To Alex: Concerning a Study on WrongPlanet Forums

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Hello Alex!

I tried to reach you previously through email, but I was told that this was a better way to reach you. My name is Maddy Vega and I'm an undergrad student designing a summer research program trying to examine the many ways that autistic/similarly neurodivergent people experience, internalize, and express gender. To do this I want to reflect on the autobiographical experiences of different autistic people, and I have created a questionnaire to guide reflection on the topic. I can provide a link to the questionnaire if you'd like to see what it entails.

I’m on the spectrum myself and I feel motivated by the desire to contribute some research that features our voices. Historically a lot of research on this topic has came from a medicalized perspective and has focused on children, and the observations of medical professionals rather than the actual words and experiences of the people that the study was about, which I think is problematic in many ways.

The questionnaire entails about 20 discussion-based question that ask people to reflect on their experiences with autism and gender. All questions are optional, and the responses are completely anonymous -- participants will not have to use their names, emails, or usernames to participate. I have also added some extra steps to help participants avoid questions that could be upsetting because they deal with misgendering.

I do recognize that I am a new member to the site. I didn’t want to engage in any forum discussion prior to getting my research approved because my research institution would have considered it unethical. I also didn't want to convey the impression that I was trying to "hide" the fact that I was a researcher or that any users had to be careful talking to me.

Afterwards I would be happy to come back with a summary of the results so that people can share in what was learned and maybe start a discussion about it, if they so choose.


Please let me know if this is permissible on this forum. If it isn’t or if you are not comfortable with it I will gladly withdraw.


Thank you!

designing a summer research program eh? not the kind of thing i come across often...

it is thoughtful of you to design your questionnaire in a way that avoids offending those who may feel that way. it's thoughtful of you.

you say that it's considered unethical by your institution to engage in actual conversation here, but the way i see it, the WP rules encourage the opposite.

who referred you?

Ah, I see. Though I should clarify, they would've considered it unethical for me to engage in the forums prior to approving my research, which they only did on Thursday. They might not necessarily consider it unethical for me to engage in the forums after my research has been approved, but they would likely want to be sure that I was making my status as a researcher abundantly clear in any discussion I was engaging in. Though I do see now that the site rules encourage members to establish themselves before posting about any personal site or project.




By this do you mean who referred me to post in the Site Discussion subforum, or who referred me to Wrong Planet in general?

This forum is not intended for outside surveilance or intelligence based on gender specific, neurological research. If you multiply all remaining factors together, we all have the same emotions and feelings as everyone else, but choose to express them in different ways added to our own personas and nothing more. This is not stereotyping, it is real.
I've had to lock in on another survey getting out of hand, as we are not going to be typecast under experiments designed for use in the lab.

As for contacting the site team, they are currently indisposed with hopeful talks about reinvigorating the site.. in any case, the above comments are of my own feeling and not sanctioned to any particular group or goal.

Certainly true. And considering the way that the research community, across disciplines, has treated and continues to treat autism and autistic/on the spectrum people -- condescendingly, as if we are little more than objects to be observed by some third party rather than people to interact with and gain insight from -- I certainly sympathize with this idea. I also understand how my being an outsider/newcomer to the community, and having to continually state that I am a researcher (which I am required to do by my institution) would make people wary of my presence.

It would be dishonest to try and "paint" autistic people as any one "thing" or set of "things", especially given that autistic voices have previously been hugely excluded from studies done about or concerning them. Already, I've gotten to see how my personal experiences with being fairly gender-fluid and having Asperger's are just one of many configurations of internalized ideas and self-determined expressions of gender that people have, some of which align to what neurotypical society demands, some of which don't, and for a wide variety of reasons one way or the other.



Hmm. Yes, I have seen that . . .

In any event, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it.