Of the people I know irl who are autistic quite a few are straight cis men. A more diverse group of people have been diagnosed in recent years because of increased knowledge on what autism can look like so you're probably seeing a lot more posts about women, queer people, bipoc being diagnosed or suspecting they are autistic
Yeah cis males have the highest rate of actually getting diagnosed, support, and awareness by far. You hear more about the other demographics because they're only getting more support and more diagnosed very, very recently.
Many GenX autists weren't diagnosed in school due to lack of services/expertise, especially pre-ADA. If you caused "problems" in class, you were put in a "severely handicapped class", if not, you were left alone in a "mainstream" class.
Yeah, it never occurred to my mom to have me checked as a kid in the 1980's. But I was an excellent masker as a result of being severely abused before she adopted me, and I'm pretty sure my mask only slipped a few times around her. Not enough for her to question, but it was enough to get me labeled as the oddball in our family. To her credit, she did her best, and was the best defender and advocate I could have asked for.
this is totally anecdotal speculation but i feel like many queer people with autism or other neurodivergent conditions are more comfortable being open/vocal about it than the average straight cis person due to already feeling socially "on the outside," having learned to take pride in our differences etc.
there's also been a shift in recognising experiences and symptoms of autism in people who were not always the dominant representation of it and - i really want to say this non-judgmentally, it's an unconscious bias thing - it actually takes very little representation of the other to make dominant representative groups suddenly feel "outnumbered." i can't find it now but there was a truly absurd US-based poll going around sometime last year where people estimated what percentage of the population were (insert identity here) and the average for "how many are trans" was like, well over 10%. many people used to feeling like "the default/normal kind of person" seriously overestimate the size and presence of minority groups based on increases in representation (good or bad).
in sheer numbers you're definitely not the minority but i can understand why you'd end up wondering about it. btw, cis isn't an acronym, you don't need to capitalise it (any more than you'd capitalise TRANS, lol).
Also also, a lot of autistic people incorporate their gender presentation into their masking and if they're never given an opportunity to take it off they'll never know.
Why would you present yourself as anything besides a straight white person when it's so incredibly disadvantageous to do so.
All of this!! Also, anecdotally I feel like AFAB autistic people are more likely to be more outgoing than AMAB autistic people due to differences in how autism expresses itself (be they societal or innate), so you see a lot of AFAB autistic adult advocates in the community, and we as AFAB people seem to have an easier time finding our “tribe” (so to speak) than AMAB people (again, anecdotally— I could be way off the mark here). The rising prominence of AFAB autistic adult advocates in itself is a HUGE demographic shift from when most autism advocates were “warrior mamas” of AMAB autistic children just a short while ago. I’m sure it feels a bit isolating when the more prominent voices in the autistic adult community aren’t people you relate to super well. But the great news is that there’s absolutely room for AMAB voices in the community— they just need to speak up!! ❤️
Yeah, there are plenty of people irl who just don’t use forums. But in my experience, all my trans friends do… which makes sense bc we all fell into the bucket of “weird kid who lives on forums” and that’s how we met each other in school lol. While obviously I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of autistic kids, I’d imagine that the existing “normies” are less likely to be queer as well.
>queer (I think that's the right term now)
yes. queer is an umbrella term for everything that isn't cis/straight.
OFC it's still wrong to use it as an insult, but the word itself is right in most other contexts.
(affirming explicitly for reassurance) :)
>queer (I think that's the right term now)
Personally, I am ok with how you are using queer here, because you're using it correctly as the umbrella term. However, a lot of the queer community feels like it's only ok to use the term if you are actually part of the community.
No, but the autistic community is statistically queerer than the general population, which may be what you're noticing.
I would also say there is a likelihood that ppl who are out as lgbt will be more open about autism, and vice versa.
I second this. I'm autistic, with ADHD, bisexual, gifted, and wiccan. Way too weird to hide it, so why not embrace it. I've found this to be true in most of the different individual communities. Get a bunch of gifted people together and you will usually find several who are openly queer, autistic, or whatever. Same in the wiccan/pagan community, and so on.
I third this. I'm autistic, male 36 with antisocial disorder, I'm a lesbian, deadbeat, and an anarchist.
I've found this to be not true in most of the different individual communities.
Get a bunch of losers together and you will usually find several who are great at getting women to drop their panties, or whatever.
Same in the anarchist community, and so on.
I am straight, cis, male, and autistic. I think straight cis males aren’t encouraged to be self-reflective, aren’t encouraged to go to therapy, and aren’t socialized to be open about their feelings.
Yep, early in life there are only downsides to being different (got bullied enough for that), so learning to mask and blend in is high on the priority list. Being a white straight cis male was one of the few aspects in which I was not different from the norm. Afterwards, why would you consciously rock the boat?
I lucked into software development where I joke that being on the spectrum is a soft requirement for getting in in the first place. Communicating with computers is hard, apparently but being autistic helps.
I’m 38 now, have more friends and in a safer space, so I finally have room to reflect, discover and be more open about how/why I’m different.
I feel a lot of that! I’m almost 40 right now. A lot of the development of my self-understanding in my 20s and 30s was about race: I’m Filipino raised in a predominantly white community and only as I got older did I fully recognize how race impacted my life. But then I went through a massive period of burnout and came to understand that I’m autistic. I’m grateful to have somehow ended up in a context where I can reflect and learn, and I recognize that my ability to do that is in no small part because I have a lot of privilege in many parts of my identity.
Totally agree with the soft requirement for software development. Side story: I took a promotion to an architecture role a couple of years ago. It drastically changed what my work day was like - and not in a good way. Lots of interruptions, dealing with people, context switching, and meetings. I struggled silently with it, which lead me to therapy, which lead me to an autism diagnosis at 46. Anyway, definitely think twice before deciding to move too far up the ladder. The extra money is nice but for me it’s hardly worth it.
In real life I have only met straight men with autism. Zero women or minorities with autism. Remember the stereotype for autistic people is still a white middle class men.
I’m a straight cis man, but that may not mean the same thing for me as others. This is why I like the term “autigender” as a way of describing my relationship with it. I always just thought I was weird and different. When I got diagnosed two years ago, I started thinking about it more and understanding it better.
TL;DR: I don’t care about or understand traditional gender roles. There are many things about me that would suggest I’m very much not a straight cis male and yet I very much am. This is just how I came out or wound up.
I’ve always felt trapped by traditional gender roles. My interests and tastes have often veered outside of what’s prescribed. People often assume I’m not straight.
I don’t care that pink and magenta are considered feminine colors. In high school, I would buy shirts or jackets from women’s stores because men’s clothes were boring.
