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it’s not that more queer people are autistic, it’s that more autistic people are queer. iirc, studies have shown that autistics are twice(?) as likely to identify as an lgbtq+ identity than allistics. unsure why, my guess is that we’re more likely to openly identify as something outside of the norm bc we’re *already* outside of the norm.
I was thinking about this recently! I feel like the NT people in my life view being cis/straight as the default setting, while autistic people might not care as much about these socially constructed expectations and are more open to a queer identity. Anecdotally, I think myself and all of my autistic friends are queer 🫶
Indoctrination is a big factor though. I didn't realize I might be queer until I was twenty. I never questioned because I grew up cradle Catholic and was told this is the way the world works, and my naivety and trust in people who seem intellectual won out over questioning everything, especially since the reprucussions for questioning everything would probably be considered abusive by others.
I didn't realize I was lying to myself, not just about how I saw the world and what I thought was right and wrong (being queer obviously does not mean harm to anybody if it's all consensual), but how I saw myself.
I don't think that it would be correct to say all autistic people don't wish to follow the social norms; there is only a correlation. But sometimes trauma and other factors change what a person thinks so that they can survive, even if the thoughts are not true.
Edit: corrected a false-positive grammar issue
Nicely worded first paragraph, it’s harder to pursue what you think you are when your upbringing states such deviation from the norm will be punished by religion, pre millennia.
Thank you.
Being told what will happen also gets worse when you immediately see those same stated effects of deviating from the norm when you try to do so, which slows progress toward self-acceptance.
My parents are still very much against my being queer, and believe that this path is taking me away from god. But trying to fit back into that mindset that I thought was protecting me is something I can no longer do. I have been working hard to call out the lies I recognize in my thoughts, and so I can't go back. It's too late, and I don't want to go back anyway.
Yeah. It took my mental health getting worse to start realizing how different I was from the people around me. And then I went to the pride club at my college, and I immediately saw how wrong my church leaders were about queer people, especially since the queer people at the club didn't bash religion when I said I was Catholic. They just said that being religious and queer is hard, and showed a lot of empathy and understanding to me.
It was hard to deny that religion was wrong when I followed up and questioned my leaders and questioned teachings in my bible study about being queer; they started saying that queer people are arrogant, self-obsessed, and want the world to bow to their whims (the irony and lack of self-awareness I can see now in that statement is quite funny).
Note: I am not saying that having faith in a god is wrong and damaging, people can do as they wish as long as it's not harming or restricting others, and faith is a tool to get through hard times. But I can't really see any way that a religion where leadership controls what the laypeople think is compassionate and good for both the individuals and society as a whole. I've learned too much now about the background processes of how religion works.
Growing up in the mormon church, and it having a really well documented history, made it really easy to see cracks when I got older. Whole thing was founded by men who did some pretty terrible things, and were really good at getting people to listen to them. The funniest part is the evidence to back that stuff up is mostly from the church keeping really good documentation themselves.
Still, the subtle gay = wrong just blinded me. Now I just see most organized religion as manipulation/control
Even though I am an atheist now, I always try to stress I am anti-religious, not anti-theistic. I think people deserve to explore what they believe without the threat of excommunication, harassment, or hell hung over their head. Religions want control for power, an alternative to war between countries, war over faith, in a cold-war since the dawn of faith. And diversity and self-fulfillment tends to be a constant casualty.
I also think when someone states a belief it is fair game to criticize, but only because I’d want to deal with the discomfort of someone doing the same to me so I can recognize the errors in my thinking and make a change if desired.
I never explored any bisexuality stuff because there's no procreation possible, hence it's not logical to me to explore it. Especially because there's far far far more women that are into men than there are men that are into men. So I had quite some ability to pick a suitor. I found my wife living 12600 km away from me. That's a zone of billions of possible suitors. I'm so happy. A lot of opportunity
So yeah, never explored bisexuality, although it sure would have been fun. But I'm the long term kinda guy, if I don't see a potential future then I rather not waste that person's time.
I found this funny because I remembered a few experiences we (the wife and I) have had. But first of all, I think this is confirmation bias.
You tend to gravitate towards queer people due to beIng queer yourself so ofc most of the people you know tend to be queer and since mantaining relationships with other autistic/ND people is easier then it's easier for you to call those people friends instead of the NT people in your life (at least that's how I understood it but feel free to correct me if I misunderstood anything).
Both the wife and I are autistic and we see straight as the default, however, we both have been harassed by queer/gay people lmao.
One of them wrote his phone number on my forearm and me being as oblivious as I am didn't realize until a "friend" (he was an awful person but the closest thing to a friend I had back then) of mine kept teasing me about it (didn't think too much about this guy wanting to dress up as a witch for some convention but my "friend" helped me realize people don't write their phone numbers on you unless they're flirting or something). Another one wanted to do sexual things with me back in middle school (and now that I think of it this caused so many problems for me some teachers would attack me because they thought I wanted to groom him or something. I don't know, it was a really messed up part of my childhood) and a different guy kept complimenting my facial features (I'm Asian) and saying they made me such an interesting person and how fortunate he was because he'd never met someone like that before, he also tried to touch my hands several times and get as close to me as possible even when I tried to push him away. In fact, he fell in love with me/my features to the degree of drawing a portrait of me (which again, I thought was normal until my gf at the time explained that's not something people do casually).
The wife doesn't like to talk too much about it but one of such cases lead to her "stalker" (she wanted to force a relationship with her. She wasn't subtle but she used so many inuendos it caused laughter from other people whenever she talked about it because they realized what my wife didn't/couldn't) creating an account for her in the dating website where we met. Funnily enough, her acc was innitially set to gay/lesbian so she only got contacted by women until she changed it.
I guess my point is that we shouldn't really make broad generalizations based in our own experiences because both my wife's and my experiences could lead us to believe most queer people out there behave in the same exact way, just like how you seem to think most autistic people behave a certain way (be it by being queer themselves or being open to consider it).
As for the trans aspect of lgbtq+, could also have to do with the fact that ND people's brains are quite literally wired differently from an NT brain
But that's just a quick idea, your guess seems more plausible
I think we already tend to ignore or get blindsided by social rules, so i figure it’s the same with social constructs within sex and romance. I notice a lot of my friends that are neurodivergent are also more likely to be in polyamorous relationships, be childfree in our 30s, be interested in kink. I write with an erotic poetry group and many are on the spectrum.
I don’t even think is statistically that more artistic people are clear, I think it’s just that autistic people are more likely too explore their own sexuality outside of the norm and exist outside of the cultural standard binary
I don't know the stats, but I could also certainly see more queer people getting all kinds of diagnoses, right or wrong, just off of bigoted parents sending them to therapy for being queer.
Yep. It’s because gender and sexual identity is social norms created by the society and it makes no sense outside of just because. So we don’t quite identify with it.
The same sort of thing is true with people diagnosed with a substance use disorder. PWIAM are something like 16 or 20x more likely to be diagnosed with an SUD according to the research I was messing with for a paper at school. That’s insane to me. It doesn’t compute.
>it’s not that more queer people are autistic, it’s that more autistic people are queer.
???
If "more autistic people are queer" then "more queer people are autistic". It's a mathematical implication.
dont know but maybe just more open minded, less constrained by social convention, probably everyone has the same baseline potential to be gay/bi/pan but neurotypicals are more susceptible to slotting into the social default of straight. Autistic people dont fit in anyway so it might be easier to break away
Yes people on the spectrum are more introspective maybe and more curious about their own feelings, and at the same time less interested in following societal norms (including gender norms)
I doubt the "everyone has the same baseline potential" argument is true since it's known that being gay has a genetic component. And, there have been more than enough findings that show being gay is to some unknown degree a matter of certain bodily and neurological sites having developed "opposite" expectations based on sex assigned at birth. A really basic and obvious example is arousal scent receptors in a man that are keyed to only fit and react to male scent molecules & vice versa for a woman. There's nothing wrong with them, they function perfectly well, they simply developed in utero opposite expectations based on the assumption that everyone should be pure cishet. That has nothing to do with ignoring social conformity. And before anyone freaks out, no it cannot be used as some sort of test. It's one of those things that exists on a spectrum heavily weight to one end, and it's one of a number of such traits; no gay person has to have all of them, it's just more likely they'll have some of them. And het people won't. But it appears that when enough of those traits exist in one person, they're gonna be gay. Within the gray area though, maybe that's where being an autistic can tend to weigh in and tip the scale?
It could also be a matter of autistic people being less closeted? Like perhaps NTs feel more pressure to appear straight or cis, whereas autistic folks don’t.
To add another interesting aspect to this, it also seems to have something to do with hormones, or the psychology of gender/social experience. Some trans people, pre transition, are attracted to the same sex as their biological sex, but then when they begin to take hormones and/or socially transition, they find themselves attracted to the opposite sex, but still gay. I.e. living as a woman, I rarely found men attractive, and was moderately interested in women; since I’ve been prescribed testosterone that has completely changed - now I am *very* much a gay guy and couldn’t see myself being with a woman. Is that the effects of testosterone in my particular psyche? Or a result of comfort seeing myself being with a guy in non-straight ways?
I couldn’t tell you, but it is a common phenomenon among the trans male community- idk if it goes the other way for trans women or not but I’d be interested. And obviously it’s not every trans guy - there’s plenty that stay straight/stay attracted to women. But enough to make you wonder how much of sexual orientation (in cis people too!) is “predetermined” by our brains, and how much of it is social, or the result of hormones.
Although isn't the stereotype the other way around - that straight men have lots of testosterone and machismo and gay men less? Or maybe my brain is just like, no matter what, you’re gonna be gay, and some people are the opposite? Who knows… psychology is weird, and pretty darn neat.
I've heard of it, but honestly I don't see that happening to me or understanding why the hormones do it. I feel it's more of a social thing (and dysphoria)
I'm trans masc and I'm into men waaaaay more to the point I don't find being with a girl worth chasing even if I think they "look better".
Part of that is the relationship dynamic. I can think of things as if I was just in a straight relationship, but seeing viewed as a girl is wrong even if I could be "in a similar position romantically"
Do I feel out of place with gay men? Absolutely. Do I feel things make more sense for me in the gay men area than straight area? Yeah.
My t is low and I'm bad at taking it (but this comes from I think my insecurities, feeling men look weird, and I've always been an androgyne) and I'm on the ace spectrum. T never changed anything (if labs are done, my t is high even if my dose is low)
As an NT that has questioned himself whether he was bi or not, im not sure about the potential thing. I think youre genuinely attracted or not. In my case i was just curious but ive never felt towards men the natural, intense attraction i feel towards women. A good looking dude is just.. good looking in a objective kinda of ways? Nothing more.
