Today’s INSAR 2019 Special Interest Group (SIG) on Gender, Sexuality, and Romantic Relationships was led by Laura Graham Holmes and Jeroen Dewinter, and co-led by Anna van der Miesen. Essentially, relationships and sexuality are central to everyone’s health and well-being. But there isn’t enough useful research and materials available fo autistic people of all ages and abilities, their families, and healthcare professionals, and many have expressed the need for research and guidance. So that’s what the SIG leaders and the participants in this well-attended session talked about. Any errors or omissions in the highlights below are on us. SIG participants Sara L, Dori Z, Jac dH, and Christina N, in discussion [image: Four people of varying gender identities and neurotypes, talking at a conference table.] Last year’s Gender, Sexuality, and Romantic Relationships INSAR SIG was about determining the most important issues for the autistic community, in terms of gender and…
Tag: gender
Photo © Ted Eytan | Creative Commons/Flickr [image: Multiracial crowd rallying with flags and signs behind a banner reading “Trans Solidarity against transphobia for justice”.] Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com Ten years ago, I wanted to write a paper about autism and gender issues for a gender and sexuality conference at which I had previously presented. I started the research, then dropped into a depression after realizing how little material was available, and that the existing research about autism and gender was both dismal, and erasing. The medical journals talked about transgender autistic children as if their gender issues were delusions, mere symptoms of their autism. I never wrote that paper. Today, not only is there good autism information available, but the “double rainbow” of being both autistic and LGBTQIA+* is just beginning to be more accepted and understood. We have a long way to go, but people are beginning to understand…
Elizabeth Bartmess runs the autistics-and-cousins autchat discussions on Twitter, and also writes and critiques autism-themed fiction. We talked with Bartmess about why autchat matters, sometimes in surprising ways, and also about why “‘Autistic character learns empathy’ is the character arc I most wish would go away.” Elizabeth Bartmess [image: photo of a white person with short light brown hair and glasses, smiling.] Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: Tell us about autchat. What is it, exactly? Elizabeth Bartmess: Autchat is a Twitter hashtag by and for autistic people and “autistic cousins”—people who have similar experiences due to other disabilities like hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, ADHD, etc. We welcome people whether they are formally diagnosed, self-diagnosed, or wondering whether they might be autistic or similar. We have weekly hour-long chats on our experiences, with topics such as accommodations, burnout, and sexuality. During a chat, the moderator asks 4-5 questions and participants answer them.…
Gen Eric I know you, but I don’t know you. I’m not you, but we have more in common than you may think. For one thing, we are both Autistic. For another, we’re both male; though you may identify as mostly male, or partly male, or a combination of male and female, or neither whatsoever and that’s awesome either way. Just like your autism, that’s part of what makes you you, and you are awesome. There’s something you need to understand from the outset. A lot of what’s happened in your life, a lot of difficulties you’ve encountered and things that others may have objected to, they aren’t your fault. All this time you were running on a radically different OS than your peers, and no one ever told you. You were expected to be just like the others and, when you couldn’t do that, you were told it was…