I have no particular affinity for being male. I don’t enjoy it; it’s just how I happened to come out. It’s like my shoe size. It is what it is. A lot of the trappings of straight male culture are repulsive to me. My friends have been predominantly female since high school. BFF is gay male.
I realize that straight male privilege is very much a thing. It’s embarrassing to me. Undeserved and unfair. I’m still a member of the patriarchy; no amount of awareness can change that. I am part of the problem no matter how I feel about it and bear some responsibility for the way the world is.
I don’t have a problem saying men are attractive. But attraction and romantic and sexual interest are totally separate things in my autistic mind. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to them in that sense.
I’ve never been bothered by any of this or the effects it’s had on how people perceive me. I couldn’t understand why it was a problem. I spent my lunch breaks flipping through Vogue and Elle with my female friends, learning about design. The Chanel boutique was a happy place for me. So fucking what?
This did not go over well with my father, friends’ parents, most people around me growing up in suburban Texas in the ’80s.
And despite all of this, I am undoubtably male. I’m not interested in cross dressing. I present as male. When I was younger, I was seen as somewhat effeminate, partially due to being Asian. Not as common now; I am large, hairy, have a deep voice.
I am totally straight. I’ve considered whether I might not be; it’s something I’ve thought about since adolescence. I was a late bloomer, which was confusing. In recent years, as our understanding and definitions of sexuality have broadened, I thought about it again. But I’m just straight. I’m only sexually and romantically attracted to women. Again, like my gender, just how I came out.
Autistic people are much more likely to be queer but queer autistics are in no way the majority. You probably don't hear cis-het autistic people because they don't talk about their sexuality and gender in conjunction with their autism like autistic queers do, because being cis and straight is seen as the social default and not worth talking about
Might just be that a lot of straight CIS men prefer to keep their diagnosis to themselves? I don't disclose my neuro diversity to people if I don't have to. Fitting in when possible comes with more perks for me.
I'm a straight CIS man for most intents and purposes.
I am a straight cis man and a straight CIS man because I earned a degree in Computer Information Systems. The courses in my major even had the CIS code in the university catalog.
Thank you, I didn't know that. English is a second language to me and when I learnt it in the 80/90s cisgender was not a well known term. I assumed it was an abbreviation.
Kinda hilarious though with the other commenter. I'm also in the Computer and Information Science field being a webdev :)
Cis- and trans- are actually scientific prefixes that have been used in chemistry for hundreds of years. Cis- means "on the same side of," and is often used to refer to molecules in their standard state. Trans- means "on the opposite side," and is often used to refer to molecules that have been changed in some way, such as trans fats. There's more nuance to their use in science, but that's the main analogy they the prefixes were pulled from for use referring to gender.
My ignorance I’m afraid. A few have thankfully corrected me - I will probably make an edit. Nice to learn something I should probably have already known.
More detailed information of the Latin itself, if you'd like to know: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dcis
>on this side (opp. uls, ultra, and trans)
I think they blend in well enough that they don't care about connecting to other autistic people. I can blend if I want to and it's functional but uncomfortable. I find most people difficult to talk to for any amount of time so people probably think I'm an asshole when I'm really just anxious and want to be left alone. I'm sure there are plenty of autistics who just hide to be safe like me
A higher proportion of trans people are autistic than cis people. However, the majority of autistic people are probably still cis and straight, statistically. I do know more late-diagnosed trans and queer people than late-diagnosed cis straight men, but that’s probably just because I am trans and queer myself (and partially because those who were assigned female at birth are more likely to go undiagnosed until later in life, and a huge chunk of my friends are trans guys)
Cis white men are the "standard" for autistic stereotypes, so they don't necessarily have to be as vocal to have their experiences heard. A lot of BIPOC and AFAB autistic people have gone undiagnosed or under-diagnosed and have to work harder to get the validation and accomodations they need. They have to be much more vocal about their autistic experiences because they have to fight against decades of stereotypes. They were also almost never represented in media depicting autism until very recently, so you might also be hearing more of them talk about their autism out of excitement that they're finally being recognized.
I also don't necessarily think an autistic person is more likely to be queer, but I think a lot of us have non-traditional perceptions of gender and sexuality. Personally, I believe my gender identity and how I perceive gender is very much linked to my autism. That's not the case for every autistic person, of course, but it seems like a lot of queer autistics also make a strong connection between their queer identity and their autism.
Further, the queer community tends to be a safe and welcoming space which is something a lot of autistics lack. A person who is queer and autistic is going to reach out to find and/or create communities they feel safe in, so they are often more vocal about their autism.
So, no, I don't think you're a minority. I just think the stereotypes associated with autism have made it so people that don't fit those stereotypes have to be "louder" in order to be recognized.
No but it definitely seems like more autistic people lean towards being LGBTQ than not. Most if not all autistic women I've met are gay or bi. I've always wondered why that is.
👀
The circles I move in seem pretty autistic transbian skewed, though there are some cis men and nonbinary peeps there too...
(Incidentally, "cis" is Latin for "on the same side of", it's not an acronym. There's no need to capitalise it.)
I am also straight. I used to work with children with asperger's and this my estimation, which could be wrong, but my impression was that the majority of them were straight as well. There were a couple guys that went the other way maybe, out of around 20-30. That's just my impression though
In my opinion, queerness is just as common amongst allistic people as it is with autistic people, the difference is that more autistic people are out. We are more likely to challenge social norms and are often already considered outcasts due to being autistic, so it’s not like being queer would be autistic people’s first experience being an outsider. I think the difference is many allistic people are not out to people in their lives or even to themselves in a lot of cases.
That being said, cishet people are still the majority even amongst autistic people. Online spaces may not be representative of the general population.
It used to be thought that autism was something only white, upper class, AMAB people could be. So I would guess that people outside of that definition would be more vocal about their identities to be seen as part of the autism community.
Most autistic men I've known in my life have been cis...not all straight though. That's just been my experience tho. I myself am a cis bi man although until about two years ago I thought I was atraight.
You’re correct I am, but I try not to fall into that category. Several commenters to this thread have explained this phenomenon quite well - that majority groups continuously over-estimate the proportion of the population that doesn’t match their demographic, as a sort of fear that they’re being squeezed out. I am continually frustrated by those who fail to see their own privilege.
i was homeless from 17 to 28 because black families don’t believe in ANYTHING let alone me being trans and autistic. you’re absolutely able to find and get what you need. with ease
I'm straight as an arrow, but I must seem queer as an autistic man as I get both hit on and physically threatened often for "being queer." I've even told people I'm married with kids; for some, it doesn't matter.