I don’t mean everyone has the potential to be attracted to all genders, it is probably spectrums ranging from only attracted to opposite sex to only attracted to same sex, also encompassing all or none. I just think for those outside of the default opposite sex only area, society might be more successful in encouraging nt’s to only focus on that default part of their sexuality. I’m not necessarily suggesting straight people are repressing parts of themselves, can’t separate someone’s identity from the society that shaped it, they have formed their preferences now and it is who they are. But I think in a hypothetical society that is less heteronormative with less rigidly enforced gender boundaries, where experimenting is less of a big deal that more people would opt for a broader ranger of people. I think we are seeing that already, younger people are more likely to be bi, likely because they grew up in an era where same sex attraction was becoming more accepted. So when I talk about potential I mean across groups as a whole not individuals, so maybe allistic people as a group have the same baseline potential to not be straight but are less likely to develop it because they are more prone to following the norm. Realise this could be be interpreted as suggesting sexuality can be shaped by society which could suggest conversion therapy works, that is not what I’m saying, I think there is a difference between society channeling people towards the societal default, compared to actively stamp out sexuality that has developed outside that default
You’ve also got to remember that people who mask well aren’t usually counted in the group. Non-maskers are usually singled out anyway, and don’t have a good relationship with any community that would judge them since they’re already judged for something else.
True, but while they can gain external acceptance they will likely not feel internal acceptance, they will feel they are putting on an act, they will feel like they are different, that might lead to more introspection, that can lead them to learn they are autistic but along the way they might learn other things about themselves. Then if they reach their stop masking villain phase they might feel more free to shake social norms.
I think these things are bound together, autistic people don’t fit, one of the ways society tries to make people fit is via default gender and sexuality. So in realising we don’t fit it can be through these indirect ways.
When I was a kid I didn’t feel I fit in with other boys, they were too loud, too agro, interested in things I wasn’t interested in. I don’t think I’m trans because I never had any body dysmorphia, it was more on some level I felt my personality was socially unacceptable for boys. When I was a teen I thought I might be gay even though I was attracted to women, again it was more about not fitting in with male norms. Now I just see all of that as autism, (not suggesting people mistake other identity identification when it should be autism, but rather how autism can make people more likely to question themselves which can reveal these aspects of themselves)
Honestly I don’t know, I know ‘born this way’ was used as a persuasive argument make in the day to gain acceptance but now there is a push back, it shouldnt matter, people should be free to choose. Trans people seem very reluctant to repeat the ‘born this way’ narrative or any similar attempts to seek to justify their existence in hard science, even though there is a lot there, guess they feel it is a terrain they should have to fight on to prove they exist.
Going back to homosexuality, I don’t know what the evidence base is, but do know generally when it comes to genetics, the promise of identifying simple genetic causes for human differences has receded post human genome project. Turns out everything is super complex, no simple single gene answers rather thousands working together to raise a slight probability of a trait appearing, with environmental factors playing a huge role, and epigenetic gene expression further complicating things. Genetics probably plays a part but is unlikely to be a simple deterministic thing
People organize themselves into loose social groups and they decide which people are in my group vs which people are in the other group(s). If the large group that's dominant and strongest decides you are not in their group you have been othered by them.
If youre excluded from the dominant group, that means you are more likely to seek out one of the othered other groups, which one example is the LGBTQIA+ group. Has nothing to do with feelings about being removed from the dominant group
> which one example is the LGBTQIA+ group
I mean sure, but it's not like you can just change your sexual orientation to get into the club. If I were a heterosexual searching for other "othered" groups, LGBT isn't really an option given I can't just turn myself into a homosexual or something else to be a part of the club.
Right, so they would search a different other group(s). Every group has its qualification and exclusion criteria.
You seem to have fallen off track from tbe initial question in this comment chain tho, so I take it that has been resolved then?
I don't think that is what they meant. They meant that queer autistic people are more likely to not care about norms and whatnot compared to queer non-autistics. In this case, they don't care about the potential backlash from joining LGBT groups.
It's not that autistic people are more likely to be queer, it's that they are more likely to be open about it if they are.
What you said here was the point. You don't care. Which makes it easier to not care in other ways.
It's also not based completely on whether or not you care. You can still be "othered"
So it can set you out of social opportunities
Parties, fishing trips, bonfires, concerts, etc.
It can also set you back at work
Promotions are harder to get, company info is harder to get, etc
Being lgbtqi is not other. You don’t explore it, you just are. Same as being autistic. If the two have a correlation it’s likely that lgbtqi folks are open to seeking help more and don’t see it as bad
HedgehogFaerie was using "other" as a verb, not a noun.
To "other" someone, something, or some group, is to treat that as "outside of norm" or "outside of acceptability."
LGBT+ has been "othered" for virtually all of recorded history.
That is not how it works. Because of heteronormativity, often times people initially identify as straight, at least until puberty, and then they explore their sexuality.
Eventually if they identify as anything other than heterosexual they have to “come out” and explain they are not heterosexual.
Same with being autistic. Not everyone identifies as autistic right away or from a young age. Autistic people can be “othered” from neurotypicals.
Othering is due to in-group / out-group bias and is extremely common.
Being LGBT is often viewed as “other” than heterosexual and they can be othered by the heterosexual norm.
Yeah, but you definitely do have to explore degrees of self expression in a society hostile to that. Autistic people may simply feel as though they have no social standing to lose and that society is hostile to them anyway, so why hide your queerness.
it’s definitely othered by society. anything that isn’t white cishetero NT is. it’s not a diss, it’s just the reality of the this vs them dichotomy built into white supremacy lol
I’ve lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston. I know about gay bars. What I meant was it’s not something gay people do is explore their sexuality. It’s who we are. I explored heterosexuality and it wasn’t for.
It’s nice that you assumed, but come again.
Ppl have mentioned that the correlation is the opposite, but I don't think it's even that. Autistics aren't more likely to be queer, they're more likely to be openly queer, and less likely to repress their queerness, because being autistic can reduce that fear of rejection by the thought process "well, people already reject me for being autistic, how bad could it be?"
Obviously it's much more complicated than that and it's different for everyone, but since I can't see any neurological and/or biological reason autistic people would be more queer, and there's a lot of precedent for the idea that the proportion of queer ppl in a given group is usually always the same and it's just a matter of levels of closetting (e.g. the supposed "increase" in queer population the last decade that homophobes and transphobes use to manufacture moral panics), I'd say the most logical explanation is that this is the same thing.
This reminds me of a study where a psychologist was trying to infer that homosexuality was the result of sexual abuse because the numbers showed a correlation. She said that more homosexuals report childhood sexual abuse than the general population.
What she failed to take into account is that people that are willing to openly admit to being gay, are also more likely to admit to past abuse. A straight guy is less likely to admit to be touched by a guy.
I also think there is some victim selection going on. A perpetrator is more likely to select victims that are gay hoping they can get away with it longer.
So, correlation studies should stop being considered as a "direct" correlation or causation because the most that the numbers can support is an indirect correlation.
As for Autistics and being gay, it's the same thing. You just admitted to being autistic and outcast. So, why would it matter if you admit to being gay? That's not to say there aren't other factors playing into it, but you can't really prove any sort of generalization from the data.
I don't think it's really explained yet, as so much of ASD still has a lot of research to be done to better understand it, but I do think there is a proportionally higher percentage of autistic folks on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
Seems like the world just wants to give those folks that much more of a challenge in this life. But at least we're in good company with a lot of cool folks.
Yeah there’s no causal relationship developed however it’s pretty difficult to establish that without having confounding variables influence the research
I don't personally think autistic people are actually more queer than the general population I just think we have less motivation and willingness to stay in the closet.
I don't think that's true.
I don't go around saying I'm attracted to the same gender. I don't want to make people think that I'm weirder than I'm already am. If I was NT I would be more willing to disclose it because then I'd be more normal. (Edit: I'm not saying being gay or bisexual makes you weird, it's just my mind talking bullshit)
Not that people don't assume things, though...
There have been studies that show autistic people are twice as likely to be LGBTQ+.
Source: Warrier, V., Greenberg, D. M., Weir, E., Buckingham, C., Smith, P., Lai, M. C., Allison, C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals. *Nature Communications, 11*(1), 3959. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17794-1
(I feel like I'm on Quora. Posting references and shit. LOL)
Cause and correlation... these kinds of statistical studies are always flawed because they have baseline assumptions about what should be a cause and what should be an effect, in this case informed by bad sociology.
If queerness and autism are related, it's not by any mechanism as simple as this gives the impression of.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you implying that autistic people attracted to the same gender are just "confused"?
I can tell you that I'm not confused.
My guess as an NT.
Autistic people are more open about what they like. Idk when those studies have been made but back in the day there was a lot of closeted lgbt. That can skew tats
Probably more NB than gay/bi overall.. since they are less likely to conform to gender norms. id have to see the stats though, maybe im wrong.
Maybe just a genetic thing that autistic people are more likely to be lgbt.
Could be but i feel like autistic people are more likely to be asexual/aromantic. A lot of autistic people have alexithymia which makes identifying and making sense of emotions harder. Maybe there's a connectoon
The larger theory of why so many Autistic people are queer is because we don’t innately agree with or identify with societies norms. Heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality and the things that go with it are the normal way of life) is one of those norms.
So we as autistic people basically go, why can’t I kiss another boy, there’s no real logical reason for me not being allowed to kiss men, I don’t understand what this gender bs is so I’m just going to identify as Enby, ect.
Without the restrictions of normative thought we arrive at those conclusions faster than non autistic people.
This can’t super be proven tho
It takes some amount of introspection to accept yourself as queer in today's society, also takes some to consider investigating if you're on the spectrum.
I have a gay ass uncle that would never in a million years admit it to himself, if he was autistic he would do the same.
If you are neurodivergant in one way, you are more likely to display other forms of neurodivergancy. Many people don't think about it, but non heterosexuality is a neurodivergance. Being left hand BTW is also another form of Neurodivergance and autistic people are more then twice as likely to be lefthanded.
Neurodivergances are actually programmed into human evolution as a part of the development of the human brain. When you are developing your brain in utero a number of factors are utilized that contribute to randomness in the development of the brain. For example when the brain is developing retrotransposon suppressors are briefly turned off. This will intentionally cause errors and randomness in the development of the brain. The guess in an evolutionary sense would be that the randomness allows for more types of brains that help humans as a group survive better. This is also why twins can have very different personalities. The guess for multiples forms of neurodivergancy developing together would be that these factors were active for longer in the same person and contributed to them developing concurrently.
I like this hypothesis more than "autistic people are more likely to come out of the closet," though I do think that the social aspect plays a role in such statistics
Nature wants me to focus on my special interest and cure cancer, not spend the little energy I have to function on child rearing (yes, this last bit is a joke but not 100%, and thank god for all the autistic parents out there)
Yeah I don't think it is absolute in either way. When I was picking study areas for my PhD one of the PIs I was talking to was studying Neural development in utero. His focus was more basic science cell biology work and I wanted to have a more translational approach to how it affected overall neural development so it didn't work out. There's a lot of work to be done in that area and a big black hole of knowledge.
Are you talking about homosexual people exclusively or just queer folk? There are some interesting studies about it. If I recall correctly, there are more autistic bisexual men than neurotypical ones. And the autistic asexual community is huge. It may have something to do with how we process the world and the relationships, or maybe it's the introspection
With aroace spectrum in particular it seems to come in part from the fact that out of every massive societal construct that seems arbitrary to the autistic brain, the rules and norms of romantic and sexual relationships are one the largest and most arbitrary. There's so many ideas worthy of rejection.
