Different, Not Less! Different, Not Trans!

Female socialisation is a debilitating process. We girls and women have all gone through it, and our personality and how we engage with the world has been shaped through that process. Our relationships with ourselves, with other women, with men… they are all a product of the conditioning we received when we were younger and unable to critically analyse the world. But while these things affect neurotypical women and girls tremendously, there’s a whole new set of challenges if you’re also on the autism spectrum.

For starters, many personality traits, habits, or needs are opposite. Society expects girls to be social, to master small talk/’gossip’ and emotionality. All of these are a constant struggle for someone on the spectrum, and seem too subtle to grasp - so it often leads to frustration and feeling like you’re unable to fit in with the group. Growing up, you’re also basically expected to be interested in talking about boys, experimenting with makeup and clothes, and not much else. So it’s hard for a girl on the autism spectrum to feel understood and ‘normal’. People assume we are mean or stupid because we’re not smiling and making eye contact, or hysteric when we have meltdowns and need support.

Many girls are also misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all because they are simply viewed as ‘quiet’, ‘reserved’ or ‘introverted’. On average, girls are diagnosed less AND later than boys. Upon growing up, and when entering adolescence, a lot of new problems arise. You’re expected to be very interested in romance and sex, you’re expected to try and dress/act in a seductive fashion at all times, putting on a ‘show’ while around boys and pretending to be someone you’re not. For someone on the spectrum, this can be panic-inducing, because it involves a continuous effort, and often ends up still being seen as weird and un-girly-like. In extreme (but a rapidly growing number of) cases, this feeling of not fitting in and not being ‘enough of a girl’ can lead to teenagers identifying as non-binary, gender-fluid, or trans.

Because of this, many girls start harmful practices such as breast-binding, out of fear that they are not really girls, simply because they are different. We know that this happens with neurotypical girls, but we should be aware of how much this impacts those on the spectrum, and we should insist on education that focuses on ending gender roles instead of enforcing them - in sexual education, in tv shows and films, in toys (which are increasingly gender-specific and sexualized) and books that children engage with. For autistic or aspie girls, this can be the difference between feeling understood, accepted, and okay, or feeling depressed and suicidal.

There’s still a long way to go, and being female and on the spectrum may never get easy, but first of all we need recognition and we need better diagnosis and understanding of autistic/aspie girls and women. Because wearing ‘social camouflage’ everyday sucks. And because girls shouldn’t have to transition in order to be freed from those constraints.

By Rosanna Rosetti (From RadicalGirlsss)