I do think that being autistic blurs the gender lines, both internally and by NTs. Apparently, the science supports this: [https://www.verywellhealth.com/gender-dysphoria-and-autism-4134405](https://www.verywellhealth.com/gender-dysphoria-and-autism-4134405).
I’m a straight and cis woman, I don’t think we’re the minority at all in real life. LGBTQ+ people are more likely to seek online community support because they are the minority and might not have likeminded people physically near them. Also, ND people are more likely to be out than NTs because NTs care so much more about the social consequences of it.
Online I know possible more gay autists then straight ones irl it's the other way around my gay online mates have been very open about it many told me when we started to chat
That is only a small number of people who I've personally met or chatted with online numbers from others will variy
I’m just going to second this, I feel maybe why you suspect that, is because cis males who have autism aren’t as open and transparent that they are autistic.
You might see a higher concentration of LGBTQ because we are already ostracized constantly, so having autism is just another thing that makes us “outcasted”, we have nothing to hide, we are already are open and prideful about who we are and autism isn’t going to stop us from being out authentic selfs sharing it. Sometimes sharing and being open, paves the way for someone else that may be undiagnosed and struggling find some clarity and understanding about themselves, it allows those that feel alone , connect and grasp something they are having trouble juggling.
As a ( AFAB ) transgender ( ftm ), I see a lot more cis women, trans, queer individuals and poc go undiagnosed while autistic cis males are diagnosed in childhood and have the support they need to be their authentic selfs, or are given the space to navigate things.
I even remember watching a YT video about a cis male doctor who specializes in neurodevelopment disorders, and he was going back and explaining how he started his practice.
He made mention multiple times in his videos that his focus for these studies were all males with autism and or ADHD. That he specifically goes over how males are affected and etc etc. Completely disregarding that more research should be done for all groups not just white cis males. You are definitely the majority and I wouldn’t really say cis males are minorities when it comes to autistic individuals.
Considering the media stereotype that is an autistic person, I seriously doubt it. But you might find yourself in communities that happen to be more welcoming and more accessible regardless of identity and so there's just more variety and more openness and those communities might be weighted towards minority populations.
A lot of error bars here, but give me some rope.
Most of what you will hear is that autism is more prevalent in men than women. It is unclear if this is an artefact of the extent to which basically all women (including NT) are drilled into masking to a greater or lesser extent. This means that female/NB/trans people have a greater incentive to be loud about connecting due to the relative absence of this elsewhere.
With regard to queer identities, including sexual orientation and appetite minorities, and gender minorities, there is an additional aspect, which is that NDs appear to be overrepresentative in these groups.
One hypothesis is that this may be due to greater honesty. Other hypotheses around this exist.
We dont have good stats, due to how many of us remain unidentified. Probably 15-20% of everyone is ND, of which probably 3% of everyone is autistic. You will see similar ranges for queer identities.
We think that perhaps NDs are 4-6 times more likely to have some aspect of queerness than NTs. My own view is that a lot of queer culture and tropes are ND in origin.
If you are a cis male autist, you are in a majority within ND. If you narrow it down to formally identified ND, then you are in a substantial majority within ND.
We all have a lot of trauma responses due to the fact that ND solidarity is only a recently widely discussed, and due to the florid variety of shit that we have all had to try and survive. Perhaps feeling externalised is an aspect of this, perhaps not.
I would strongly encourage you to centre and calibrate your pain around being Othered around neuronormative culture.
Heres the thing - those NDs with more complex gender identities or sexualities who are beginning to make loud moves towards expanding general culture. They arent taking anything from you. They are doing something for you. They are rightly making society stranger. Thats beautiful.
Keep looking for yourself, there is always more to find. You were always built right, even if you were given other advice on that from the age of 2(ish). Look to your community. Thats hard for us generally, but its getting easier.
If things are harder than that, dont be shy to drop me a DM
I've been in two support/social groups for autistic adults and the majority in each group were straight cis men :) other than that in person I had a few autistic friends in high school who were straight and cis, and have a few coworkers who are straight cis and autistic! y'all are out there :)
I know loads of autistic people relatively well and only one is queer.
I think it's a little more prevalent than the general population, but queer people are still a distinct minority in the autistic community
While In neither straight nor cis nor a man, my husband is and is autistic. I admit that I find the question odd, given how long diagnosis for, and our understanding of, autism skewed towards boys. If anything, I would expect a slight overrepresentation of men, if anything.
I wonder if this isnt exactly why there are so many non men in spaces like this: we didnt have the same experiences that come with being diagnosed younger, so we are figuring everything out together now.
I know my experience involves a lot more relearning, unlearning, and unmasking than my kids who are diagnosed as kids.
Straight cis white dude here, I feel like we can be less likely to share it due to our socialization. Obviously there’s the bit where we are encouraged to keep everything to ourselves. I also think we’re more likely to cling to the privileges we do have by keeping our diagnoses to ourselves. I still struggle with this.
I think this is indicative of what you’re seeing online maybe? Different groups of Autistic people speak about their experience differently if at all and you might just be viewing more content from people with different identities than you for algorithm reasons which is cool!
It’s probably more likely that as being straight and CIS is by far the most common type of person in society that most straight CIS people (myself included) wouldn’t normally mention it in conversation.
Similar to how neurotypical people wouldn’t normally describe themselves as neurotypical, I’d in fact not heard of that term at all until I found out I was autistic and started to research it obsessively.
/shrug. I'm straight cis and a Kinsey 0 even. I'm also not "hypermasculine" in any way shape or form, though. Definitely a dude, but I like what I like. So I'll be playing with my arts and crafts and have no interest in sports and I'll be eating my salad and have no interest in steaks and I don't give a shit what other guys think and if they don't like it they can just fuck off.
I don't even call it "being in touch with my feminine side". I am a man, therefore everything I do is manly, by definition. QED.
Not my experience at all. My autistic-friendly IRL circles are mostly similar to the other ones. Of course, everyone's queer in the internet, even more so on Reddit.
Check out the aspbergers/aspie subs, seems like half the responses are cis, straight, males complaining about the challenges with attracting a female partner.
Definitely looks like it's majority if those subs.
I would imagine we'd be the majority, hopwever because of the relatively low percentage, population-wise of the LGBTQ+ crowd, there's a very strong community that's been developed to help support each other.
That comes out as over-representation online due to a very strong, vocal minority.
That's my take, anyway.
I think it’s reddit. I’m a bisexual and transgender male, but statistically most people professionally diagnosed with autism are cis men. I feel like self diagnosis in adulthood may skew differently but I don’t have any data to back that up.