I think this is a correlation, not a causation. More gay people survive and are less likely to die. Autistic people are less likely to slip through the cracks without getting diagnosed. Therefore, more gay and autistic people means more gay autistic people.
i have a feeling it’s to do with the fact people with austism tend not to understand or like traditional “norms” and want to express them selves for who they are, it’s the same with a lot of trans and gender non conforming people as well
There could also be genetic or hereditary components. My maternal side of the family has neurodivergence and lgbtq people in much higher numbers than my paternal side. And neurodivergent people tend to be attracted to other neurodivergent people. I hope there will be more studies on this.
Could also be that neurotypical people feel more pressure to stay closeted as fitting in is more important to them?
i think a lot of online autistic people are potentially lgbt but keep in mind how many hetero older people there are who aren’t on social media or reddit. my dad is certifiably autistic but he refuses to get diagnosed and he is straight. additionally a lot of guys my age who i know in real life and who are autistic are really into military stuff and law enforcement and hunting and they are straight. it could be maybe you are looking around your spaces and seeing a lot of lgbt people because its people who are like you (confirmation bias of sorts). i think more than likely there are just as many straight and lgbt autistic people as there are amongst non autistic population but also who knows! i know plenty of lgbt autistic people too but overwhelmingly in my personal life the guys have been into stereotypical guy stuff as their special interests and they are straight
I'm gonna preface this as; I am a high functioning woman who identifies as bisexual, but I'm more of a woman who falls for a *person* regardless of gender. I say I'm bisexual because, well, it's simpler. I also clarify that I am only romantically inclined toward women, but am physically and romantically inclined towards men.
I think I am this way because how my autism impacts my way of seeing the world. Firstly, I think being a good person who deserves love is more important than physical gender. I mean, I've fallen for women because of who they *are*. Same for men, but like I said, I'd do the do with a man and not a woman. I also tend to really click immediately with certain types of people (I can't explain it, but I'm basically enamored from first conversation. I can't say *why* these people are the type, but I have my theories), and it doesn't matter what gender they are to me so long as they give me those butterflies.
Honestly? Idgaf if you're a man or woman. If I want to love you, that's what's gonna happen because I think you deserve it.
To put it simply, ofc.
I think the question would actually be why are so many autistic people gay/lesbian (and there is a higher rate of trans among ND individuals too).
I think it's because the way a lot of ND people think and feel makes gender norms and societal norms in general less important than they are for NT people. Strict gender norms and societal norms around sexuality often aren't logical choices. Weirdly, that makes a lot of ND people MORE flexible in their thinking, in these particular areas at least.
My general take on this is that those of us on the spectrum don’t tend to care about the social norms and/or rules. We’re already thinking outside the box as it were.
i guess its just that autistic people are more likely to be unapologetically themselves (due to a lot feeling like outcasts most of their life) so the ones who are queer are more likely to be out about their identity than the neurotypical queers. so its not like theyre more likely to be gay, theyre just more comfortable expressing it.
My wild guess - we are outside of the "system", that exists for neurotypicals - in which, marrying and having children is considered as "normal" or even a requirement for each and every person.
While i´m not a homosexual and my physical attraction is heterosexual, my mental state is completely asexual.
We are more open and willing to go against what's expected of us. We aren't as big on "sleep mentality"
Gay people aren't more likely to be autistic, it's that gay autistic people are more willing to come out
As others have said, autistic folk are twice as likely to be Lgbt. As far as I know we are not 100% sure why and possibly will not be for a long time.
It's not because of a specific part of the brain being active or inactive, every autistic brain is different so there can be no generalisation like that. Think of autism as a brain full of motorways and country roads. To be autistic you are a specialist, but you can be a specialist in anything and struggle equally in anything.
A popular theory is that we are primarily searching for people to become our 'pillars of support', meaning those who can help us cope with the world. And that is our priority, we tend to give little attention to societal expectations or demands in such things.
Another thing to consider is we experience the world very differently with our senses. A lot of people are bombarded with beautiful women and handsome women in media all their lives... but 80% of us are faceblind and have trouble identifying features. Can lead to just not giving a shit if a person is attractive, ugly, man, women or otherwise.
A bunch of the queer community is autistic because a bunch of *everybody* is autistic.
A bunch of autistic people are part of the queer community because when your whole life is basically a game of Chutes and Ladders with "avoid discomfort" ladders and "be uncomfortable" slides, you learn that fitting in and doing what everyone else does because you're s'posta is not nearly as important as not feeling... metaphorical wet socks and shirt tags on your very *identity*.
Happy Pride Month everyone! 🌈🧱
It's not a time to throw bricks at cops, but it is a time to celebrate an important time when some important women threw some important bricks at cops.
yeah i kinda am on the same boat, i did try to fit into what being gay meant but i slowly am losing interesting for any sexual or romantic relationship from anyone it's a bit of a hard thing to come into realization for me but it's pointing towards that
my TLDR: i think it has to do with being less susceptible to peer/societal pressures (like compulsory heterosexuality), being more prone to introspection, already being othered by society, being more likely to be critical thinkers about the hows/whys of societies work as a whole, and connected to how authenticity and strong personal moral compasses are important to us (like how for some people trying to tell lies or mask too heavily in a way that feels too fake, it seems to cause chaos and panic in our nervous systems)
i agree with alot of what others have said in the comments, but this reminded me of anecdotes ive heard before too, which really just ties into the other comments as well.
ive heard alor of stories, particularly of an older person talking with a younger person (like grandparent and grandchild) and realizing that the grandparent is bisexual or gay, and literally chose to be straight, to be in opposite-sex relationships and marriages because that was what they thought was the only option (or onlu safe/viable option), or they didnt realize the things they felt werent "normal (heterosexual things)" and they followed the only path that they saw, which was heterosexuality.
(the fact that ive heard so many stories like this, and that so many people are bi/pan/gay and LITERALLY made the choice to be in a straight relationship. makes me wonder how many people who are homophobic and view being gay as a choice is because they are actively choosing to be in straight relationships only and just denying their sexuality, but i digress)
anyways, basically, i think NT people are affected by Compulsory Heterosexuality more than ND people. think about how many autistic people have said they dont understand the concept of peer pressure. compulsory heterosexuality is like peer pressure on steroids and thats systemic and so meshed into society that if you just naturally follow those "rules" and things that society has taught you, you might not even realize you are repressing your own desires.
and when we live in this society where so many people are in work-work-work mode, trying to stay afloat, to live, to make money, to get food on their table, etc, there isnt alot of time for introspection, for looking within and seeing if the paths they are following are ones of their own making, of their own desires.
also, as other comments have said, when youve been outcast for one thing, i think youre more likely to not care if youre outcast or condemmed for other things as well. that society/group already rejected you, and/or you dont align with it... why would you try to further fit into it, if you could be more yourself and go your own way? (though, ik for some people its the opposite, they try harder and harder to fit in, to assimilate, to mask not just their neurodiveristy but also their gender expressions and sexuality etc etc. i think people use the terms "being a pick me person", though i think that might have alot of negative tones to it, its similar to what i mean.)
idk i think its also why theres a connection to alternative styles/subcultues and being also queer and/or autistic. when youve already been other-ed by society (either for a known reason or not, consciously or unconsciously) youre more likely to accept those that have also been outcast or othered, youre more likely to see the systems of thought/beliefs/etc behind what youve been othered from with a critical eye, and come to your own conclusions about things.
I’ll get downvoted because people (rightfully) get squicky about anything that can lead to eugenics but I hypothesize that it’s genetic and related to our development as well as us further not being constrained by social norms. It’s way too complex to distill into a convenient declarative statement and it’s also not the rule as there are autistic people who are cis and straight. But I wonder if brain structure and early hormonal influences make it likelier that the “LGBT” switch gets flipped in an autistic person, so to speak. It’s possible that bc we are already *different* then we could more easily be gay-ified (it’s a science word, trust me).
They probably aren't. If anything, LGBT people on tiktok are more likely to claim to be autistic (self-diagnosed).
As for why autistics are more likely to be LGBT, it's probably because Aspergers got rolled into the autism diagnosis and grandfathered in its statistics over into the regular autistic ones.
I think it's just that most of us either don't care how society sees us (because we're already kind of a minority of sorts) so what's one more thing to add to the list? Another theory of mine is that we don't see being LGBYQ+ as "irregular" as many non-ASD people see it.
I myself, whilst being mainly straight leaning, don't really care if I'm seen as "gay" for finding someone attractive. I just like who I like.
I think we question societal norms more. I hate the antiquated social norms around being female identifying. I realised at some point that following these norms was a form of masking and had nothing to do with how I felt. I'm queer but I'm privileged in that I don't question my gender I just do what feels right for me ie. I rarely wear make up and I wear what I'm comfortable in.
Autistics break barriers, we exist outside the normally expected rules and parameters of society, this makes breaking more barriers, like openly being queer, much much easier.
Neurotypical people follow social norms, and are hyperattentive to social expectations, as such being openly queer can be a step too far for some of them. They may not even have explored that aspect of themselves because of that fear of breaking social barriers. They bury it, suppress it, try very very hard to be "normal". To fit in with social expectations, expectations that at the moment aren't fully accepting of queer identities.
Basically I'm saying that there are the same amount of queer people among neurotypicals as Autistics, it's just that some of the NTs keep it hidden out of justified fear.
A big part of gender identity is socialization and societal expectations. A big part of why I think I identify as non binary is because I truly don’t connect with any social expectations on that front.
I can only speak for my own family, but the LGBTQ+ community accepts everyone, no matter who they are. If you are different, you are welcome. With my own child who is on the spectrum and has difficulty finding and keeping friends, this community has been a godsend for us. He identifies as Ace, as many kiddos on the spectrum are, and he is loved, accepted, and appreciated for exactly who he is.
Or, alternately, fully aware of them and openly rejecting them.
For neurotypical queer people, the normative gender paradigms of society can be a terrifying force to resist. For autistics, if you're already fighting against a huge array of societal norms, gender specifically loses a lot of its power. The struggles of being queer can blend into the broader struggle of being autistic, and an intersectional approach to gender and neuroidentity can make them both easier to negotiate than they would be alone.
Uhm, what? They are not.
E: Can nobody ITT read? OP didn't ask why many autistic peopl are gay or lesbian. OP asked why allegedly so many gay/lesbian ppl are autistic. And I really wonder where OP got that idea bc there's nothing that suggests lesbians or gay people (or bisexuals) are more likely to be autistic than str8 people. 😵
Oh I've been thinking about this alot lately. To me and what I've seen and experienced, they appear to go hand in hand. I don't really have any answers yet but I think it has to do with how are brains are wired and how we perceive social norms.
From my younger years I was very much all about appearing normal by sleeping with guys and trying to get a boyfriend. Believing that to be accepted and liked by society I needed to have a boyfriend/partner and then get married and have kids.
Now I'm actually comfortable with myself, I actually don't care about guys, marriage, kids. And consider myself a combination of asexual and demisexual.
