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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Dutch Autism organisation under attack for centering autism instead of trans

4 replies

NeuroPoppins1 · 02/12/2024 18:06

When Advocacy Collides: Autism, Gender, Women, and the Push of Inclusion

I'm also currently conducting online interviews if anyone would like to take part,

Thanks,

Neuro Poppins

When Advocacy Collides: Autism, Gender, Women, and the Push of Inclusion

Women's Rights are Gender Critical and Autism Advocacy is Neuro Critical - TRAs stand back!

https://open.substack.com/pub/neuropoppins/p/when-advocacy-collides-autism-gender

OP posts:
sanluca · 02/12/2024 18:17

Dutch or Danish?

BonfireLady · 03/12/2024 07:23

Great article, thank you.

Using women's rights as a parallel to explain what's happening works really well as it helps to really highlight what's going on.

"Now, I don’t believe everyone has a gender identity. I don’t believe in gender identities at all, but I do respect people’s rights to believe gender is more than the socially constructed stereotypes we put onto the sexes, as regressive as that is to do. So, I think some of the commenters raise a point that trans people don’t ‘own’ gender."

It's interesting that the people who support the organisation's work seem to all believe that everyone has a gender identity, yet they don't want it to overshadow how autistic people experience theirs (i.e. their perceived identity - I don't believe we all have one either).

As with the Cass Report, it's powerful when someone does believe in gender identity yet still challenges the idea that the root cause of the distress must point to people being in the wrong body. That other factors should be looked at first, in a neutral way.

Personally, I use the word sex not gender but I think I can see why you've positioned it like this. Because some people really do believe that they have a gender but perhaps autistic girls' experience of this involves a heightened sensory distress about breast development and periods (the biological sex bit), whilst also figuring out their place in a world full of sex-based expectations (gender, as a social construct). Likewise for autistic boys and the changes to their bodies. Is that where you're coming from here?

Do you have a link to the original organisation? Even though it would presumably all be in another language, it feels odd reading an article when I don't know what it's actually referring to. Playing devil's advocate, how do I know the organisation actually exists? Also a link within the article/blog would clear up the disparity between the thread title (Dutch) and the opening paragraph (Danish).

NitroNine · 03/12/2024 20:29

sanluca · 02/12/2024 18:17

Dutch or Danish?

Danish - the Danish word for “leaflet” is “folder”, so when the responses quoted in the article were put through Google translate the word “folder” wasn’t translated as it was mistaken for the English homograph.

NitroNine · 03/12/2024 20:37

If it’s the main Danish autism organisation, they do plenty of trans-centring - leaflet on puberty & sexuality.

https://www.autismeforeningen.dk/media/lkwehqt3/pubertet-og-seksualitet_single-ny-22399.pdf

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