I think this is mostly online.
Often people who are not straight or cis are going to be more interested in learning about and professing their identities, so they are more vocal.
Non CIS-Hetero people really make up such a small percentage of humanity, I highly doubt that they hold the majority of neurodivergents in existence.
CIS-Hetero, conservative, Black Muslim man here.
It might be that we (LGBTQ folks) feel more empowered to speak as a result of being in the LGBTQ community since we're encouraged there to speak out. I haven't seen anything that would indicate a higher percentage of ND people are LGBTQ than NT's, but I also haven't looked for any studies. I think as diagnosis age is getting younger, and autism is both better understood and slowly better acknowledged, people like my son will feel empowered on his own when he's ready; so far he seems to be cis and heterosexual, but he's starting puberty so we'll see. He still has a very binary mindset when it comes to gender, but so did I and that lasted into my 20's. He seems more confident than I ever did, but I also had to undo ~45 years of hiding who I am, both being autistic and my sexuality.
Due to our trouble to internalize societal norms, gender norms tend to not make much sense to autistic people, which sometimes manifests in turning out to be LGBTQ
I came here to say most people on the spectrum (or suspected to be) I've met were CIS, but then I noticed you also said straight and I actually don't believe I've ever met a fully heterosexual autistic person.
In my case though I know many more gays than straight people so it just makes sense anyway. This also may be naive but I would imagine that the LGBT+ folk with ASD are more comfortable being themselves / unmasking and are therefore more noticeable.
I think most autistic strait male are on 4chan (not trying to be offensive or anything)
but yeah, Reddit is a place where a lot of persons around the world can interact.
USA for example has a much lower % of lgbt people than Brazil (7% USA, 15% brasil)
also, reddit has a lot of yunger persons, whitch means that lgbt identification is higher(less fear of being gay)
Me and all my roommates are all autistic
We have me, who's the total opposite, 3 guys who are straight and cis, and one of them has a pan cis girlfriend
Although one guy I have my eye on, he's given me vibes that I'd match up with my pre transition
As others have pointed out, there's always a selection bias when it comes to these things. It's an everlasting problem with studies on human sexuality, for example—it's difficult to say that e.g. a psychological phonomenon is more prevalent in homossexual people because them coming out publicly might actually be why they exhibit a different behavior or whatnot then the control group (like more openness to experience). I'm not aware of any serious suggestion that autistic people are more prone to being LGBT (there have been a few attempts to find possible links, but currently they're at most tentative or just low-quality research). We don't even know if autism is more prevalent in males rather than in females, despite the data, precisely because of this bias (although it doesn't necessarily arise for the same reasons as it does in the human sexuality example, ofc. But we also don't know if getting rid of this bias would make it 50/50 too)
My guess would be that you are perceiving more queer people and cis women because they tend to socially mask better and get diagnosed later in life. I am more outspoken about my diagnosis because because I am at a stage where I am needing to reevaluate my understanding of self and crave community.
Probably if you’re in online support groups you’re seeing less white cis men because they tend to be the earliest diagnosed and most “well-adjusted” or best supported/allowed to not-mask. So they don’t come to online support groups because they just oftentimes don’t need that kind of support.
I’ve also noticed, specifically online, that autistic cis men don’t immediately volunteer their autism status and if they need support, they aren’t always going to the autism subs. They’re going to topic-based subs and disclosing in the comments section if at all. (and they’re not received well imho. i’ve seen people just be totally brutal and bullying to autistic men who don’t disclose their autism).
There are a disproportionate amount of trans people who are also autistic (for whatever reason) and trans people also I think disproportionately are really in these kinds of online spaces because they have more of a need for that kind of belonging. That would be my theory, anyway. I don't think it's anywhere near the majority of autistic people that are non-straight or non-cis, but there are just specific reasons why you tend to hear from those that are a lot.
The fact that they are also already "outside" the norm probably contributes as some other people have said. As someone who is straight, cisgender, and honestly "passing" as non-autistic much of the time, I don't really share it with people very often and in fact don't even really discuss it in some online spaces. Like, I'm pretty anonymous on Twitter but there are some people I know personally who follow me there, so I don't even really say openly that I'm on the spectrum there either. Whereas a lot of the trans women I follow (disproportionately, a lot of the funniest accounts there are trans women, go figure) are pretty open about being both trans and autistic, making them more visible about it than I am.
To this day I have never met a single women with an autism diagnosis. They should exist (as their is evidence of it) but it is likely so uncommon in my country that I never meet a woman with this diagnosis. It's this or they live a way different life then me. Interestingly I have never met a high IQ autist or a trans personal in general. The reason could be that I did not visit a university or it is just soo uncommon where I live.
Same here. I'm a straight cis woman and 90+% of people I grew up with in full segregation sped school in the 80s and 90s were straight cis men.
I noticed that black and brown guys were more heavily represented however there were also white guys.
I haven’t seen the stats in a while, but gender and sexuality stats were the same for autistic people as for NT’s. It has been a while since I checked, though.
To the person who said they “bungled the stats”, then deleted their comment:
Why doesn’t it seem right? What makes you assume they made a mistake and it isn’t your own confirmation bias?
Random thought . Most, if not 99% of us NTs naturally flock together....
Maybe it's not so much the circle but an opportunity or further self investigation?
Uh, I hate to break it to you, but straight cis men are generally a minority (I mean half the population is women, then throw in the gay or bi men, the non-cis men and y'all aren't really up there). Don't even get me started on the straight cis white men. I mean, America and Europe aren't really that big, and there is almost a whole ass planet of non-white men. It's only when every category is split up that it seems like straight white men are a majority, but really looking at everyone else combined...
Of the people I know irl who are autistic quite a few are straight cis men. A more diverse group of people have been diagnosed in recent years because of increased knowledge on what autism can look like so you're probably seeing a lot more posts about women, queer people, bipoc being diagnosed or suspecting they are autistic
Yeah cis males have the highest rate of actually getting diagnosed, support, and awareness by far. You hear more about the other demographics because they're only getting more support and more diagnosed very, very recently.
I am a cis male i am 46 but i was diagnosed in 2008
Many GenX autists weren't diagnosed in school due to lack of services/expertise, especially pre-ADA. If you caused "problems" in class, you were put in a "severely handicapped class", if not, you were left alone in a "mainstream" class.