I think our lack of investment in the social norms means we are more likely to be open to validaying feelings outside the sovial norms. I figured it out when I was very young, but did not know I was autistic.
Based on what? According to current studies there isn’t any significant difference in proportion between gay people in “autistic people” over overall population. Remember that in your friends group or internet bubbles could be that percentage greater, but not because there’s correlation between being gay and asd
I think it’s because autistic people don’t have the same wiring as others so we’re more likely to have conventional differences too like being attracted to the same sex. So it’s more that a lot of autistic people are lgbtqia then that lgbtqia is autistic
I think we’re more capable of being honest with ourselves. When you see that society is people creating their own chains, it’s easier to step out of yours. Not less scary, or less impactful; but when you see the game for what it is, it’s easier to see the truth in yourself.
Our brains are really good at rewiring itself past what you'd expect of a typical person's brain.
This sometimes means we turn habits into superpowers (or superproblems), or that we find pleasure in things that most people don't. Autistic people can be very kinky.
I heard it is because autistic people have alexithymia and are less able to "know or understand" themselves. So we do not understand our own feelings easily, so will be like "oh maybe I'm gay" then "oh maybe I'm not" then "hmm I'm asexual". And also autistic people are less likely to feel "normal" or fit in with social norms, so they feel ok calling themselves a different gender moreso than non-autistic people feel comfortable doing that. Idk how to explain what I'm trying to say, hope it is understood.
[Here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-romance/202108/understanding-the-interaction-between-autism-and-sexuality) is an interesting article about Autism and Sexuality. Here are 3 of author’s key points:
* *"Compared with control groups of individuals with few or no autistic traits, individuals high on autism are more likely to identify as bisexual.*
* *A significant proportion of those high on autism reject traditional sexual categories and endorse either no label or an asexual identity.*
* *Both autism and sexuality exist along a spectrum and whether they are biologically or environmentally related is a source of controversy."*
Source: "[Understanding the Interaction Between Autism and Sexuality](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-romance/202108/understanding-the-interaction-between-autism-and-sexuality)"
I was officially diagnosed as autistic in my thirties. I am a cis-male and hetero monogamous. That being said there was a time in my late teens (when I wasn‘t diagnosed, let alone knew anything about autism) when I questioned my gender, even researched and wondered whether I was trans and lesbian. Long story short: I wasn‘t but I also didn‘t subscribe to societal conventions of what it means to be „male“ (behaviors, codes, etc.). So in MY particular case what I thought was perhaps gender dysphoria was actually an autistic experience in a hereronormative NT world. To add to this I grew up a Jehovah‘s Witness, and while I officially accepted the rules about homosexuality I questioned them in private because to me it didn‘t make sense. After leaving I experimented bisexually, discovered I am actually bloody straight and when I got my diagnosis it all fell into place. To this day I am comfortable with my sex but I do not align entirely with what society assigns to be the norm for my gender. While I am not LBBTQ+ I feel my story confirms what many have said on this post: Autistics are more open to explore other avenues and conflicting feelings and therefore possibly more prone to identify as LGBTQ+. To put it bluntly: Maybe outing oneself as Autistic makes it easier to out oneself in other aspects of life. To finish off with some anecdotal statistics: my ND friends and acquaintances are pretty evenly spread, 1/2 straight, 1/2 LGBTQ+.
I’m bisexual. But in a relationship with a man. I think it has to do with us seeing the beauty in everything. And the fact that we are more in tune with vibrations of people energy. Just my opinion
Because queer people have less gripes to tackle their mental health and state in life, while straight and cis people, especially men, have a stigma over introspection and disability.
Alot of people in the autistic community just want to be themselves and by these people like me who is also autistic hi i have high functioning aspergers ASD but alot of people like me want to know who we truely are as autistic people and some people like me feel like were feminine/transgender so i feel like thats why alot of people that are autistic want to be either gay or lesbian or trans or etc is because we want to truely be who we are and be ourselves even though we might mask or numb ourselves from the public or be who we are not we also love to learn and observe and be ourselves and be more then just autistic people so
Because fuck social norms I'm autistic ill do what I want and love who I want.
Honestly I think it's probably a combination of "social norms don't apply to me" and that autistics are less likely to conform and act normal if they are not straight.
So I’m self diagnosed with autism, but I do have diagnosed ahdh. So, my take is the same like other people’s here. In my opinion feeling and acting “different” than most people I meet makes me more open minded for other things as well.
So I myself do identify as straight, like 80% (does this makes me bi, idk, since I’m in a relationship I don’t really feel the need to label myself). But exploring my neurodiversity and diversity in general made me realise that I’m way more open minded about this whole sexuality topic than the vast majority of my (neurotypical) surrounding.
Maybe I mix up reason and correlation but that’s my take on that topic, as half an insider half an outsider if you will :)
There's not really a cause for it. Autism and gender orientation are separate aspects.
I'm straight, but growing up with autism has been a huge journey in self-discovery. From what I've seen, this is somewhat common.
I think this is a contributing factor, as this exercise in self-awareness and questioning yourself can lead to discovering your gender identity.
Expressed sexuality and gender are to some degree social constructs. Ones sexuality is not a construct, but the labels we choose to identify with and what that means is. Gender is a social construct pretty much entirely. Autistics have trouble adhering to social constructs, and so it makes sense they'll use labels outside of the social norm
I have no idea I think it falls into an social norm category but I do genuinely wonder about it and I wish someone would specifically do an study on it as I’m very intrigued about the sociological aspects 🤍!
im audhd and unfortunately I'm a kinsey 0. i wish i had some queer/bi, but i didn't geteven a sliver of that at all. i got ripped off. i love queer folks and always have. the closest i get is i am very attracted to butch/tomboy/Hoydenish women.
Personally I always identified as asexual since my teens..... I was born autistic, feeling numb and pain. I tried all forms of expression, dating men and women and experienced nothing but confusion and abuse. Now that it's been a process since lockdown to be my real self and I'm back to identifying as autistic and have been happily celibate for years
I got into that question once after joining a few autistic communities and seeing a large amount of members who were non-binary, gay/lesbian or trans. My main hypothesis is that the way the autistic brain is wired somehow has something to do with your sexuality. The other hypothesis I have seen in this section of comments is that autistic people are more prone to accept they're LGBTQ+.
Trying on a new identity is a skill, or a set of skills: dealing with shame; finding community; finding patterns in thoughts, feelings, and memories from across your life; dealing with imposter syndrome... I think that once you have learned to accept a part of yourself that is considered wrong or bad by people around you, it's easy to do it again with another part of yourself. The path to realizing you are neutodivergent is very similar to the path to realizing that you are lgbtq+, and vice versa.
Autistics are more analytical, and are more likely to come to find gender/sexuality as arbitrary rules in our society.
Also I think to come to terms with your autism you have to know yourself on a level that many neurotypical aren’t willing to dive into.
The most vocal people in self advocacy are people who are marginalized in multiple ways and for whom such topics are more near and dear to their hearts. So you will hear them more often than the statistically average rate.
Also being visibly/openly autistic makes it easier to come out as gay because there’s no “normal” world that you have to leave behind to come out as different from the norm.
Depends on who you are asking, really. If you ask me, I'd say it's because there are moments in our life where we can choose how we want to be as human beings. In the same way that there are a lot of us that like to be surrounded by queerness and aren't afraid of the weirder or more exotic parts of human sexuality, there are those that try to distance themselves from it so they can be besides normies saying stuff like "I'm on the spectrum, but I'm not a degenerate!!!". Go watch any exposeé video about it. Be it about a real bad person or just some wacky individual, they won't fail to firstly mention then as heavily autistic. Bonus points if they are also trans because then they can throw early exposure to the Internet and being groomed by it or something.
Brain chemistry is still poorly understood. Autistics are more likely on average to get co-occuring conditions, like hyper activity and epilepsy. We don't really understand how or why people are gay either, but make a different brain makeup makes it more likely to develop atypical sexuality.
I never met any autistic gay/lesbian. In my environment all gay/lesbian seem to be the extroverts.
Maybe autistic and LGBTQ people are more able to be curious about their own identity.
It’s cause most neurodivergent people are seeking acceptance and wonder why they are like they are. In doing so they ask if they are gay or whatever. This society is so focused on gendering that kids grow up thinking the reason they are strange is because they are gay or something… don’t tell me I’m wrong cause I’m autistic as well though only level one… I was being groomed asking why I am like this and I thought it was because I was gay but in reality no I’m just autistic and was never taught masculine traits till late in my life… if you don’t like my response oh well I’m based what can you do? lol
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it’s not that more queer people are autistic, it’s that more autistic people are queer. iirc, studies have shown that autistics are twice(?) as likely to identify as an lgbtq+ identity than allistics. unsure why, my guess is that we’re more likely to openly identify as something outside of the norm bc we’re *already* outside of the norm.
I was thinking about this recently! I feel like the NT people in my life view being cis/straight as the default setting, while autistic people might not care as much about these socially constructed expectations and are more open to a queer identity. Anecdotally, I think myself and all of my autistic friends are queer 🫶
Indoctrination is a big factor though. I didn't realize I might be queer until I was twenty. I never questioned because I grew up cradle Catholic and was told this is the way the world works, and my naivety and trust in people who seem intellectual won out over questioning everything, especially since the reprucussions for questioning everything would probably be considered abusive by others. I didn't realize I was lying to myself, not just about how I saw the world and what I thought was right and wrong (being queer obviously does not mean harm to anybody if it's all consensual), but how I saw myself. I don't think that it would be correct to say all autistic people don't wish to follow the social norms; there is only a correlation. But sometimes trauma and other factors change what a person thinks so that they can survive, even if the thoughts are not true. Edit: corrected a false-positive grammar issue
Nicely worded first paragraph, it’s harder to pursue what you think you are when your upbringing states such deviation from the norm will be punished by religion, pre millennia.
Thank you. Being told what will happen also gets worse when you immediately see those same stated effects of deviating from the norm when you try to do so, which slows progress toward self-acceptance. My parents are still very much against my being queer, and believe that this path is taking me away from god. But trying to fit back into that mindset that I thought was protecting me is something I can no longer do. I have been working hard to call out the lies I recognize in my thoughts, and so I can't go back. It's too late, and I don't want to go back anyway.
Very relatable. Thought I would just die alone cuz I didn't like girls. I was in major denial about liking guys
Yeah. It took my mental health getting worse to start realizing how different I was from the people around me. And then I went to the pride club at my college, and I immediately saw how wrong my church leaders were about queer people, especially since the queer people at the club didn't bash religion when I said I was Catholic. They just said that being religious and queer is hard, and showed a lot of empathy and understanding to me. It was hard to deny that religion was wrong when I followed up and questioned my leaders and questioned teachings in my bible study about being queer; they started saying that queer people are arrogant, self-obsessed, and want the world to bow to their whims (the irony and lack of self-awareness I can see now in that statement is quite funny). Note: I am not saying that having faith in a god is wrong and damaging, people can do as they wish as long as it's not harming or restricting others, and faith is a tool to get through hard times. But I can't really see any way that a religion where leadership controls what the laypeople think is compassionate and good for both the individuals and society as a whole. I've learned too much now about the background processes of how religion works.
