Any GC feminists with autism?

[GCandautistic]

Hi all. NC for this. I am currently awaiting diagnosis for autism. I’m in my late 30s so it is a later life diagnosis. I am strongly gender critical but cannot be open about this at work. I am pretty high functioning in my career. I struggle a bit socially but not too badly.

One of the things I struggle with is how anyone can take gender ideology seriously. And also how someone can just not care. It’s just so blatantly a load of rubbish. Because this realisation about my autism is quite a recent one, I wonder whether being autistic has anything to do with my way of thinking. Obviously the majority of GC feminists will be NT but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who thinks their autism influences how they approach this issue.

Yes
I've read too that those with ASD are more likely to believe in gender but its not true of me or DC
I struggle so much with it. I would never misgender a person to their face but I would avoid using terms at all because I cannot be dishonest. The dishonesty troubles me greatly. I have to be careful how I phrase this as I've been deleted before but the whole obsession with 'passing' feels dishonest. I wish people could accept and celebrate their reality and I believe we would all be happier

So many self identify as asd too. It appears trendy

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

Yes I've read too that those with ASD are more likely to believe in gender but its not true of me or DC I struggle so much with it. I would never misgender a person to their face but I would avoid using terms at all because I cannot be dishonest. The dishonesty troubles me greatly. I have to be careful how I phrase this as I've been deleted before but the whole obsession with 'passing' feels dishonest. I wish people could accept and celebrate their reality and I believe we would all be happier

Yep I really struggle emotionally with people lying to me. When somebody uses cross-sex pronouns and attempts to appear to be the opposite sex, I feel I've been lied to, with all the usual feelings people feel when either they've been duped or someone's tried and failed to fool them.

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

Yes I've read too that those with ASD are more likely to believe in gender but its not true of me or DC I struggle so much with it. I would never misgender a person to their face but I would avoid using terms at all because I cannot be dishonest. The dishonesty troubles me greatly. I have to be careful how I phrase this as I've been deleted before but the whole obsession with 'passing' feels dishonest. I wish people could accept and celebrate their reality and I believe we would all be happier

Yes I think autists are very fact-orientated so should be immune to the less scientifically-based belief systems overall, but OTOH we can be quite obsessive and teenaged autists sometimes struggle socially so that can be a potent mix when there are trends or new beliefs doing the rounds and you think you need to believe every word of it to fit in.

I will be very upset if my comments explaining how my social disability makes the requirements of gender ideology very difficult for me to follow are deleted.

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

So many self identify as asd too. It appears trendy

I've noticed that too.

I disagree with self identification of anything. My thoughts are 'label yourself what you will, it doesn't make you so'.

@FrankensteinIsTheMonster

I will be very upset if my comments explaining how my social disability makes the requirements of gender ideology very difficult for me to follow are deleted.

Me too.

But I'm expecting it as it always happens on here.

I could have written your OP word for word, GCandautistic. You're not alone.

I can see the appeal at school age. I spent a lot of time wondering how others just knew how to act and fit in. If you are offered a reason and a supportive group I can see why children pin their issues onto gender. Sadly it likely causes more problems than it solves

Hi. Older than you, gc, feminist and autistic as fuck.

Hi everyone! Great to know that I am not alone.

FWIW,
I am very much older. Grew up before girls were even considered for autism unless the symptoms were absolutely obvious. I have had some testing and I have been told to seek a diagnosis, but this was right before covid, LOL, but it's been almost 60 years so what's a few more?

I've done OK so far, but the thing is, 60 years later, all those social routines and sub-routines are breaking down. It is exhausting to put this much work into dealing with others and when i get exhausted, then the echolalia and other compulsive speech erupts.

I will lie about a friend's dress. Like someone said above, I'll find something that is positive. The color, a detail, etc. This is so different. To have to search my memory banks everytime I meet a person for pronouns (never mind they can arbitrarily change) as well as recognizing their face and associating their name with it and playing make believe with them about who they are...well at that point, I give up.

My son is ASD, diagnosed as a child, he's in his thirties now and is, as they say, a productive member of society.Neither of us can understand the gender stuff. It just seems so foolish to try to lie to everyone, including yourself as to who you are.

