Autistic Pride

Today is Autistic Pride Day. It's well researched that people with autism are disproportionately 2SLGBTQIA+. 

A study, from the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders in 2010, studied people who had visited a gender identity clinic, and found that almost 8% were ASD, compared to 1% of people with ASD in the general population. Then a study of over 600,000 people, published in Nature in 2020, found that people who are trans or gender-diverse are three to six times more likely to be autistic than people who are cisgender. They theorized that it's possibly not that there are more trans neurodiverse people, but that people on the ASD spectrum generally don't care nearly as much as neurotypicals (NTs) about how they appear to other people. They're far less affected by cultural norms of behaviour - for better or worse. 

"Autistic individuals may conform less to societal norms compared to non-autistic individuals, which may partly explain why a greater number of autistic individuals identify outside the stereotypical gender binary."

The following year, a study published in Autism Research reported that significantly more autistic people reported being bisexual or homosexual than neurotypical people, and they also cautioned that, 

"autistic individuals may have been more candid about their experiences than others due to differences in communication style and/or lessened concerns about adherence to social norms." 

The upshot of these studies, then, is that autistic people are themselves more than NTs, more publicly authentic and more honest about who they are. And, the corollary: that most neurotypical people do not expose their real selves to the world; they hide parts of themselves from others and maybe also from themselves. And that's a shame.

Sometimes that open authenticity is embarrassing for friends or family, and that's the very thing that we need to overcome as a society: difference isn't bad. Instead of shunning, ostracizing, or humiliating people just for being different, we need to take all that rabid, judgey energy and focus it on people actually causing harm to others out there, particularly those in power.  

Because those people coming for the 2SLGBTQIA+? They'll be coming for the neurodivergents next if history is anything to go by. All the deviants could be rounded up or forced to conform to a narrow version of normal in order to hide themselves. When that circle widens enough, eventually what counts as deviant could very well include YOU, so this is an absolutely vital time for overt solidarity!

ETA - Okay, I'm a dope and didn't realize it's not a day about people who are autistic and 2SLGBTQIA+, but about being proud of being autistic! It's confusing because this is Pride Month, so I thought it was a subset of that. Nope! But all the rest stands - there is significant overlap, and we have to stick together. But also, yay for autistic people! Everyone's brains are different and that's awesome. Haters just don't get that - yet.