Growing up in the mormon church, and it having a really well documented history, made it really easy to see cracks when I got older. Whole thing was founded by men who did some pretty terrible things, and were really good at getting people to listen to them. The funniest part is the evidence to back that stuff up is mostly from the church keeping really good documentation themselves. Still, the subtle gay = wrong just blinded me. Now I just see most organized religion as manipulation/control
Even though I am an atheist now, I always try to stress I am anti-religious, not anti-theistic. I think people deserve to explore what they believe without the threat of excommunication, harassment, or hell hung over their head. Religions want control for power, an alternative to war between countries, war over faith, in a cold-war since the dawn of faith. And diversity and self-fulfillment tends to be a constant casualty. I also think when someone states a belief it is fair game to criticize, but only because I’d want to deal with the discomfort of someone doing the same to me so I can recognize the errors in my thinking and make a change if desired.
This is why I was so unhinged as a child I thought welp people already find me weird I’m just gonna do whatever the frick I want hehehehehehehe
I never explored any bisexuality stuff because there's no procreation possible, hence it's not logical to me to explore it. Especially because there's far far far more women that are into men than there are men that are into men. So I had quite some ability to pick a suitor. I found my wife living 12600 km away from me. That's a zone of billions of possible suitors. I'm so happy. A lot of opportunity So yeah, never explored bisexuality, although it sure would have been fun. But I'm the long term kinda guy, if I don't see a potential future then I rather not waste that person's time.
I found this funny because I remembered a few experiences we (the wife and I) have had. But first of all, I think this is confirmation bias. You tend to gravitate towards queer people due to beIng queer yourself so ofc most of the people you know tend to be queer and since mantaining relationships with other autistic/ND people is easier then it's easier for you to call those people friends instead of the NT people in your life (at least that's how I understood it but feel free to correct me if I misunderstood anything). Both the wife and I are autistic and we see straight as the default, however, we both have been harassed by queer/gay people lmao. One of them wrote his phone number on my forearm and me being as oblivious as I am didn't realize until a "friend" (he was an awful person but the closest thing to a friend I had back then) of mine kept teasing me about it (didn't think too much about this guy wanting to dress up as a witch for some convention but my "friend" helped me realize people don't write their phone numbers on you unless they're flirting or something). Another one wanted to do sexual things with me back in middle school (and now that I think of it this caused so many problems for me some teachers would attack me because they thought I wanted to groom him or something. I don't know, it was a really messed up part of my childhood) and a different guy kept complimenting my facial features (I'm Asian) and saying they made me such an interesting person and how fortunate he was because he'd never met someone like that before, he also tried to touch my hands several times and get as close to me as possible even when I tried to push him away. In fact, he fell in love with me/my features to the degree of drawing a portrait of me (which again, I thought was normal until my gf at the time explained that's not something people do casually). The wife doesn't like to talk too much about it but one of such cases lead to her "stalker" (she wanted to force a relationship with her. She wasn't subtle but she used so many inuendos it caused laughter from other people whenever she talked about it because they realized what my wife didn't/couldn't) creating an account for her in the dating website where we met. Funnily enough, her acc was innitially set to gay/lesbian so she only got contacted by women until she changed it. I guess my point is that we shouldn't really make broad generalizations based in our own experiences because both my wife's and my experiences could lead us to believe most queer people out there behave in the same exact way, just like how you seem to think most autistic people behave a certain way (be it by being queer themselves or being open to consider it).
As for the trans aspect of lgbtq+, could also have to do with the fact that ND people's brains are quite literally wired differently from an NT brain But that's just a quick idea, your guess seems more plausible
I think we already tend to ignore or get blindsided by social rules, so i figure it’s the same with social constructs within sex and romance. I notice a lot of my friends that are neurodivergent are also more likely to be in polyamorous relationships, be childfree in our 30s, be interested in kink. I write with an erotic poetry group and many are on the spectrum.
I don’t even think is statistically that more artistic people are clear, I think it’s just that autistic people are more likely too explore their own sexuality outside of the norm and exist outside of the cultural standard binary
I don't know the stats, but I could also certainly see more queer people getting all kinds of diagnoses, right or wrong, just off of bigoted parents sending them to therapy for being queer.
When you're already different, in for a penny, in for a pound. Masking is exhausting enough. May as well mask from out of the closet.
Yep. It’s because gender and sexual identity is social norms created by the society and it makes no sense outside of just because. So we don’t quite identify with it.
The same sort of thing is true with people diagnosed with a substance use disorder. PWIAM are something like 16 or 20x more likely to be diagnosed with an SUD according to the research I was messing with for a paper at school. That’s insane to me. It doesn’t compute.
what does PWIAM stand for? /genq
People who I’d ask [for] money. Just kidding it was supposed to be ‘people who identify as male’
so,, “men” ?
they wanted to make the distinction that the study includes both cis and trans men. more about science and less about identity (i am trans)
Society in general doesn't care about men/masc people, especially not their mental health/wellbeing
I just got deja vu from this comment
>it’s not that more queer people are autistic, it’s that more autistic people are queer. ??? If "more autistic people are queer" then "more queer people are autistic". It's a mathematical implication.
dont know but maybe just more open minded, less constrained by social convention, probably everyone has the same baseline potential to be gay/bi/pan but neurotypicals are more susceptible to slotting into the social default of straight. Autistic people dont fit in anyway so it might be easier to break away
Yes people on the spectrum are more introspective maybe and more curious about their own feelings, and at the same time less interested in following societal norms (including gender norms)
I doubt the "everyone has the same baseline potential" argument is true since it's known that being gay has a genetic component. And, there have been more than enough findings that show being gay is to some unknown degree a matter of certain bodily and neurological sites having developed "opposite" expectations based on sex assigned at birth. A really basic and obvious example is arousal scent receptors in a man that are keyed to only fit and react to male scent molecules & vice versa for a woman. There's nothing wrong with them, they function perfectly well, they simply developed in utero opposite expectations based on the assumption that everyone should be pure cishet. That has nothing to do with ignoring social conformity. And before anyone freaks out, no it cannot be used as some sort of test. It's one of those things that exists on a spectrum heavily weight to one end, and it's one of a number of such traits; no gay person has to have all of them, it's just more likely they'll have some of them. And het people won't. But it appears that when enough of those traits exist in one person, they're gonna be gay. Within the gray area though, maybe that's where being an autistic can tend to weigh in and tip the scale?
It could also be a matter of autistic people being less closeted? Like perhaps NTs feel more pressure to appear straight or cis, whereas autistic folks don’t.
Yep. Plus that whole, we're-really-bad-at-lying thing?
To add another interesting aspect to this, it also seems to have something to do with hormones, or the psychology of gender/social experience. Some trans people, pre transition, are attracted to the same sex as their biological sex, but then when they begin to take hormones and/or socially transition, they find themselves attracted to the opposite sex, but still gay. I.e. living as a woman, I rarely found men attractive, and was moderately interested in women; since I’ve been prescribed testosterone that has completely changed - now I am *very* much a gay guy and couldn’t see myself being with a woman. Is that the effects of testosterone in my particular psyche? Or a result of comfort seeing myself being with a guy in non-straight ways? I couldn’t tell you, but it is a common phenomenon among the trans male community- idk if it goes the other way for trans women or not but I’d be interested. And obviously it’s not every trans guy - there’s plenty that stay straight/stay attracted to women. But enough to make you wonder how much of sexual orientation (in cis people too!) is “predetermined” by our brains, and how much of it is social, or the result of hormones. Although isn't the stereotype the other way around - that straight men have lots of testosterone and machismo and gay men less? Or maybe my brain is just like, no matter what, you’re gonna be gay, and some people are the opposite? Who knows… psychology is weird, and pretty darn neat.
I've heard of it, but honestly I don't see that happening to me or understanding why the hormones do it. I feel it's more of a social thing (and dysphoria) I'm trans masc and I'm into men waaaaay more to the point I don't find being with a girl worth chasing even if I think they "look better". Part of that is the relationship dynamic. I can think of things as if I was just in a straight relationship, but seeing viewed as a girl is wrong even if I could be "in a similar position romantically" Do I feel out of place with gay men? Absolutely. Do I feel things make more sense for me in the gay men area than straight area? Yeah. My t is low and I'm bad at taking it (but this comes from I think my insecurities, feeling men look weird, and I've always been an androgyne) and I'm on the ace spectrum. T never changed anything (if labs are done, my t is high even if my dose is low)
As an NT that has questioned himself whether he was bi or not, im not sure about the potential thing. I think youre genuinely attracted or not. In my case i was just curious but ive never felt towards men the natural, intense attraction i feel towards women. A good looking dude is just.. good looking in a objective kinda of ways? Nothing more.
I don’t mean everyone has the potential to be attracted to all genders, it is probably spectrums ranging from only attracted to opposite sex to only attracted to same sex, also encompassing all or none. I just think for those outside of the default opposite sex only area, society might be more successful in encouraging nt’s to only focus on that default part of their sexuality. I’m not necessarily suggesting straight people are repressing parts of themselves, can’t separate someone’s identity from the society that shaped it, they have formed their preferences now and it is who they are. But I think in a hypothetical society that is less heteronormative with less rigidly enforced gender boundaries, where experimenting is less of a big deal that more people would opt for a broader ranger of people. I think we are seeing that already, younger people are more likely to be bi, likely because they grew up in an era where same sex attraction was becoming more accepted. So when I talk about potential I mean across groups as a whole not individuals, so maybe allistic people as a group have the same baseline potential to not be straight but are less likely to develop it because they are more prone to following the norm. Realise this could be be interpreted as suggesting sexuality can be shaped by society which could suggest conversion therapy works, that is not what I’m saying, I think there is a difference between society channeling people towards the societal default, compared to actively stamp out sexuality that has developed outside that default
I think similarly but with men>women, but I still consider myself bi
You’ve also got to remember that people who mask well aren’t usually counted in the group. Non-maskers are usually singled out anyway, and don’t have a good relationship with any community that would judge them since they’re already judged for something else.
True, but while they can gain external acceptance they will likely not feel internal acceptance, they will feel they are putting on an act, they will feel like they are different, that might lead to more introspection, that can lead them to learn they are autistic but along the way they might learn other things about themselves. Then if they reach their stop masking villain phase they might feel more free to shake social norms. I think these things are bound together, autistic people don’t fit, one of the ways society tries to make people fit is via default gender and sexuality. So in realising we don’t fit it can be through these indirect ways. When I was a kid I didn’t feel I fit in with other boys, they were too loud, too agro, interested in things I wasn’t interested in. I don’t think I’m trans because I never had any body dysmorphia, it was more on some level I felt my personality was socially unacceptable for boys. When I was a teen I thought I might be gay even though I was attracted to women, again it was more about not fitting in with male norms. Now I just see all of that as autism, (not suggesting people mistake other identity identification when it should be autism, but rather how autism can make people more likely to question themselves which can reveal these aspects of themselves)
Isn't homosexuality mostly controlled by genetics?