I do remember wishing I could be a boy around puberty. Mostly because girls' worlds start getting smaller and more socially managed at that point. I wore a lot of the seventy's unisex clothing and was lucky to have the chance to grow up when my mom and my friend's moms were establishing careers in the wake of the second wave. I became a woman who went into a 'male' field in my own right.

I'm so glad my son was born before the internet. He encountered it later, but before social media was a thing. I think he also did well because I fought to get him into a special program/school that featured small class size, disallowed and actively policed the kind of bullying usually tolerated on a high school campus, etc. I think some of the autistic men who take on the message that they are not men, but non-men (must be women then, what's that about a binary again?) have been subjected to that kind of verbal abuse from others. The internet and isolation has just made it worse.

Both of us agree that you can't change sex. He is one of the few people I've been able to talk to about this since 2015 when I discovered it and discovered that he'd known about it longer. We agree that the sterilization of gay and autistic children as well as children under care to be one of the most chilling occurrences in this whole episode.

I have an autistic child. I don’t have a diagnosis myself, but I have my suspicions. I’m this context, I find it very difficult to lie or speak what I consider to be untrue. I often use the word sex, because I mean sex, and not gender. I have very rigid thought patterns in this area, and asking me to believe in the concept of ‘gender’ is akin to asking me to believe in god. I just don’t, and the evidence I have doesn’t support that hypothesis anyway. I don’t believe I have a gender identity. I am a woman, but that is more to do with my biology and status as ‘mother’. I probably identify more strongly with ‘nerd’ than I do with the female gender.

@FrankensteinIsTheMonster

I will be very upset if my comments explaining how my social disability makes the requirements of gender ideology very difficult for me to follow are deleted.

which would then be disability discrimination?

Hi, yes I'm here too. Late twenties, I was diagnosed whilst at uni about 10 years ago. I called myself non-binary when that probably first started to become a 'thing' also about a decade ago - but I was always gender critical, even then, I just didn't have the right language/tools to express it, and I didn't think much about the wider implications for trans activism as I was naive and welcomed by LGBTQ groups when I was struggling to find a place elsewhere (I should say I am also bisexual too).

I’ve not been diagnosed but have my suspicions. I struggle with gender as a concept full stop, whether that is having to perform it or recognise other people’s. Men wearing dresses &c just doesn’t strike me as noticeable or odd or a ‘thing’. I know it’s meant to. It’s like it’s just ‘person in clothes’, nothing to see there. I think it might be something to do with difficulty spotting patterns and deviations from patterns generally.

I would meet the criteria for autism however I’m not going to get diagnosed because I feel that I am so mild compared to my DS, and so many people are now telling me ‘what autism means’ when they mean an adult female relatively mild presentation, like me basically. It makes me sad as no one wants to hear about the real struggles DS has.

This is not a criticism OP! I completely respect your decision and need to pursue your own diagnosis. It may well help. However from my perspective the ‘diagnosis’ is now so broad that for it to have any real meaning to you, think and ask about what that means for you. Is it executive functioning? Is it high anxiety? Is it difficulties with language? Don’t hang all of you onto autism, think of specific things in you that are strengths and struggles, unique to you.

Sorry a bit long winded. For me I am most worried about GC and my DS, and the pressures he will face in school and from peers as he gets older. He’s just such a prime candidate to be honest. He’s quite fluid in how he is, and is taking a long time to figure out what he likes in life. The gender identity crowd will make him feel he has to box what he is, and the bullying nature of some peers that I’ve heard of through other parents - it’s very intense and a bit scary!

But back to your point, yes I think this is all very emperor has new clothes - why can’t people see the nonsensical nature of much of it?!

I would meet the criteria for autism however I’m not going to get diagnosed because I feel that I am so mild compared to my DS, and so many people are now telling me ‘what autism means’ when they mean an adult female relatively mild presentation, like me basically. It makes me sad as no one wants to hear about the real struggles DS has.

If you’re experiencing something “mild” that doesn’t cause you “real struggles” you’re unlikely to meet the diagnostic threshold. Maybe you just have a couple of traits?

In any case, it’s grossly unfair and rather rude to self-diagnose, and then come onto a thread full of autistic women and tell us we aren’t autistic enough to count but hey “it’s not a criticism!” (It is.)