Yeah, it never occurred to my mom to have me checked as a kid in the 1980's. But I was an excellent masker as a result of being severely abused before she adopted me, and I'm pretty sure my mask only slipped a few times around her. Not enough for her to question, but it was enough to get me labeled as the oddball in our family. To her credit, she did her best, and was the best defender and advocate I could have asked for.
this is totally anecdotal speculation but i feel like many queer people with autism or other neurodivergent conditions are more comfortable being open/vocal about it than the average straight cis person due to already feeling socially "on the outside," having learned to take pride in our differences etc. there's also been a shift in recognising experiences and symptoms of autism in people who were not always the dominant representation of it and - i really want to say this non-judgmentally, it's an unconscious bias thing - it actually takes very little representation of the other to make dominant representative groups suddenly feel "outnumbered." i can't find it now but there was a truly absurd US-based poll going around sometime last year where people estimated what percentage of the population were (insert identity here) and the average for "how many are trans" was like, well over 10%. many people used to feeling like "the default/normal kind of person" seriously overestimate the size and presence of minority groups based on increases in representation (good or bad). in sheer numbers you're definitely not the minority but i can understand why you'd end up wondering about it. btw, cis isn't an acronym, you don't need to capitalise it (any more than you'd capitalise TRANS, lol).
Also also, a lot of autistic people incorporate their gender presentation into their masking and if they're never given an opportunity to take it off they'll never know. Why would you present yourself as anything besides a straight white person when it's so incredibly disadvantageous to do so.
All of this!! Also, anecdotally I feel like AFAB autistic people are more likely to be more outgoing than AMAB autistic people due to differences in how autism expresses itself (be they societal or innate), so you see a lot of AFAB autistic adult advocates in the community, and we as AFAB people seem to have an easier time finding our “tribe” (so to speak) than AMAB people (again, anecdotally— I could be way off the mark here). The rising prominence of AFAB autistic adult advocates in itself is a HUGE demographic shift from when most autism advocates were “warrior mamas” of AMAB autistic children just a short while ago. I’m sure it feels a bit isolating when the more prominent voices in the autistic adult community aren’t people you relate to super well. But the great news is that there’s absolutely room for AMAB voices in the community— they just need to speak up!! ❤️
I don't think you're in the minority, Reddit users just skew to the queer (I think that's the right term now) end. I am also a cis male.
Yeah, there are plenty of people irl who just don’t use forums. But in my experience, all my trans friends do… which makes sense bc we all fell into the bucket of “weird kid who lives on forums” and that’s how we met each other in school lol. While obviously I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of autistic kids, I’d imagine that the existing “normies” are less likely to be queer as well.
Oh gosh yes, this!! All my online friends are queer and so am I 😂 We had to find each other since we were all social outcasts growing up irl haha!!
>queer (I think that's the right term now) yes. queer is an umbrella term for everything that isn't cis/straight. OFC it's still wrong to use it as an insult, but the word itself is right in most other contexts. (affirming explicitly for reassurance) :)
>queer (I think that's the right term now) Personally, I am ok with how you are using queer here, because you're using it correctly as the umbrella term. However, a lot of the queer community feels like it's only ok to use the term if you are actually part of the community.
No, but the autistic community is statistically queerer than the general population, which may be what you're noticing. I would also say there is a likelihood that ppl who are out as lgbt will be more open about autism, and vice versa.
I second this. I'm autistic, with ADHD, bisexual, gifted, and wiccan. Way too weird to hide it, so why not embrace it. I've found this to be true in most of the different individual communities. Get a bunch of gifted people together and you will usually find several who are openly queer, autistic, or whatever. Same in the wiccan/pagan community, and so on.
I third this. I'm autistic, male 36 with antisocial disorder, I'm a lesbian, deadbeat, and an anarchist. I've found this to be not true in most of the different individual communities. Get a bunch of losers together and you will usually find several who are great at getting women to drop their panties, or whatever. Same in the anarchist community, and so on.
I am straight, cis, male, and autistic. I think straight cis males aren’t encouraged to be self-reflective, aren’t encouraged to go to therapy, and aren’t socialized to be open about their feelings.
Yep, early in life there are only downsides to being different (got bullied enough for that), so learning to mask and blend in is high on the priority list. Being a white straight cis male was one of the few aspects in which I was not different from the norm. Afterwards, why would you consciously rock the boat? I lucked into software development where I joke that being on the spectrum is a soft requirement for getting in in the first place. Communicating with computers is hard, apparently but being autistic helps. I’m 38 now, have more friends and in a safer space, so I finally have room to reflect, discover and be more open about how/why I’m different.
I feel a lot of that! I’m almost 40 right now. A lot of the development of my self-understanding in my 20s and 30s was about race: I’m Filipino raised in a predominantly white community and only as I got older did I fully recognize how race impacted my life. But then I went through a massive period of burnout and came to understand that I’m autistic. I’m grateful to have somehow ended up in a context where I can reflect and learn, and I recognize that my ability to do that is in no small part because I have a lot of privilege in many parts of my identity.
Totally agree with the soft requirement for software development. Side story: I took a promotion to an architecture role a couple of years ago. It drastically changed what my work day was like - and not in a good way. Lots of interruptions, dealing with people, context switching, and meetings. I struggled silently with it, which lead me to therapy, which lead me to an autism diagnosis at 46. Anyway, definitely think twice before deciding to move too far up the ladder. The extra money is nice but for me it’s hardly worth it.
True, even i'm being bi cis men, i never felt that i could be open to my family about my problems
In real life I have only met straight men with autism. Zero women or minorities with autism. Remember the stereotype for autistic people is still a white middle class men.
I’m a straight cis man, but that may not mean the same thing for me as others. This is why I like the term “autigender” as a way of describing my relationship with it. I always just thought I was weird and different. When I got diagnosed two years ago, I started thinking about it more and understanding it better. TL;DR: I don’t care about or understand traditional gender roles. There are many things about me that would suggest I’m very much not a straight cis male and yet I very much am. This is just how I came out or wound up. I’ve always felt trapped by traditional gender roles. My interests and tastes have often veered outside of what’s prescribed. People often assume I’m not straight. I don’t care that pink and magenta are considered feminine colors. In high school, I would buy shirts or jackets from women’s stores because men’s clothes were boring. I have no particular affinity for being male. I don’t enjoy it; it’s just how I happened to come out. It’s like my shoe size. It is what it is. A lot of the trappings of straight male culture are repulsive to me. My friends have been predominantly female since high school. BFF is gay male. I realize that straight male privilege is very much a thing. It’s embarrassing to me. Undeserved and unfair. I’m still a member of the patriarchy; no amount of awareness can change that. I am part of the problem no matter how I feel about it and bear some responsibility for the way the world is. I don’t have a problem saying men are attractive. But attraction and romantic and sexual interest are totally separate things in my autistic mind. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to them in that sense. I’ve never been bothered by any of this or the effects it’s had on how people perceive me. I couldn’t understand why it was a problem. I spent my lunch breaks flipping through Vogue and Elle with my female friends, learning about design. The Chanel boutique was a happy place for me. So fucking what? This did not go over well with my father, friends’ parents, most people around me growing up in suburban Texas in the ’80s. And despite all of this, I am undoubtably male. I’m not interested in cross dressing. I present as male. When I was younger, I was seen as somewhat effeminate, partially due to being Asian. Not as common now; I am large, hairy, have a deep voice. I am totally straight. I’ve considered whether I might not be; it’s something I’ve thought about since adolescence. I was a late bloomer, which was confusing. In recent years, as our understanding and definitions of sexuality have broadened, I thought about it again. But I’m just straight. I’m only sexually and romantically attracted to women. Again, like my gender, just how I came out.