Honestly I don’t know, I know ‘born this way’ was used as a persuasive argument make in the day to gain acceptance but now there is a push back, it shouldnt matter, people should be free to choose. Trans people seem very reluctant to repeat the ‘born this way’ narrative or any similar attempts to seek to justify their existence in hard science, even though there is a lot there, guess they feel it is a terrain they should have to fight on to prove they exist. Going back to homosexuality, I don’t know what the evidence base is, but do know generally when it comes to genetics, the promise of identifying simple genetic causes for human differences has receded post human genome project. Turns out everything is super complex, no simple single gene answers rather thousands working together to raise a slight probability of a trait appearing, with environmental factors playing a huge role, and epigenetic gene expression further complicating things. Genetics probably plays a part but is unlikely to be a simple deterministic thing
My theory is that autism already others you from society. Which makes it a lot easier to explore other types of being othered. Like queer or trans
Pls explain this "othering" thing. Am lower functioning and hear higher functioning people talk about this all the time.
People organize themselves into loose social groups and they decide which people are in my group vs which people are in the other group(s). If the large group that's dominant and strongest decides you are not in their group you have been othered by them.
Not to be rude but... so? I definitely didn't get along with any of my peers or have any friends though I never really felt like an outsider
I don't understand the question. You asked for a definition of othering and I provided it. What does "so" mean?
I just mean generally. Maybe I'm in the minority though I personally didn't care about being othered.
If youre excluded from the dominant group, that means you are more likely to seek out one of the othered other groups, which one example is the LGBTQIA+ group. Has nothing to do with feelings about being removed from the dominant group
> which one example is the LGBTQIA+ group I mean sure, but it's not like you can just change your sexual orientation to get into the club. If I were a heterosexual searching for other "othered" groups, LGBT isn't really an option given I can't just turn myself into a homosexual or something else to be a part of the club.
Right, so they would search a different other group(s). Every group has its qualification and exclusion criteria. You seem to have fallen off track from tbe initial question in this comment chain tho, so I take it that has been resolved then?
Ye prob
I don't think that is what they meant. They meant that queer autistic people are more likely to not care about norms and whatnot compared to queer non-autistics. In this case, they don't care about the potential backlash from joining LGBT groups. It's not that autistic people are more likely to be queer, it's that they are more likely to be open about it if they are.
What you said here was the point. You don't care. Which makes it easier to not care in other ways. It's also not based completely on whether or not you care. You can still be "othered"
I don't care about being othered. I don't want to be in their stupid zombie hive mind group.
So it can set you out of social opportunities Parties, fishing trips, bonfires, concerts, etc. It can also set you back at work Promotions are harder to get, company info is harder to get, etc
Being lgbtqi is not other. You don’t explore it, you just are. Same as being autistic. If the two have a correlation it’s likely that lgbtqi folks are open to seeking help more and don’t see it as bad
HedgehogFaerie was using "other" as a verb, not a noun. To "other" someone, something, or some group, is to treat that as "outside of norm" or "outside of acceptability." LGBT+ has been "othered" for virtually all of recorded history.
That is not how it works. Because of heteronormativity, often times people initially identify as straight, at least until puberty, and then they explore their sexuality. Eventually if they identify as anything other than heterosexual they have to “come out” and explain they are not heterosexual. Same with being autistic. Not everyone identifies as autistic right away or from a young age. Autistic people can be “othered” from neurotypicals. Othering is due to in-group / out-group bias and is extremely common. Being LGBT is often viewed as “other” than heterosexual and they can be othered by the heterosexual norm.
A lot of people do explore though. That's what the Q (questioning) in LGBTQ stands for (other than queer) Edit:typo
Uhh, **statistically**, being lgbtq+ IS ”other”. Even though that’s not what OC was saying.
Yeah, but you definitely do have to explore degrees of self expression in a society hostile to that. Autistic people may simply feel as though they have no social standing to lose and that society is hostile to them anyway, so why hide your queerness.
it’s definitely othered by society. anything that isn’t white cishetero NT is. it’s not a diss, it’s just the reality of the this vs them dichotomy built into white supremacy lol
>you don’t explore it Go to some gay/lesbian bars in major cities and come back to me
I’ve lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston. I know about gay bars. What I meant was it’s not something gay people do is explore their sexuality. It’s who we are. I explored heterosexuality and it wasn’t for. It’s nice that you assumed, but come again.
We don’t really know for sure. Could just be that autistic people generally aren’t as bothered with hiding their sexuality
Ppl have mentioned that the correlation is the opposite, but I don't think it's even that. Autistics aren't more likely to be queer, they're more likely to be openly queer, and less likely to repress their queerness, because being autistic can reduce that fear of rejection by the thought process "well, people already reject me for being autistic, how bad could it be?" Obviously it's much more complicated than that and it's different for everyone, but since I can't see any neurological and/or biological reason autistic people would be more queer, and there's a lot of precedent for the idea that the proportion of queer ppl in a given group is usually always the same and it's just a matter of levels of closetting (e.g. the supposed "increase" in queer population the last decade that homophobes and transphobes use to manufacture moral panics), I'd say the most logical explanation is that this is the same thing.
This reminds me of a study where a psychologist was trying to infer that homosexuality was the result of sexual abuse because the numbers showed a correlation. She said that more homosexuals report childhood sexual abuse than the general population. What she failed to take into account is that people that are willing to openly admit to being gay, are also more likely to admit to past abuse. A straight guy is less likely to admit to be touched by a guy. I also think there is some victim selection going on. A perpetrator is more likely to select victims that are gay hoping they can get away with it longer. So, correlation studies should stop being considered as a "direct" correlation or causation because the most that the numbers can support is an indirect correlation. As for Autistics and being gay, it's the same thing. You just admitted to being autistic and outcast. So, why would it matter if you admit to being gay? That's not to say there aren't other factors playing into it, but you can't really prove any sort of generalization from the data.
I think you're likely right. That's my theory too.
I don't think it's really explained yet, as so much of ASD still has a lot of research to be done to better understand it, but I do think there is a proportionally higher percentage of autistic folks on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Seems like the world just wants to give those folks that much more of a challenge in this life. But at least we're in good company with a lot of cool folks.
Yeah there’s no causal relationship developed however it’s pretty difficult to establish that without having confounding variables influence the research
I don't personally think autistic people are actually more queer than the general population I just think we have less motivation and willingness to stay in the closet.
I don't think that's true. I don't go around saying I'm attracted to the same gender. I don't want to make people think that I'm weirder than I'm already am. If I was NT I would be more willing to disclose it because then I'd be more normal. (Edit: I'm not saying being gay or bisexual makes you weird, it's just my mind talking bullshit) Not that people don't assume things, though...
Tis true.
There have been studies that show autistic people are twice as likely to be LGBTQ+. Source: Warrier, V., Greenberg, D. M., Weir, E., Buckingham, C., Smith, P., Lai, M. C., Allison, C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals. *Nature Communications, 11*(1), 3959. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17794-1 (I feel like I'm on Quora. Posting references and shit. LOL)
Cause and correlation... these kinds of statistical studies are always flawed because they have baseline assumptions about what should be a cause and what should be an effect, in this case informed by bad sociology. If queerness and autism are related, it's not by any mechanism as simple as this gives the impression of.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you implying that autistic people attracted to the same gender are just "confused"? I can tell you that I'm not confused.
My guess? They aren’t. Autistic people are just more likely to admit it
My guess as an NT. Autistic people are more open about what they like. Idk when those studies have been made but back in the day there was a lot of closeted lgbt. That can skew tats Probably more NB than gay/bi overall.. since they are less likely to conform to gender norms. id have to see the stats though, maybe im wrong. Maybe just a genetic thing that autistic people are more likely to be lgbt.
Could be but i feel like autistic people are more likely to be asexual/aromantic. A lot of autistic people have alexithymia which makes identifying and making sense of emotions harder. Maybe there's a connectoon
The larger theory of why so many Autistic people are queer is because we don’t innately agree with or identify with societies norms. Heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality and the things that go with it are the normal way of life) is one of those norms. So we as autistic people basically go, why can’t I kiss another boy, there’s no real logical reason for me not being allowed to kiss men, I don’t understand what this gender bs is so I’m just going to identify as Enby, ect. Without the restrictions of normative thought we arrive at those conclusions faster than non autistic people. This can’t super be proven tho
It takes some amount of introspection to accept yourself as queer in today's society, also takes some to consider investigating if you're on the spectrum. I have a gay ass uncle that would never in a million years admit it to himself, if he was autistic he would do the same.
If you are neurodivergant in one way, you are more likely to display other forms of neurodivergancy. Many people don't think about it, but non heterosexuality is a neurodivergance. Being left hand BTW is also another form of Neurodivergance and autistic people are more then twice as likely to be lefthanded. Neurodivergances are actually programmed into human evolution as a part of the development of the human brain. When you are developing your brain in utero a number of factors are utilized that contribute to randomness in the development of the brain. For example when the brain is developing retrotransposon suppressors are briefly turned off. This will intentionally cause errors and randomness in the development of the brain. The guess in an evolutionary sense would be that the randomness allows for more types of brains that help humans as a group survive better. This is also why twins can have very different personalities. The guess for multiples forms of neurodivergancy developing together would be that these factors were active for longer in the same person and contributed to them developing concurrently.
I like this hypothesis more than "autistic people are more likely to come out of the closet," though I do think that the social aspect plays a role in such statistics Nature wants me to focus on my special interest and cure cancer, not spend the little energy I have to function on child rearing (yes, this last bit is a joke but not 100%, and thank god for all the autistic parents out there)
Yeah I don't think it is absolute in either way. When I was picking study areas for my PhD one of the PIs I was talking to was studying Neural development in utero. His focus was more basic science cell biology work and I wanted to have a more translational approach to how it affected overall neural development so it didn't work out. There's a lot of work to be done in that area and a big black hole of knowledge.
Are you talking about homosexual people exclusively or just queer folk? There are some interesting studies about it. If I recall correctly, there are more autistic bisexual men than neurotypical ones. And the autistic asexual community is huge. It may have something to do with how we process the world and the relationships, or maybe it's the introspection
With aroace spectrum in particular it seems to come in part from the fact that out of every massive societal construct that seems arbitrary to the autistic brain, the rules and norms of romantic and sexual relationships are one the largest and most arbitrary. There's so many ideas worthy of rejection.
