#I am sure this also happens to amab autistics but just speaking from personal experience!

[aibidil]

been thinking about the socialization into gendered bodily comportment and autism

so we know that little girls have a lot of "gender appropriate" bodily comportment to learn—keep your knees together, don't let your underwear show when you're playing, don't speak too loud/bossy, what to do with your hair. When you're a bit older, the socialization into gendered and sexualized bodily comportment—how you hold yourself wrt your breasts, cocking a hip or swaying hips, putting your hand on your hip™️ during photos, makeup norms. All of these things are explicitly taught/enforced by both adults and peers, but they're also, and to an enormous extent, absorbed through observation and exposure irl and through media.

and we know that autistics often find it difficult/painful to socialize/normalize our bodies. Autistics are less aware of our bodily cues (interoception), often have increased bodily sensory needs (stimming, avoiding certain feelings/textures/fabrics), and have overactive nervous systems. We also are really bad at intuiting the social expectations AND we're unlikely to do things because someone just said to do it ("why? says who? does that make sense?") AND we're often allergic to demands that we perceive to threaten our authenticity or autonomy.

If you put these together... oh. There are so many reasons why autistic people are more likely to be queer (we reject the binaries bc when we interrogate them, they don't pass the bs test, etc), but this suggests to me that we're often also just BAD at performing gender. (Not always! Some autistics study gender and then don it like armor.)

But if you're bad at performing gender, that's inherently going to affect the way you relate to gender both personally and theoretically.

I can't tell you how often little aib was told to put her legs together. It never, ever stuck. Not because I wanted to buck gender norms (at the time), but because there's no way to ever get that rule through my head and into my body. I would never in a million years remember that. And even if I did try in a given moment (bc someone was policing me or because I was wearing a short skirt or something), it would be absolutely EXCRUCIATING to sit "properly"! I could never continue to sit properly if not actively trying to maintain it.

If you've had this experience, how could you not reject gender? It's almost like the entire gendered system is hostile to autistic bodies/minds.

#autism #actually autistic #neurodivergence #gender #genderqueer #female socialization #I am sure this also happens to amab autistics but just speaking from personal experience!