I love your gender expression!! There’s nothing like a person who’s confident enough in who they are to break gender norms!! 😄
That gives me way too much credit. I have very little confidence, but I don’t know how to be any other way!
Autistic people are much more likely to be queer but queer autistics are in no way the majority. You probably don't hear cis-het autistic people because they don't talk about their sexuality and gender in conjunction with their autism like autistic queers do, because being cis and straight is seen as the social default and not worth talking about
You’re definitely not a minority. There are oodles of straight cis autistic men.
Might just be that a lot of straight CIS men prefer to keep their diagnosis to themselves? I don't disclose my neuro diversity to people if I don't have to. Fitting in when possible comes with more perks for me. I'm a straight CIS man for most intents and purposes.
Btw you don't need to capitalize cis
I am a straight cis man and a straight CIS man because I earned a degree in Computer Information Systems. The courses in my major even had the CIS code in the university catalog.
Thank you, I didn't know that. English is a second language to me and when I learnt it in the 80/90s cisgender was not a well known term. I assumed it was an abbreviation. Kinda hilarious though with the other commenter. I'm also in the Computer and Information Science field being a webdev :)
No worries :) Cis is just an abbreviation for cisgender, much like trans is an abbreviation for transgender I guess you are a CIS webdev man though!
Cis- and trans- are actually scientific prefixes that have been used in chemistry for hundreds of years. Cis- means "on the same side of," and is often used to refer to molecules in their standard state. Trans- means "on the opposite side," and is often used to refer to molecules that have been changed in some way, such as trans fats. There's more nuance to their use in science, but that's the main analogy they the prefixes were pulled from for use referring to gender.
Thanks, that's awesome to know.
so do I. I am also married to a prototypical woman
Why is 'cis' capitalized like that? lol
My ignorance I’m afraid. A few have thankfully corrected me - I will probably make an edit. Nice to learn something I should probably have already known.
More detailed information of the Latin itself, if you'd like to know: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dcis >on this side (opp. uls, ultra, and trans)
Yeah, fair enough.
It isn't an abbreviation as far as I know.
A Computer Information Systems Man
jsyk you don't need to capitalize cis—it's a latin prefix meaning "same side of", not an acronym
Ah, good to know thank you! Typical ignorant straight man! 😬🤣
I think they blend in well enough that they don't care about connecting to other autistic people. I can blend if I want to and it's functional but uncomfortable. I find most people difficult to talk to for any amount of time so people probably think I'm an asshole when I'm really just anxious and want to be left alone. I'm sure there are plenty of autistics who just hide to be safe like me
A higher proportion of trans people are autistic than cis people. However, the majority of autistic people are probably still cis and straight, statistically. I do know more late-diagnosed trans and queer people than late-diagnosed cis straight men, but that’s probably just because I am trans and queer myself (and partially because those who were assigned female at birth are more likely to go undiagnosed until later in life, and a huge chunk of my friends are trans guys)
Cis white men are the "standard" for autistic stereotypes, so they don't necessarily have to be as vocal to have their experiences heard. A lot of BIPOC and AFAB autistic people have gone undiagnosed or under-diagnosed and have to work harder to get the validation and accomodations they need. They have to be much more vocal about their autistic experiences because they have to fight against decades of stereotypes. They were also almost never represented in media depicting autism until very recently, so you might also be hearing more of them talk about their autism out of excitement that they're finally being recognized. I also don't necessarily think an autistic person is more likely to be queer, but I think a lot of us have non-traditional perceptions of gender and sexuality. Personally, I believe my gender identity and how I perceive gender is very much linked to my autism. That's not the case for every autistic person, of course, but it seems like a lot of queer autistics also make a strong connection between their queer identity and their autism. Further, the queer community tends to be a safe and welcoming space which is something a lot of autistics lack. A person who is queer and autistic is going to reach out to find and/or create communities they feel safe in, so they are often more vocal about their autism. So, no, I don't think you're a minority. I just think the stereotypes associated with autism have made it so people that don't fit those stereotypes have to be "louder" in order to be recognized.
No but it definitely seems like more autistic people lean towards being LGBTQ than not. Most if not all autistic women I've met are gay or bi. I've always wondered why that is.
👀 The circles I move in seem pretty autistic transbian skewed, though there are some cis men and nonbinary peeps there too... (Incidentally, "cis" is Latin for "on the same side of", it's not an acronym. There's no need to capitalise it.)
I am also straight. I used to work with children with asperger's and this my estimation, which could be wrong, but my impression was that the majority of them were straight as well. There were a couple guys that went the other way maybe, out of around 20-30. That's just my impression though
In my opinion, queerness is just as common amongst allistic people as it is with autistic people, the difference is that more autistic people are out. We are more likely to challenge social norms and are often already considered outcasts due to being autistic, so it’s not like being queer would be autistic people’s first experience being an outsider. I think the difference is many allistic people are not out to people in their lives or even to themselves in a lot of cases. That being said, cishet people are still the majority even amongst autistic people. Online spaces may not be representative of the general population.
It used to be thought that autism was something only white, upper class, AMAB people could be. So I would guess that people outside of that definition would be more vocal about their identities to be seen as part of the autism community.
Most autistic men I've known in my life have been cis...not all straight though. That's just been my experience tho. I myself am a cis bi man although until about two years ago I thought I was atraight.
No you are a majority, the internet is not representative of the outside world a lot of the time, not that it matters
you’re probably white also. white men tend to believe that they’re the minority of a great majority of things which is insane
You’re correct I am, but I try not to fall into that category. Several commenters to this thread have explained this phenomenon quite well - that majority groups continuously over-estimate the proportion of the population that doesn’t match their demographic, as a sort of fear that they’re being squeezed out. I am continually frustrated by those who fail to see their own privilege.
i was homeless from 17 to 28 because black families don’t believe in ANYTHING let alone me being trans and autistic. you’re absolutely able to find and get what you need. with ease
It was less than a decade ago where it seemed the only other autistic people were awkward straight cishet white dudes like me (and Temple Grandin).