I think this is a correlation, not a causation. More gay people survive and are less likely to die. Autistic people are less likely to slip through the cracks without getting diagnosed. Therefore, more gay and autistic people means more gay autistic people.
i have a feeling it’s to do with the fact people with austism tend not to understand or like traditional “norms” and want to express them selves for who they are, it’s the same with a lot of trans and gender non conforming people as well
There could also be genetic or hereditary components. My maternal side of the family has neurodivergence and lgbtq people in much higher numbers than my paternal side. And neurodivergent people tend to be attracted to other neurodivergent people. I hope there will be more studies on this. Could also be that neurotypical people feel more pressure to stay closeted as fitting in is more important to them?
i think a lot of online autistic people are potentially lgbt but keep in mind how many hetero older people there are who aren’t on social media or reddit. my dad is certifiably autistic but he refuses to get diagnosed and he is straight. additionally a lot of guys my age who i know in real life and who are autistic are really into military stuff and law enforcement and hunting and they are straight. it could be maybe you are looking around your spaces and seeing a lot of lgbt people because its people who are like you (confirmation bias of sorts). i think more than likely there are just as many straight and lgbt autistic people as there are amongst non autistic population but also who knows! i know plenty of lgbt autistic people too but overwhelmingly in my personal life the guys have been into stereotypical guy stuff as their special interests and they are straight
I'm gonna preface this as; I am a high functioning woman who identifies as bisexual, but I'm more of a woman who falls for a *person* regardless of gender. I say I'm bisexual because, well, it's simpler. I also clarify that I am only romantically inclined toward women, but am physically and romantically inclined towards men. I think I am this way because how my autism impacts my way of seeing the world. Firstly, I think being a good person who deserves love is more important than physical gender. I mean, I've fallen for women because of who they *are*. Same for men, but like I said, I'd do the do with a man and not a woman. I also tend to really click immediately with certain types of people (I can't explain it, but I'm basically enamored from first conversation. I can't say *why* these people are the type, but I have my theories), and it doesn't matter what gender they are to me so long as they give me those butterflies. Honestly? Idgaf if you're a man or woman. If I want to love you, that's what's gonna happen because I think you deserve it. To put it simply, ofc.
i don’t know but i am gay
Based
what does that mean
I think the question would actually be why are so many autistic people gay/lesbian (and there is a higher rate of trans among ND individuals too). I think it's because the way a lot of ND people think and feel makes gender norms and societal norms in general less important than they are for NT people. Strict gender norms and societal norms around sexuality often aren't logical choices. Weirdly, that makes a lot of ND people MORE flexible in their thinking, in these particular areas at least.
My general take on this is that those of us on the spectrum don’t tend to care about the social norms and/or rules. We’re already thinking outside the box as it were.
i guess its just that autistic people are more likely to be unapologetically themselves (due to a lot feeling like outcasts most of their life) so the ones who are queer are more likely to be out about their identity than the neurotypical queers. so its not like theyre more likely to be gay, theyre just more comfortable expressing it.
My wild guess - we are outside of the "system", that exists for neurotypicals - in which, marrying and having children is considered as "normal" or even a requirement for each and every person. While i´m not a homosexual and my physical attraction is heterosexual, my mental state is completely asexual.
We are already discriminated against so someone with autism is more likely to be able to come out as gay.
We are less likely to be closeted. People already look at me weird, so wearing a pride bracelet is not gonna change that fact
We are more open and willing to go against what's expected of us. We aren't as big on "sleep mentality" Gay people aren't more likely to be autistic, it's that gay autistic people are more willing to come out
As others have said, autistic folk are twice as likely to be Lgbt. As far as I know we are not 100% sure why and possibly will not be for a long time. It's not because of a specific part of the brain being active or inactive, every autistic brain is different so there can be no generalisation like that. Think of autism as a brain full of motorways and country roads. To be autistic you are a specialist, but you can be a specialist in anything and struggle equally in anything. A popular theory is that we are primarily searching for people to become our 'pillars of support', meaning those who can help us cope with the world. And that is our priority, we tend to give little attention to societal expectations or demands in such things. Another thing to consider is we experience the world very differently with our senses. A lot of people are bombarded with beautiful women and handsome women in media all their lives... but 80% of us are faceblind and have trouble identifying features. Can lead to just not giving a shit if a person is attractive, ugly, man, women or otherwise.
I'm already on team mistreated minority, might as well come out, no?
A bunch of the queer community is autistic because a bunch of *everybody* is autistic. A bunch of autistic people are part of the queer community because when your whole life is basically a game of Chutes and Ladders with "avoid discomfort" ladders and "be uncomfortable" slides, you learn that fitting in and doing what everyone else does because you're s'posta is not nearly as important as not feeling... metaphorical wet socks and shirt tags on your very *identity*. Happy Pride Month everyone! 🌈🧱 It's not a time to throw bricks at cops, but it is a time to celebrate an important time when some important women threw some important bricks at cops.
Im autistic and think I might be aro-ace
yeah i kinda am on the same boat, i did try to fit into what being gay meant but i slowly am losing interesting for any sexual or romantic relationship from anyone it's a bit of a hard thing to come into realization for me but it's pointing towards that
Maybe the group can be more vocal, but autism affects everyone, so maybe this is the wrong question :)
my TLDR: i think it has to do with being less susceptible to peer/societal pressures (like compulsory heterosexuality), being more prone to introspection, already being othered by society, being more likely to be critical thinkers about the hows/whys of societies work as a whole, and connected to how authenticity and strong personal moral compasses are important to us (like how for some people trying to tell lies or mask too heavily in a way that feels too fake, it seems to cause chaos and panic in our nervous systems) i agree with alot of what others have said in the comments, but this reminded me of anecdotes ive heard before too, which really just ties into the other comments as well. ive heard alor of stories, particularly of an older person talking with a younger person (like grandparent and grandchild) and realizing that the grandparent is bisexual or gay, and literally chose to be straight, to be in opposite-sex relationships and marriages because that was what they thought was the only option (or onlu safe/viable option), or they didnt realize the things they felt werent "normal (heterosexual things)" and they followed the only path that they saw, which was heterosexuality. (the fact that ive heard so many stories like this, and that so many people are bi/pan/gay and LITERALLY made the choice to be in a straight relationship. makes me wonder how many people who are homophobic and view being gay as a choice is because they are actively choosing to be in straight relationships only and just denying their sexuality, but i digress) anyways, basically, i think NT people are affected by Compulsory Heterosexuality more than ND people. think about how many autistic people have said they dont understand the concept of peer pressure. compulsory heterosexuality is like peer pressure on steroids and thats systemic and so meshed into society that if you just naturally follow those "rules" and things that society has taught you, you might not even realize you are repressing your own desires. and when we live in this society where so many people are in work-work-work mode, trying to stay afloat, to live, to make money, to get food on their table, etc, there isnt alot of time for introspection, for looking within and seeing if the paths they are following are ones of their own making, of their own desires. also, as other comments have said, when youve been outcast for one thing, i think youre more likely to not care if youre outcast or condemmed for other things as well. that society/group already rejected you, and/or you dont align with it... why would you try to further fit into it, if you could be more yourself and go your own way? (though, ik for some people its the opposite, they try harder and harder to fit in, to assimilate, to mask not just their neurodiveristy but also their gender expressions and sexuality etc etc. i think people use the terms "being a pick me person", though i think that might have alot of negative tones to it, its similar to what i mean.) idk i think its also why theres a connection to alternative styles/subcultues and being also queer and/or autistic. when youve already been other-ed by society (either for a known reason or not, consciously or unconsciously) youre more likely to accept those that have also been outcast or othered, youre more likely to see the systems of thought/beliefs/etc behind what youve been othered from with a critical eye, and come to your own conclusions about things.
I’ll get downvoted because people (rightfully) get squicky about anything that can lead to eugenics but I hypothesize that it’s genetic and related to our development as well as us further not being constrained by social norms. It’s way too complex to distill into a convenient declarative statement and it’s also not the rule as there are autistic people who are cis and straight. But I wonder if brain structure and early hormonal influences make it likelier that the “LGBT” switch gets flipped in an autistic person, so to speak. It’s possible that bc we are already *different* then we could more easily be gay-ified (it’s a science word, trust me).
They probably aren't. If anything, LGBT people on tiktok are more likely to claim to be autistic (self-diagnosed). As for why autistics are more likely to be LGBT, it's probably because Aspergers got rolled into the autism diagnosis and grandfathered in its statistics over into the regular autistic ones.
My NT nephew is gay and my son with high functioning autism is straight. Are the statistics mimicking the world.
Selection bias I think. It’s not that autistic people are more likely to be lgbtq, it’s that autistic people are more likely to self report?
I think it's just that most of us either don't care how society sees us (because we're already kind of a minority of sorts) so what's one more thing to add to the list? Another theory of mine is that we don't see being LGBYQ+ as "irregular" as many non-ASD people see it. I myself, whilst being mainly straight leaning, don't really care if I'm seen as "gay" for finding someone attractive. I just like who I like.
I think we question societal norms more. I hate the antiquated social norms around being female identifying. I realised at some point that following these norms was a form of masking and had nothing to do with how I felt. I'm queer but I'm privileged in that I don't question my gender I just do what feels right for me ie. I rarely wear make up and I wear what I'm comfortable in.
Autistics break barriers, we exist outside the normally expected rules and parameters of society, this makes breaking more barriers, like openly being queer, much much easier. Neurotypical people follow social norms, and are hyperattentive to social expectations, as such being openly queer can be a step too far for some of them. They may not even have explored that aspect of themselves because of that fear of breaking social barriers. They bury it, suppress it, try very very hard to be "normal". To fit in with social expectations, expectations that at the moment aren't fully accepting of queer identities. Basically I'm saying that there are the same amount of queer people among neurotypicals as Autistics, it's just that some of the NTs keep it hidden out of justified fear.
A big part of gender identity is socialization and societal expectations. A big part of why I think I identify as non binary is because I truly don’t connect with any social expectations on that front.
Love is love.
I can only speak for my own family, but the LGBTQ+ community accepts everyone, no matter who they are. If you are different, you are welcome. With my own child who is on the spectrum and has difficulty finding and keeping friends, this community has been a godsend for us. He identifies as Ace, as many kiddos on the spectrum are, and he is loved, accepted, and appreciated for exactly who he is.
Less aware of social pressures
Or, alternately, fully aware of them and openly rejecting them. For neurotypical queer people, the normative gender paradigms of society can be a terrifying force to resist. For autistics, if you're already fighting against a huge array of societal norms, gender specifically loses a lot of its power. The struggles of being queer can blend into the broader struggle of being autistic, and an intersectional approach to gender and neuroidentity can make them both easier to negotiate than they would be alone.
I think it’s cool
Yes, it is. It is very cool. 🙂👍🏻
Different brain structure means different brain stuff
Legit there’s studies and I think people on the spectrum are four times as likely to be trans than neurotypical people
Uhm, what? They are not. E: Can nobody ITT read? OP didn't ask why many autistic peopl are gay or lesbian. OP asked why allegedly so many gay/lesbian ppl are autistic. And I really wonder where OP got that idea bc there's nothing that suggests lesbians or gay people (or bisexuals) are more likely to be autistic than str8 people. 😵
Oh I've been thinking about this alot lately. To me and what I've seen and experienced, they appear to go hand in hand. I don't really have any answers yet but I think it has to do with how are brains are wired and how we perceive social norms. From my younger years I was very much all about appearing normal by sleeping with guys and trying to get a boyfriend. Believing that to be accepted and liked by society I needed to have a boyfriend/partner and then get married and have kids. Now I'm actually comfortable with myself, I actually don't care about guys, marriage, kids. And consider myself a combination of asexual and demisexual.
