Firstly, I wish people would stop making blanket statements about what autistic people do and don’t, can and can’t do. I am formally diagnosed as autistic and I, and many others that I know, do not fit the stereotypes people push here. /rant
I did have gender dysphoria of sorts growing up. I do understand when someone who happens to be neurodivergent feels so completely at odds with what society says is a girl/woman on top of not being neurotypical that when transition is offered as a solution, they jump at the chance. I think if I was growing up now I’d have seriously considered it because I do not and never did identify with femininity. The female parts of my body growing up were redundant (I never planned on having children) and just a hindrance. Boobs brought unwanted attention and periods made and still make my life hell for 2/4 weeks. Of course being offered a solution to these things when we already feel so different to our peers seems like a route out of everything that’s wrong. Who wouldn’t accept that if offered?
And the queer community are so welcoming and among their own they present kindness and acceptance. We know as rational adults that may not always be true but when you are vulnerable, in despair and youre desperate to understand the overwhelming sense of confusion and feeling out of place, they give you quick answers and slightly slower solutions.
Would living as a boy/man have cured my autism? No! But the pressures of society to conform to femininity might have been relieved for a while. I wanted to be male, I recognised early on my life would have been easier male, even just peeing standing up was something I felt would have made my life easier. I was obsessed
with willies because I wanted one and didn’t have one.
As autistic kids we learn and recognise very early on that life is going to be really difficult for us in a way it isn’t for our peers. When a group of people welcome us, quirks and all it’s hugely attractive. It isn’t that autism is cured, it’s that as a community they’ll accept your autistic traits and they blend into a gamut of diverse traits.
I’m too scared to say what I really think on here for fear of losing my account. It’s not at all phobic, more observational but that’s not how it gets portrayed by activists. So I’ll say, I think neurodivergent traits makes us stand out and our need to be loved and accepted makes us trusting of those who say they will love and accept us as we are, all the while offering a solution to what we perceive to be the problem and in essence changing who we are. All the talk of gender makes it an easy target.
In the end I learned to accept my meatsuit. It fails me in so many ways that whether I was presenting as a man or a woman, I still would
have a sick, imperfect body and could not be fixed. I’m glad I grew up in an era where challenging gender stereotypes was a thing, allowing me to accept a kind of separation between my neurotype and my physical body.
Rather than these ridiculous and outrageous pseudo-scientific claims maybe if wider society were more accepting of difference, and quirks and weirdness and we didn’t teach girls to oust those that do not fit certain ideas of normal maybe fewer autistic girls would
consider transition a “cure”.
Some of the negative elements of autism can be minimised by creating an environment that accepts and supports the autistic person. It will never go away but living a life suited to your own specific neurotype can make life seem easier, the queer community have done well in that respect, certainly better than wider society. That certain sections have hijacked it for their own purposes is why there’s such a huge backlash against those of us who are GC and are wary of their tactics.