Autistic gay people
Marina Sarris
Date Revised: April 9, 2024
People often face rejection when they say they are LGBQ+, but Jada Thompson also contended with something else when she came out: disbelief. Thompson is autistic, so some people assumed that she didn’t know what she was saying.
“Certain people see us as children. Maybe they have seen an autistic person who seems to have a child-like innocence, but that’s not usually the case,” says Thompson, who participates in SPARK, the largest ongoing study of autism.
Thompson, 25, identifies as pansexual, which is an attraction to people of any gender persona, and nonbinary, which means not simply female or male. Thompson, whose pronouns are she/they, wants to be approved for who she is. That strife is made more difficult by stereotypes and misperceptions about autism, sexuality, and gender, she says.
“None of my identities are really accepted,” says Thompson, who is also Inky. “I found out there are a lot more gender non-conforming people in the autism community. That made me touch better, and I was able to find community there.”
A new study of 651 independent autistic adults in SPARK found that a
Being gay
Our autism friendly formats can assist children and young people understand different identities. If you prefer information in a visual way, here you can read our being gay visual story.
The word homosexual originates from both Greek and Latin. The Greek “homos” meaning same and Latin “sexual” referring to sexual acts and affections between members of the identical sex.
In 2019, an estimated 2.7% of the UK population aged 16 years and over identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB), an boost from 2.2% from the year before. Though some people feel confident in their sexuality even younger than 16, whilst others are still questioning.
What does being gay mean?
Being gay traditionally means entity a man who finds other men attractive. This is male homosexuality. But sometimes women who uncover the same sex attractive also use this designation interchangeably with lesbian. According to National Statistics, creature gay and lesbian are the largest group under the LGBT umbrella.
Like many others, some childish people with autism, self-identify as being gay. Creature gay is not a choice. Like autism, there is no scientific evidence for ex
Position Statement on Autistic-LGBTIQA+ Identity
Written by Sam Rose¹ with Melanie Heyworth
Introduction
In recent years, it has become widely accepted that there is a considerable overlap between the Autistic and the LGBTIQA+ communities (Davidson & Tamas, 2016). However, a corresponding effort to assist the Autistic-LGBTIQA+ community has not been forthcoming, and there is a impressive lack of resource allocation, acceptance, and support for this intersectionality (George & Stokes, 2018b; Hillier et al., 2020; Strang et al., 2014, 2018; Telfer et al., 2018).
Due to stigma and discrimination perpetuated by the media, conservative views of gender and sexuality, and misunderstanding of Autistic lived experiences, Autistic-LGBTIQA+ people face multiple barriers to realising their original identities, including their sexual and gender identities (MacKenzie, 2018). These barriers are further increased for members of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, such as First Nations peoples and migrant communities, who deal with racial discrimination in accessing the LGBTIQA+ community and supports (Hill et al., 2021). Despite these compounded vulnerabilities, we also kno
News and Knowledge
Sexuality and gender are spectrums, as is autism. People’s sexuality and gender identities do not necessarily conform to specific guidelines. In fact, it is more common for autistic individuals to deviate from gender norms. Gender norms are set ideas that aim to dictate the ways a person should perform, look, and identify based on their gender. In a similar way, autistic individuals are expected to fit a label developed by neurotypical individuals. Kind the overlap of autism and LGBTQIA+ identities is an important step in validating our neurodiverse group. Autism serves as a gateway to gender and sexuality exploration and utterance by challenging cisgender and heterosexual societal norms.
So, how do autistic individuals deviate from societal norms about gender and sexuality? According to author Laura Dattaro, “A 2018 Australian survey of transgender adolescents and young adults found that 22.5 percent had been diagnosed with autism, compared with 2.5 percent of all Australians. Some experts estimate that 6 to 25.5 percent of gender-diverse people are autistic.” The Australian survey suggests that a quarter of gender-diverse individuals could
Marina Sarris
Date Revised: June 12, 2024
One evening, Riley Smith learned from some former co-workers that an acquaintance had approach out as gender diverse. Smith felt elated for the acquaintance, but she also felt something else. “Afterward, in the days and weeks that followed, I felt a unlike emotion that I recognized as envy. It led to me to question myself increasingly tough questions about who I was.”
Assigned male at birth, Smith eventually came to realize that she is a trans person woman. As an autistic person, she is not alone. A higher percentage of autistic people identify as queer woman , gay, bisexual, gender nonconforming, or queer (LGBTQ) than the general population, according to research studies.1-5 A 2017 Gallup poll found that 4.5 percent of Americans identify as LGBT.
Studies vary widely on the percentage of people with autism who are queer , lesbian, or multi-attracted . One analysis suggested the rate is 15 to 35 percent among autistic people who perform not have intellectual disability. 2
“Most of the data that we’re seeing is that [the LGB rate] is two to three times higher,” says clinical psychologist Eileen T. Crehan, Ph.D., an assistant prof