Teens, sexuality and the Aspie connection

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We recently put two and two last year that my teen daughter has Asperger's. It has helped explain a lot for us about how she has always been different -- and wonderfully so. But she still does not quite get maybe why she is the way she is and feels different.

She's very high functioning but as she's hit puberty several issues have come up that we believe are related to her blakc/white vision Aspie's (if not A, then must be B), including an eating disorder and now questions about her gender identity. We are trying to be as supportive as possible but wondering if other parents -- or Aspies -- out there have dealt with the gender identity issue (at 13 she's suddenly claiming she wants to be a man and cut her hair and will only shop in the boys department). Trying to seek her a counselor/therapist (her request) but just looking for other personal insights. She knows we love her but are having a hard time with this one because -- like many things with her -- it's come from left field. Just want her to identify the Aspie behavior before she zooms in on the other so quickly. Starting high school next year.

This sight has been wonderful resource for us in a world that really does not yet understand or identify Aspies as a disorder or disability.

Concerned parent

My thirteen year old Aspie has been having some profound issues, but he's not struggling with his gender identity. I wouldn't describe his behavior as especially masculine, but in his mind he's all boy/man. He has some major mood disorder things going on and that's been our big struggle. His grades have plummeted. A year ago he was utterly incapable of telling a lie, as some Aspies are. At this time we can hardly get him to tell the truth, and he lies so badly that it's rather pathetic. His table manners and personal hygeine, while never stellar, have also taken a real nose dive.

We still get glimmers of his "normal" sweet happy go lucky self. Sometimes I want to know who this crazy guy is and what he did with my son. I think some of this is just puberty, but with all the other stuff my son has to deal with it's like puberty times a thousand....a supernova of hormones.

Gender identity has a very large social component in our society, even though it isn't as polarized as it used to be.

Because people with AS do not have the same innate social inclinations as others, we tend to prescribe to socially dictated gender rolls far less easily than others.

For example, there was a time in western society where women were expected to wear dresses. Most NT women would think nothing of putting a dress on, because society had dictated that women wear dresses and they accepted this as part of the definition of their gender identity.

But a person with AS might very well decide that they do not like dresses, for whatever reason, would not consider wearing a dress as anything inherent to how they define themselves, and would thus see no point in wearing it.

People with AS tend to define themselves by purely internal factors, rather than external ones.

If a female with AS does not like dresses, or makeup, or dolls, does not socialize like other females (most girls and women with AS socialize more like males), then it's very easy for them to conclude that they identify more with men.

Indeed, it's been noted on various occasions that many women with AS have interests and socialization patterns which society would considered more removed from the feminine end of the gender spectrum than the masculine end of it, and so it's not difficult to see how your daughter would conclude that she feels more like a man.

HOWEVER....

If we look at males with AS, we see a similar deviation from gender norms. Males with AS often tend to display more emotional vulnerability than society tells them males should have. They tend to get bullied because of this. They tend to lack the level of confidence which society tells them males should have. They tend to have interests which society tells them are not "macho" enough or, in some cases, too immature for their age.

As I recall some of the accusations from the dating forum, men with AS are "spineless" and women with AS are "mean"

But that may only be true in the context of NT society, which dictates if a man is not more confidence than a woman, he is spineless, and if a woman is more assertive than a man, she is mean.

What I am proposing is that people with AS generally represent the biological human...how humans would be in the absence of social conditioning.

I think I would educate your daughter on society and gender so she is aware that a large portion of gender identity is a social construct, and things like pink, dresses, and dolls, and dirt, cars, and trucks should really not be in the definition of ones gender identity.

I may not be the most feminine woman in the world, but I'd make just as horrible a man as I do a woman.

I remember in my late teens being looked up and down by a bloke in passing. As a result I ended up joining the Hare Krishnas and being a nun for the next 5 years. I've always wondered if that was an extreme reaction.

Teens are at the point where they start making their own decisions and living with the consequences. If she wants to not be a girl - let her figure it out. I sometimes listen to teenage girls on the bus these days and I wouldn't want to be associated with that either.

I dress in masculine looking clothes, and cut my hair, because I feel the most comfortable, that way. It projects a very vintage Mick Avory - like image to the world, but that's what I want. I feel more comfortable in my skin, wearing 60s Kinks inspired, unisex, or masculine clothes, and having the hair and appearance of the gender neutral Mod, that I really am. I even tell the womanizing pigs at my clubhouse, to call me Mick, to drive them crazy.