ASD males exhibiting feminine behavior

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...and even thinking like a woman.

I find this intriguing.

I wonder how this happens, considering prenatal testosterone is supposedly higher in ASD males?

Probably closer to a lack of the standard social standards regarding how a male or female is supposed to act.

People with ASDs tend to roll how they want to rather than how they're "supposed" to.

Lack of absorbing social context can make one oblivious to arbitrary gender roles

Do you have a link? I've heard the opposite: extreme male brain--logical and unemotional.


Disclaimer: I'm not saying women are illogical. That's just the stereotype.

I've long been told I "act like a girl."

The extremes of masculine and feminine behavior aren't caused by hormones. They are socially constructed gender roles learned by watching and imitating others. Autistics aren't very good at watching and imitating, or knowing which persons (their own gender, for instance) they are supposed to imitate.

Women have always seemed to naturally gravitate to taking care of me like mother hens. I sometimes wonder if I have the lost little kid thing going on.

At social events I seem to find myself ending up sitting at the "woman's table" as opposed to the "men's table" without consciously choosing a table. I'm not gay - an I don't think I'm effeminiate, more neutral if anything - but have always found it more comfortable being around (relaxed) women than men and generally the conversations with women are, for me, more interesting.

Discuused this with my psychologist (she's a woman) and she couldn't come up with an idea why this was for me.

Maybe it's beacuse I'm not "one-of-the-guys". I'm just me.

Hi eggheadjr

I'm the same age as you and we also share
the same issue with respect to women.

I know many right brained dominant men
with autism who would really give Simon
B Cohen a run for his money. The masculine
concept of autism is a sooooooooooo
last decade.

Well, if this is any indication, when I was growing up (~ age 7), the older boys in the neighborhood used to tease me, by calling my ?Sally?.

It?s interesting, even at age 51, I never considered myself a ?man?, as that label carried some connotations which I have never lived up to. I have heard mothers tell their young children to, ?Ask this man [referring to me] about...? and think that the reference (to me, as a man) to be odd and uncomfortable.

To be clear, I never considered myself a ?female? either. Simply a bystander in this journey we call life.

I'm right brain dominant as well - I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Even though I'm right brian dominant I'm an engineer, and a fairly successful one (was always good in math - especially geometry as I'm a visual thinker). I think my success comes from being able to see the soultions all the left brain dominant engineers can't. They tell me I'm innovative - and I usually end up telling them they can't see the obvious solution that's right in front of them.

While they're busy looking at the trees, I'm the one saying "Ummm, do you realize the forest is on fire...?"

And on another note, when I was single I always ended up dating older women. My wife is 8 years older than me - we've been married 23 years and it works for us.

Wow. ......I have always been attracted to older
Women. The mother of my child is 12 years
older than me.

I'm a big softy - and I rather like that now although it really wasn't what you wanted to be growing up.

In my teenage years just being academically able and having no aptitude for/no interest in sport was a guarantee that I was labelled a raging poofter - and this was when being gay was the very worst thing a male could be.

My sheer physical awkwardness was probably taken as effeminacy by some - for example, I found it hard to track a fast moving cricket ball and fearful of a fractured skull I would put up my hands to shield myself.

I don't think I was/am actually effeminate but, for a lot of males, not being explicitly macho meant that you were by default a screaming queer. It was important that you were seen getting drunk, smoking, committing petty offences and commenting loudly on every passing girl's looks. I didn't do this kind of thing for whatever reason (and in hindsight I probably was a rather pretentious, self-righteous git) and was therefore deemed "gay".

As I've mentioned in other threads I'm a big guy so I think the pressure on me to be a beer-swillin', fist-swingin', rugby playin' shouty bloke was doubled. I was always a Geek, which I see as more of a gender-neutral kind of thing rather than actually effeminate.

I got every bit as much abuse on this front from girls as from boys.

This has more to do with gender roles, many of these roles are nurtured from infancy.
For example: A male infant is more likely to cry and need comforting more often than a female infant. Female infants tend to cry and need comfort less, but receive it more than the males. Infants who are not comforted as infants do tend to have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other problems. This causes very different developments in each gender. The female gender tends towards hypoagency and other traits because they are nurtured to believing that they will be comforted at request. The male is nurtured to be tough and not expect comforting for the rest of their lives.
I would assume that infants on the spectrum are less likely to require comforting and they receive a more suitable amount of comforting and thus are more likely. Except, I might also assume that the spectrum infant also responds differently to the effects of comforting than normal infants.

Huh, that's interesting. I might look up on that to read more. I've actually wondered if cis males on the spectrum were as self conscious about their gender as to men who are not on the spectrum.

I've also noticed, when I'm browsing on Tumblr blogs that quite a bit of the people who have asperger's identify outside of their assigned birth gender. (genderfluid, agender, genderqueer, etc.) But that could just be coincidence.

I am much more female than male by U.S. standard. I always have been. I also have never picked up on social hierarchies and have never respected authority simply for authority sake. My dad tried to beat masculinity into me. Other's (my male peers) tried to ridicule me into being more masculine. Girls made fun of me or rejected me. There is also a racist aspect in that black men are often stereotyped as "studs", hypermasculine and hypersexual. I felt so much pressure to fit into this stereotype when younger. As an adult, I could care less. It helps knowing other non-masculine men on the spectrum and not on the spectrum. Ironically, I still have the mannerisms my dad beat into me so I appear hypermasculine but my thinking is the thinking that is typical for a female in our society, always has been. I have never related to other males--don't understand them. I think NT's feel more uncomfortable not conforming or they have something in their brains that allows them to automatically understand and internalize the rules of gender.