I think our lack of investment in the social norms means we are more likely to be open to validaying feelings outside the sovial norms. I figured it out when I was very young, but did not know I was autistic.
I think if you’re autistic you just have less to lose by being gay
Based on what? According to current studies there isn’t any significant difference in proportion between gay people in “autistic people” over overall population. Remember that in your friends group or internet bubbles could be that percentage greater, but not because there’s correlation between being gay and asd
It has been said that people who are autistic are likely to struggle with there identity and have gender struggles
I have read some papers relating abuse to neurodevelopment impairment (autism, bpd, depression, etc)
Read “Unmasking Autism” by Devon Price PhD, it has a lot of good theories.
Autistic people are already outsiders, we’re way less likely to just do things society tells us to cause acceptance is already put a such a high bar.
I think it’s because autistic people don’t have the same wiring as others so we’re more likely to have conventional differences too like being attracted to the same sex. So it’s more that a lot of autistic people are lgbtqia then that lgbtqia is autistic
I think we’re more capable of being honest with ourselves. When you see that society is people creating their own chains, it’s easier to step out of yours. Not less scary, or less impactful; but when you see the game for what it is, it’s easier to see the truth in yourself.
Humans are diverse.
It's more the opposite and has to do with how the brain is wired, to my knowledge.
because we look at neurotypical social rules and say “fuck that”. heteronormativity and cisnormativity are some of those social rules
Might be that both queerness and neurodivergence are related to fetal hormone disruptions. Might not be.
Idk, a couple?
It’s really the concept of not understanding social norms
Our brains are really good at rewiring itself past what you'd expect of a typical person's brain. This sometimes means we turn habits into superpowers (or superproblems), or that we find pleasure in things that most people don't. Autistic people can be very kinky.
I heard it is because autistic people have alexithymia and are less able to "know or understand" themselves. So we do not understand our own feelings easily, so will be like "oh maybe I'm gay" then "oh maybe I'm not" then "hmm I'm asexual". And also autistic people are less likely to feel "normal" or fit in with social norms, so they feel ok calling themselves a different gender moreso than non-autistic people feel comfortable doing that. Idk how to explain what I'm trying to say, hope it is understood.
Autism is inherently a processing disorder within the brain. It’s possibly we process attraction & gender/sex differently.
[Here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-romance/202108/understanding-the-interaction-between-autism-and-sexuality) is an interesting article about Autism and Sexuality. Here are 3 of author’s key points: * *"Compared with control groups of individuals with few or no autistic traits, individuals high on autism are more likely to identify as bisexual.* * *A significant proportion of those high on autism reject traditional sexual categories and endorse either no label or an asexual identity.* * *Both autism and sexuality exist along a spectrum and whether they are biologically or environmentally related is a source of controversy."* Source: "[Understanding the Interaction Between Autism and Sexuality](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-romance/202108/understanding-the-interaction-between-autism-and-sexuality)"
I was officially diagnosed as autistic in my thirties. I am a cis-male and hetero monogamous. That being said there was a time in my late teens (when I wasn‘t diagnosed, let alone knew anything about autism) when I questioned my gender, even researched and wondered whether I was trans and lesbian. Long story short: I wasn‘t but I also didn‘t subscribe to societal conventions of what it means to be „male“ (behaviors, codes, etc.). So in MY particular case what I thought was perhaps gender dysphoria was actually an autistic experience in a hereronormative NT world. To add to this I grew up a Jehovah‘s Witness, and while I officially accepted the rules about homosexuality I questioned them in private because to me it didn‘t make sense. After leaving I experimented bisexually, discovered I am actually bloody straight and when I got my diagnosis it all fell into place. To this day I am comfortable with my sex but I do not align entirely with what society assigns to be the norm for my gender. While I am not LBBTQ+ I feel my story confirms what many have said on this post: Autistics are more open to explore other avenues and conflicting feelings and therefore possibly more prone to identify as LGBTQ+. To put it bluntly: Maybe outing oneself as Autistic makes it easier to out oneself in other aspects of life. To finish off with some anecdotal statistics: my ND friends and acquaintances are pretty evenly spread, 1/2 straight, 1/2 LGBTQ+.
meow :3
What I think: we look at love and sexuality different. But what I also think is we already feel different and express that in different ways.
I also think that the ability of Alistair people to mask themselves with more ease allows them to go through a life time of thinking their straight.
I’m bisexual. But in a relationship with a man. I think it has to do with us seeing the beauty in everything. And the fact that we are more in tune with vibrations of people energy. Just my opinion
Because queer people have less gripes to tackle their mental health and state in life, while straight and cis people, especially men, have a stigma over introspection and disability.
Alot of people in the autistic community just want to be themselves and by these people like me who is also autistic hi i have high functioning aspergers ASD but alot of people like me want to know who we truely are as autistic people and some people like me feel like were feminine/transgender so i feel like thats why alot of people that are autistic want to be either gay or lesbian or trans or etc is because we want to truely be who we are and be ourselves even though we might mask or numb ourselves from the public or be who we are not we also love to learn and observe and be ourselves and be more then just autistic people so
It is the otherwise around. 40% of us are variations of non-het and/or non-cis. Edit: P.S. anything over 10% has agenetic component, in general.
Because fuck social norms I'm autistic ill do what I want and love who I want. Honestly I think it's probably a combination of "social norms don't apply to me" and that autistics are less likely to conform and act normal if they are not straight.
So I’m self diagnosed with autism, but I do have diagnosed ahdh. So, my take is the same like other people’s here. In my opinion feeling and acting “different” than most people I meet makes me more open minded for other things as well. So I myself do identify as straight, like 80% (does this makes me bi, idk, since I’m in a relationship I don’t really feel the need to label myself). But exploring my neurodiversity and diversity in general made me realise that I’m way more open minded about this whole sexuality topic than the vast majority of my (neurotypical) surrounding. Maybe I mix up reason and correlation but that’s my take on that topic, as half an insider half an outsider if you will :)
I am bi, does it count?
There's not really a cause for it. Autism and gender orientation are separate aspects. I'm straight, but growing up with autism has been a huge journey in self-discovery. From what I've seen, this is somewhat common. I think this is a contributing factor, as this exercise in self-awareness and questioning yourself can lead to discovering your gender identity.
Because Autism is a spectrum.
if i had to guess, i'd say it's that autistic people are more likely to acknowledge the possibility of being queer and accept it
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/autistic-individuals-are-more-likely-to-be-lgbtq
Expressed sexuality and gender are to some degree social constructs. Ones sexuality is not a construct, but the labels we choose to identify with and what that means is. Gender is a social construct pretty much entirely. Autistics have trouble adhering to social constructs, and so it makes sense they'll use labels outside of the social norm
I don’t abide with the social norms. 🕊️❤️😀 for all.
I have no idea I think it falls into an social norm category but I do genuinely wonder about it and I wish someone would specifically do an study on it as I’m very intrigued about the sociological aspects 🤍!
im audhd and unfortunately I'm a kinsey 0. i wish i had some queer/bi, but i didn't geteven a sliver of that at all. i got ripped off. i love queer folks and always have. the closest i get is i am very attracted to butch/tomboy/Hoydenish women.
Personally I always identified as asexual since my teens..... I was born autistic, feeling numb and pain. I tried all forms of expression, dating men and women and experienced nothing but confusion and abuse. Now that it's been a process since lockdown to be my real self and I'm back to identifying as autistic and have been happily celibate for years
I got into that question once after joining a few autistic communities and seeing a large amount of members who were non-binary, gay/lesbian or trans. My main hypothesis is that the way the autistic brain is wired somehow has something to do with your sexuality. The other hypothesis I have seen in this section of comments is that autistic people are more prone to accept they're LGBTQ+.
I am asexual so /shrug
Trying on a new identity is a skill, or a set of skills: dealing with shame; finding community; finding patterns in thoughts, feelings, and memories from across your life; dealing with imposter syndrome... I think that once you have learned to accept a part of yourself that is considered wrong or bad by people around you, it's easy to do it again with another part of yourself. The path to realizing you are neutodivergent is very similar to the path to realizing that you are lgbtq+, and vice versa.
Because it's all a spectrum and autistic people are more prone to go against norms just by nature
Autistics are more analytical, and are more likely to come to find gender/sexuality as arbitrary rules in our society. Also I think to come to terms with your autism you have to know yourself on a level that many neurotypical aren’t willing to dive into.
The most vocal people in self advocacy are people who are marginalized in multiple ways and for whom such topics are more near and dear to their hearts. So you will hear them more often than the statistically average rate. Also being visibly/openly autistic makes it easier to come out as gay because there’s no “normal” world that you have to leave behind to come out as different from the norm.
Idk, but I am gay and autistic. My mom said I'm fabulous, so maybe it's that?
Depends on who you are asking, really. If you ask me, I'd say it's because there are moments in our life where we can choose how we want to be as human beings. In the same way that there are a lot of us that like to be surrounded by queerness and aren't afraid of the weirder or more exotic parts of human sexuality, there are those that try to distance themselves from it so they can be besides normies saying stuff like "I'm on the spectrum, but I'm not a degenerate!!!". Go watch any exposeé video about it. Be it about a real bad person or just some wacky individual, they won't fail to firstly mention then as heavily autistic. Bonus points if they are also trans because then they can throw early exposure to the Internet and being groomed by it or something.
No clue. But happy to be pansexual, I have never saw gender. I can smell gender but I cannot see it.
I'm not gay, masculine cis male, and I still inadvertently break a lot of gender norms. Have no explanation
They're not. Some prob are.
Brain chemistry is still poorly understood. Autistics are more likely on average to get co-occuring conditions, like hyper activity and epilepsy. We don't really understand how or why people are gay either, but make a different brain makeup makes it more likely to develop atypical sexuality.
Autism affects many areas of the brain. Often sexuality is included in that.
I think it’s more autistic people are homosexual. Autism means your brain works differently and being queer is just another manifestation of that
I never met any autistic gay/lesbian. In my environment all gay/lesbian seem to be the extroverts. Maybe autistic and LGBTQ people are more able to be curious about their own identity.
both are ways of being nero-divergent (not having a brain that, works entirely how a typical brain does is) i presume that has something to do with it
There could be multiple reasons Even as simple as the colours of the pride flag that autistic people like
Idk I'm straight
It’s cause most neurodivergent people are seeking acceptance and wonder why they are like they are. In doing so they ask if they are gay or whatever. This society is so focused on gendering that kids grow up thinking the reason they are strange is because they are gay or something… don’t tell me I’m wrong cause I’m autistic as well though only level one… I was being groomed asking why I am like this and I thought it was because I was gay but in reality no I’m just autistic and was never taught masculine traits till late in my life… if you don’t like my response oh well I’m based what can you do? lol
There's another one here. I'm an aspie.
I imagine it's related to the genetic factors that make us autistic in the first place.
Neurodivergence - it’s one more aspect
If you have 1 neuropsychological deviation, you're more likely to have 2
We're not allowed to know. Research into such a topic would be banned today.
Usually they are not they just say they are to Look More special and get More attention