Autism, sexual orientation, and gender identity
I want to take a few minutes to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to autism… because, according to research, autistic people are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than nonautistic people.
I'll get to the why behind this in a second, but first...
Here are some stats I found in 2 recent studies... one conducted on autistic individuals related to sexual orientation, and the other conducted on transgender and gender-diverse individuals related to autism.
According to the first study...
Only ~63% of autistic people identify as heterosexual as compared to ~83% of nonautistic people. That’s ~25% less than nonautistic people. That also represents more than 1/3rd of autistic people who identify as something other than heterosexual.
And according to the second study...
Transgender and gender-diverse individuals are 3 to 6x as likely to be autistic as compared to cisgender individuals.
Ok, so let’s talk about what’s going on here… or at least how I look at the data…
Across every single stat and every single measure, autistic people are MORE LIKELY than nonautistic people to identify in ways that are considered taboo or unacceptable by society.
Now, this can be for a number of reasons...
But to me, the main one is that autistic people are so used to being shunned and ostracized for being different, that at some point, most of us just say, F it...
You're not going to accept me anyway... I might as well be myself unapologetically... and you can take your judgment and stuff it.
But that's just me.
By the way, for those who don't know... I am a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community... and have been since I was 17.
That's me at one of the NYC pride parades back in the day... and yes... I did cut my hair super short that year.
Resources for those interested...