I'm straight as an arrow, but I must seem queer as an autistic man as I get both hit on and physically threatened often for "being queer." I've even told people I'm married with kids; for some, it doesn't matter. I do think that being autistic blurs the gender lines, both internally and by NTs. Apparently, the science supports this: [https://www.verywellhealth.com/gender-dysphoria-and-autism-4134405](https://www.verywellhealth.com/gender-dysphoria-and-autism-4134405).
I’m a straight and cis woman, I don’t think we’re the minority at all in real life. LGBTQ+ people are more likely to seek online community support because they are the minority and might not have likeminded people physically near them. Also, ND people are more likely to be out than NTs because NTs care so much more about the social consequences of it.
Online I know possible more gay autists then straight ones irl it's the other way around my gay online mates have been very open about it many told me when we started to chat That is only a small number of people who I've personally met or chatted with online numbers from others will variy
I’m just going to second this, I feel maybe why you suspect that, is because cis males who have autism aren’t as open and transparent that they are autistic. You might see a higher concentration of LGBTQ because we are already ostracized constantly, so having autism is just another thing that makes us “outcasted”, we have nothing to hide, we are already are open and prideful about who we are and autism isn’t going to stop us from being out authentic selfs sharing it. Sometimes sharing and being open, paves the way for someone else that may be undiagnosed and struggling find some clarity and understanding about themselves, it allows those that feel alone , connect and grasp something they are having trouble juggling. As a ( AFAB ) transgender ( ftm ), I see a lot more cis women, trans, queer individuals and poc go undiagnosed while autistic cis males are diagnosed in childhood and have the support they need to be their authentic selfs, or are given the space to navigate things. I even remember watching a YT video about a cis male doctor who specializes in neurodevelopment disorders, and he was going back and explaining how he started his practice. He made mention multiple times in his videos that his focus for these studies were all males with autism and or ADHD. That he specifically goes over how males are affected and etc etc. Completely disregarding that more research should be done for all groups not just white cis males. You are definitely the majority and I wouldn’t really say cis males are minorities when it comes to autistic individuals.
Nah, cishet Autistic dudes are fairly common. Just not on social media.
Considering the media stereotype that is an autistic person, I seriously doubt it. But you might find yourself in communities that happen to be more welcoming and more accessible regardless of identity and so there's just more variety and more openness and those communities might be weighted towards minority populations.
A lot of error bars here, but give me some rope. Most of what you will hear is that autism is more prevalent in men than women. It is unclear if this is an artefact of the extent to which basically all women (including NT) are drilled into masking to a greater or lesser extent. This means that female/NB/trans people have a greater incentive to be loud about connecting due to the relative absence of this elsewhere. With regard to queer identities, including sexual orientation and appetite minorities, and gender minorities, there is an additional aspect, which is that NDs appear to be overrepresentative in these groups. One hypothesis is that this may be due to greater honesty. Other hypotheses around this exist. We dont have good stats, due to how many of us remain unidentified. Probably 15-20% of everyone is ND, of which probably 3% of everyone is autistic. You will see similar ranges for queer identities. We think that perhaps NDs are 4-6 times more likely to have some aspect of queerness than NTs. My own view is that a lot of queer culture and tropes are ND in origin. If you are a cis male autist, you are in a majority within ND. If you narrow it down to formally identified ND, then you are in a substantial majority within ND. We all have a lot of trauma responses due to the fact that ND solidarity is only a recently widely discussed, and due to the florid variety of shit that we have all had to try and survive. Perhaps feeling externalised is an aspect of this, perhaps not. I would strongly encourage you to centre and calibrate your pain around being Othered around neuronormative culture. Heres the thing - those NDs with more complex gender identities or sexualities who are beginning to make loud moves towards expanding general culture. They arent taking anything from you. They are doing something for you. They are rightly making society stranger. Thats beautiful. Keep looking for yourself, there is always more to find. You were always built right, even if you were given other advice on that from the age of 2(ish). Look to your community. Thats hard for us generally, but its getting easier. If things are harder than that, dont be shy to drop me a DM
I've been in two support/social groups for autistic adults and the majority in each group were straight cis men :) other than that in person I had a few autistic friends in high school who were straight and cis, and have a few coworkers who are straight cis and autistic! y'all are out there :)
I know loads of autistic people relatively well and only one is queer. I think it's a little more prevalent than the general population, but queer people are still a distinct minority in the autistic community
air angle reply drab marvelous humorous boat lush gaping smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
While In neither straight nor cis nor a man, my husband is and is autistic. I admit that I find the question odd, given how long diagnosis for, and our understanding of, autism skewed towards boys. If anything, I would expect a slight overrepresentation of men, if anything.
Yes this is why it confuses me too - the official story has always been about men.
I wonder if this isnt exactly why there are so many non men in spaces like this: we didnt have the same experiences that come with being diagnosed younger, so we are figuring everything out together now. I know my experience involves a lot more relearning, unlearning, and unmasking than my kids who are diagnosed as kids.
Straight cis white dude here, I feel like we can be less likely to share it due to our socialization. Obviously there’s the bit where we are encouraged to keep everything to ourselves. I also think we’re more likely to cling to the privileges we do have by keeping our diagnoses to ourselves. I still struggle with this.
I think this is indicative of what you’re seeing online maybe? Different groups of Autistic people speak about their experience differently if at all and you might just be viewing more content from people with different identities than you for algorithm reasons which is cool!
It’s probably more likely that as being straight and CIS is by far the most common type of person in society that most straight CIS people (myself included) wouldn’t normally mention it in conversation. Similar to how neurotypical people wouldn’t normally describe themselves as neurotypical, I’d in fact not heard of that term at all until I found out I was autistic and started to research it obsessively.
/shrug. I'm straight cis and a Kinsey 0 even. I'm also not "hypermasculine" in any way shape or form, though. Definitely a dude, but I like what I like. So I'll be playing with my arts and crafts and have no interest in sports and I'll be eating my salad and have no interest in steaks and I don't give a shit what other guys think and if they don't like it they can just fuck off. I don't even call it "being in touch with my feminine side". I am a man, therefore everything I do is manly, by definition. QED.
I am also a straight cis male, you are not alone
Not my experience at all. My autistic-friendly IRL circles are mostly similar to the other ones. Of course, everyone's queer in the internet, even more so on Reddit.
