?'.

To understand why autistic women and girls get misdiagnosed and are under-diagnosed we have to understand our female gender socialisation. If we ignore that then we won't get diagnosed.

Datun, plenty of us are very aware of what's going on! I would suggest not saying autism is over-represented in the trans community beciase that makes it sound like the trans identity comes first, I think we need to be thinking about why trans is over-represented among autistic people.

There is a big anti-diagnosis anti-medical movement among the self-IDers.

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

@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.

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.

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...

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

@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.

@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.

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.

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!

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.

@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.