Autigender-what's your opinion?

Post Reply New Topic

I made a post re autigender that got totally ignored. I therefore deleted it.It probably got ignored because i mentioned how i felt.

So no personal stuff. Just this What's your opinion re autigender?

My opinion is that MOST autistic people are "binary"----either a man or a woman in terms of gender. I don't believe autistic people are their own gender, separate from any other gender.

I know I think of myself as a man, and not a woman----and I'm autistic.

But we should not scorn autistic folks, or any folks, who don't believe they are in the binary universe----that they are agender or genderfluid or whatever.

autiegender (n): a neologism/buzzword with which to fill empty spaces within an otherwise boring conversation

It doesn't exist.

You mean there are men, women and autistics on this planet? I don't really wish to buy into that, as autism is isolating enough without people coming up with terms that separate us from everybody else even more.

One of the people who started the Autistic Rights Movement, Jim Sinclair, considered himself "nonbinary."

^ Don't encourage it.

Thanks all of you.

What's important is what YOU consider YOURSELF.

From my understanding "autigender" is just a label autistic nonbinary people sometimes use, that recognizes that the specific persons perception of their gender is greatly influenced by their autism. It's not "autism as a gender" and doesn't mean all autistic people are fundamentally different from M/F NT people. I don't use that label, but I "get it" since I don't think I'd have a lot of the issues I have with gender if I didn't have autism.

If other people want to use that label, and it helps them explain and make sense of things, I literally couldn't care less. More power to them.

I just looked it up, and as far as I can see the term is of no use to me, it's just something that maybe happens to other people, or maybe it doesn't and somebody just coined a pointless new term.

I suppose my ideas about gender are slightly different from those you'd normally find in the world of NTs - e.g. I don't relate well to the idea that the term "woman" means something much different to the term "female." Even the term "lady" is mostly interchangeable with "female" to my mind, except in the sense that a lady is a polite female, just as a gentleman is a polite male.

I know very little about all this LGB......thing, or whether or not it's even relevent to this autigender concept. I've nothing against people not identifying as their biological or officially-assigned gender, and what a person believes about their own gender is fine by me as long as they do no harm. It's just that I don't personally know anybody who isn't just male or female, so it's all rather out of my experience, and I make no apology for that. From what I can figure out, I'm relatively gender-blind, in the same way as I'm relatively colour-blind, which means that I tend not to actively discriminate between people of different genders and races, and that I tend not to make special allowances for which group people belong to or think they belong to, they're all just people to me, to some degree. If somebody tells me they have a particular special need, I'll listen and give their argument fair consideration.

I've no idea whether or not much of that is relevent to this autigender thing.

okay, it made me laugh

Never thought of it (autigender) initially thought it had something to do with ground transportation but then saw the "i " - but maybe, don't know that it's been studied to determine correlation.

But there's problems enough defining ASD let alone correlations

Interesting thought though

Ehh, but personal stuff is more interesting, bring it back to this thread! :3


As for me, I don't get nor experience genders, so I just say agender if creeps asks me about my one. Not sure what autigender means, but at the very least, it must be better than woman/man nonsense :3

Normally I am not one to jump on the discussion of why a certain gender identity is incorrect, silly, not valid, etc, but in this one instance I personally think that "Autigender" is moot, and is covered easily by the term "Non-Binary." Non-Binary essentially means that you do not define your gender identity by the socially accepted binary norms. If Autism is a factor in your gender identity such to the extent that you feel it is different from male/female, then you are by definition non-binary. I also think that Autism and Gender Identity are separate enough from one another that they are incompatible in this context. I do not see how Autism can relate to gender.

It may impact the neurology of your person that you have a different gender identity than normal, but since Autism as a diagnosis doesn't relate to gender at all, it can't be put on the LBGTQ+ banner. Hence, Autigender seems a bit silly to me. You can be Gay/Lesbian and Autistic, and Autism has nothing to do with your gender or sexual identity. You can be Trans and Autistic and Autism has nothing to do with your sex or gender identity. You can be Cis and Autistic and Autism has nothing to do with your sex or gender identity. So why are we trying to make Autism have something to do with sex or gender identity if, demonstrably, it doesn't have anything to do with it?

A term and classification already exists for those who are not on the male/female identity stage. Use that term instead. The ONLY reason that I can think of for using the term "Autigender" is if you want a portmanteau or similar term that makes it easier to communicate that you are Autistic AND Non-Binary but cutting out the 3 extra words. Again, this seems odd to me, because Autistic persons commonly are perfectly fine with being over-explanatory or talkative. Perhaps not universally (exceptions exist certainly, and it is also common that language deficient or non-verbal Autistic people exist), but again, common enough. Having an Autistic person say to others, "I am Autigender, which means that I am Autistic AND Non-binary," is probably a very common example of how this communication would go, and it quite obviously defeats the purpose of having the term.

I wonder whether it was an Autistic person who coined the term, or a NT person who thought it would be helpful. If the former...ok, I guess. I don't see the point, but if that is how they want to go about their own personal Identity, great. If it was an NT person, then I am a bit flabbergasted by the audacity inherent by such an action.

*shrug*

This is a bit of a PSA, but being "Gender Blind" or "Colour Blind" (I loooove the British spelling of colour, always have) can be extremely offensive and seen as a subversive form of discrimination. The idea is that if you are a Cis or Caucasian person who is "blind" to the features of others that they are being discriminated for, then you are basically communicating that you are willing to be ignorant to the problem. "Blind" to the problem. It would be like saying to a person with Autism, "I don't think Autism is an issue for you, because Autistic people are just like everyone else as far as I am concerned."

It has become more commonly preferred that you accept that people are different, and because of those differences are faced with various systemic barriers in society that need to be addressed.

Not sure if that is useful, but perhaps it is to somebody.

Assuming a label -- especially a label you have made up for yourself -- does not validate that label.

Awww c'mon, Fnord, how 'bout:

Internavigationaltransglobalfrumpgrumpproletarianism
?

(Consider the very length -- this thing is almost Germanic!)

I mean, a lot of hard work sweat and tears went into it and if it would be internationally adapted the world would be a better place