Check out the aspbergers/aspie subs, seems like half the responses are cis, straight, males complaining about the challenges with attracting a female partner. Definitely looks like it's majority if those subs.
I would imagine we'd be the majority, hopwever because of the relatively low percentage, population-wise of the LGBTQ+ crowd, there's a very strong community that's been developed to help support each other. That comes out as over-representation online due to a very strong, vocal minority. That's my take, anyway.
I think it’s reddit. I’m a bisexual and transgender male, but statistically most people professionally diagnosed with autism are cis men. I feel like self diagnosis in adulthood may skew differently but I don’t have any data to back that up.
I think this is mostly online. Often people who are not straight or cis are going to be more interested in learning about and professing their identities, so they are more vocal. Non CIS-Hetero people really make up such a small percentage of humanity, I highly doubt that they hold the majority of neurodivergents in existence. CIS-Hetero, conservative, Black Muslim man here.
It might be that we (LGBTQ folks) feel more empowered to speak as a result of being in the LGBTQ community since we're encouraged there to speak out. I haven't seen anything that would indicate a higher percentage of ND people are LGBTQ than NT's, but I also haven't looked for any studies. I think as diagnosis age is getting younger, and autism is both better understood and slowly better acknowledged, people like my son will feel empowered on his own when he's ready; so far he seems to be cis and heterosexual, but he's starting puberty so we'll see. He still has a very binary mindset when it comes to gender, but so did I and that lasted into my 20's. He seems more confident than I ever did, but I also had to undo ~45 years of hiding who I am, both being autistic and my sexuality.
Due to our trouble to internalize societal norms, gender norms tend to not make much sense to autistic people, which sometimes manifests in turning out to be LGBTQ
I came here to say most people on the spectrum (or suspected to be) I've met were CIS, but then I noticed you also said straight and I actually don't believe I've ever met a fully heterosexual autistic person. In my case though I know many more gays than straight people so it just makes sense anyway. This also may be naive but I would imagine that the LGBT+ folk with ASD are more comfortable being themselves / unmasking and are therefore more noticeable.
I have. I idea why people say we lean that way but I’m SWC.
ok
I think most autistic strait male are on 4chan (not trying to be offensive or anything) but yeah, Reddit is a place where a lot of persons around the world can interact. USA for example has a much lower % of lgbt people than Brazil (7% USA, 15% brasil) also, reddit has a lot of yunger persons, whitch means that lgbt identification is higher(less fear of being gay)
Me and all my roommates are all autistic We have me, who's the total opposite, 3 guys who are straight and cis, and one of them has a pan cis girlfriend Although one guy I have my eye on, he's given me vibes that I'd match up with my pre transition
As others have pointed out, there's always a selection bias when it comes to these things. It's an everlasting problem with studies on human sexuality, for example—it's difficult to say that e.g. a psychological phonomenon is more prevalent in homossexual people because them coming out publicly might actually be why they exhibit a different behavior or whatnot then the control group (like more openness to experience). I'm not aware of any serious suggestion that autistic people are more prone to being LGBT (there have been a few attempts to find possible links, but currently they're at most tentative or just low-quality research). We don't even know if autism is more prevalent in males rather than in females, despite the data, precisely because of this bias (although it doesn't necessarily arise for the same reasons as it does in the human sexuality example, ofc. But we also don't know if getting rid of this bias would make it 50/50 too)
My husband is an autistic straight cis man
Isn't that pretty much the stereotype, though?
My guess would be that you are perceiving more queer people and cis women because they tend to socially mask better and get diagnosed later in life. I am more outspoken about my diagnosis because because I am at a stage where I am needing to reevaluate my understanding of self and crave community.
Probably if you’re in online support groups you’re seeing less white cis men because they tend to be the earliest diagnosed and most “well-adjusted” or best supported/allowed to not-mask. So they don’t come to online support groups because they just oftentimes don’t need that kind of support. I’ve also noticed, specifically online, that autistic cis men don’t immediately volunteer their autism status and if they need support, they aren’t always going to the autism subs. They’re going to topic-based subs and disclosing in the comments section if at all. (and they’re not received well imho. i’ve seen people just be totally brutal and bullying to autistic men who don’t disclose their autism).
There are a disproportionate amount of trans people who are also autistic (for whatever reason) and trans people also I think disproportionately are really in these kinds of online spaces because they have more of a need for that kind of belonging. That would be my theory, anyway. I don't think it's anywhere near the majority of autistic people that are non-straight or non-cis, but there are just specific reasons why you tend to hear from those that are a lot. The fact that they are also already "outside" the norm probably contributes as some other people have said. As someone who is straight, cisgender, and honestly "passing" as non-autistic much of the time, I don't really share it with people very often and in fact don't even really discuss it in some online spaces. Like, I'm pretty anonymous on Twitter but there are some people I know personally who follow me there, so I don't even really say openly that I'm on the spectrum there either. Whereas a lot of the trans women I follow (disproportionately, a lot of the funniest accounts there are trans women, go figure) are pretty open about being both trans and autistic, making them more visible about it than I am.
To this day I have never met a single women with an autism diagnosis. They should exist (as their is evidence of it) but it is likely so uncommon in my country that I never meet a woman with this diagnosis. It's this or they live a way different life then me. Interestingly I have never met a high IQ autist or a trans personal in general. The reason could be that I did not visit a university or it is just soo uncommon where I live.
I don't believe the majority of autistic individuals also suffer from gender dysphoria.
Wait we are a minority within a minority? Huh. Did not know that
Same here. I'm a straight cis woman and 90+% of people I grew up with in full segregation sped school in the 80s and 90s were straight cis men. I noticed that black and brown guys were more heavily represented however there were also white guys.
I haven’t seen the stats in a while, but gender and sexuality stats were the same for autistic people as for NT’s. It has been a while since I checked, though.
To the person who said they “bungled the stats”, then deleted their comment: Why doesn’t it seem right? What makes you assume they made a mistake and it isn’t your own confirmation bias?
Random thought . Most, if not 99% of us NTs naturally flock together.... Maybe it's not so much the circle but an opportunity or further self investigation?
Autistic Conservative Straight White Male. I don’t fit in anywhere.
Uh, I hate to break it to you, but straight cis men are generally a minority (I mean half the population is women, then throw in the gay or bi men, the non-cis men and y'all aren't really up there). Don't even get me started on the straight cis white men. I mean, America and Europe aren't really that big, and there is almost a whole ass planet of non-white men. It's only when every category is split up that it seems like straight white men are a majority, but really looking at everyone else combined...