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

So many self identify as asd too. It appears trendy

Yes, I’ve seen discussions from Self ID ‘autistics’ that were very angry that anyone would dare challenge them. It made me quite angry in defense of my DS I guess. It felt like someone impersonating someone in a wheelchair. However it really was very similar arguments to the trans/gender crowd - and very similar saying that challenging someone who says that they ‘autistic’ or asking for any ‘evidence’ was discriminatory, awful, hateful etc.

I think this worries me more than anything. Saying you are something/one that you are not - and then attacking with fury those that challenge that. That’s quite scary!

Yes, I’ve seen discussions from Self ID ‘autistics’ that were very angry that anyone would dare challenge them. It made me quite angry in defense of my DS I guess.

You have just done the EXACT same thing.

@Lisatried

I’ve not been diagnosed but have my suspicions. I struggle with gender as a concept full stop, whether that is having to perform it or recognise other people’s. Men wearing dresses &c just doesn’t strike me as noticeable or odd or a ‘thing’. I know it’s meant to. It’s like it’s just ‘person in clothes’, nothing to see there. I think it might be something to do with difficulty spotting patterns and deviations from patterns generally.

That’s a very good description.

@RickiTarr

I would meet the criteria for autism however I’m not going to get diagnosed because I feel that I am so mild compared to my DS, and so many people are now telling me ‘what autism means’ when they mean an adult female relatively mild presentation, like me basically. It makes me sad as no one wants to hear about the real struggles DS has.

If you’re experiencing something “mild” that doesn’t cause you “real struggles” you’re unlikely to meet the diagnostic threshold. Maybe you just have a couple of traits?

In any case, it’s grossly unfair and rather rude to self-diagnose, and then come onto a thread full of autistic women and tell us we aren’t autistic enough to count but hey “it’s not a criticism!” (It is.)

I would meet the criteria and I’ve a relevant background so I do know this. It is true that the diagnosis has broadened and I would not have got a diagnosis probably 20-30 years ago. I am upfront in that I was replying to the OP asking if there are any GC and autistic people out there, and many on this thread, including the OP, have not been diagnosed but strongly suspect, so it’s a relevant discussion to bring up my own thoughts about my own autistic traits + GC.

I was giving my own personal account of why I wouldn’t want to diagnose myself as I regard myself as mild. In fact I don’t think what I have, should be labelled autism, but that is my personal view. I regard a diagnosis as something for those who have a degree of severity with their struggles and personally I do feel that there should be another word for those like me, so that I would not detract from the autism DS has. It’s such a struggle to get even basic therapies for him for example and in the media I rarely see ‘him’ at all. Me and my DS are absolutely poles apart in struggles.

I was in no way saying to anyone in the thread that they were mild or otherwise, and in no way saying that others going for a diagnosis is a bad thing. In fact I wished the OP well and hoped getting a diagnosis would help her. I was speaking for my own view on getting my own diagnosis.

Yes I see you are quite angry as you subscribe to the ‘we are all a tribe’ autism and use the word ‘we’ for autistics which I personally find exceptionally offensive. You cannot speak for every other autistic person. @RickiTarr ‘Yes I think autists are very fact-orientated so should be immune to the less scientifically-based belief systems overall, but OTOH we can be quite obsessive

That is why me saying that autism is not one big homogenous tribe has triggered you I imagine. I’m not here for a bun fight. So I’ll leave this thread.

I’m slightly alarmed that anyone with “a relevant background” would use the world “mild” in relation to autism with any level of functioning, TBH.

Yes I see you are quite angry as you subscribe to the ‘we are all a tribe’ autism

No I’m not angry and I don’t subscribe to tribal anything. I’m not sure that’s even a recognised stance. You’re making that up.

but OTOH we can be quite obsessive

Ah you see the operative word there is “can”. We don’t all have to be the same. I’m just recognising that it’s something that some people with an autism diagnosis experience.

That is why me saying that autism is not one big homogenous tribe has triggered you I imagine. I’m not here for a bun fight. So I’ll leave this thread.

Oh Lordy.

I would say the only one single thing that all autists have in common is a diagnosis. So it might be best if all the “self-identifying as autistic but here to stick my oar in” crew steered clear, yes. Not everybody is as thick skinned as I am and it’s not really fair.