Can autistic males be mistaken as "effeminate" ?
Autism is discribe as being the extreme male end of the spectrum of neurodiversity.
Well that's what they say . My oldest sister is severely autistic, and she is as feminine in her mannerisms, mind and thinking as can be. She has more than just autism, though. She has a mild retardation.
Yep, same here. I would class myself as very heterosexual, but if you don't like sports, are quiet and bookish, then, as a child, at least, you will be labelled gay (but phrased rather more unpleasantly). I actually found boyish and 'laddish' culture quite repellent. It tries too hard to be male and is like a caricature of masculinity. I suspect that Asperger was right, male aspies are an extreme form of male. Perhaps we are comfortable enough being male we don't feel the need to shout about it?
Many autistic people, regardless of gender, have trouble conforming to gender roles. In fact, many transition (half of all trans youths treated in the UK are on the spectrum). Others are comfortable in their birth gender but see themselves as gender nonconforming.
I was born female but have always been far more masculine than feminine. I intend to physically transition in the future, but I can't just now.
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In all my years I hadn't yet thought about this topic as clearly as it is being put here. Maybe even not thought about it at all.
But upon seeing this topic then looking and seeing this,
it has that feeling of rightness to it.
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I think that I can be very aggressive (not violent). Especially if the person or people leading an effort are not efficient. I expressly do not want to follow a procedure that is inefficient.
I was playing in a D&D game with some friends. The story was set in a keep on the borderlands between civilization and the uncivilized wilds. There were various sorts of currency. Their was a banker who would trade light and valuable coin for bulky less valuable coin for 10%. My character simply managed the groups money, would spend the bulky coins, and would keep the valuable coins. I think that me doing so removed some "flavorful" story interaction, but I could not stomach mismanaging resources.
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Evil men will never see themselves as such, because it is the good in us that see's the evil within ourselves.
Then a lot of men are definitely not confident in their masculinity.
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But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
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I could be mistakenly thought gay, though it depends on the nature of the company in question, some men being more wedded to masculinity as a mark of excellence than others. I'm sure I've met guys who would see my dress sense, sensitivity, compassion, vegetarianism, football-indifference or intelligence as a sign of gayness. But I've no idea how many are like that, I seem to unknowingly repel them and have never seen any examples of it in my circle of friends, only acquaintances, and mostly way back in the past when I was a schoolboy or student at the local technical college. I also worked all my life in universities where most folks were pretty well-educated. I haven't been mistaken as gay by anybody in the gay community yet, though I've only knowingly dealt with a few gay folks.
I sometimes get a whiff of it when reading stuff by men on the Web, when they display what to me is a puerile, sex-obsessed mentality about women, and it seems depressingly common. Even when I was a teenager I wasn't too heavily into that. So for example, when a college kid was wondering about the wisdom of having sex with his girlfriend, I asked him "do you love her?" and he was puzzled by that, and didn't answer, and I think it put him off me to a degree. I was a bit of a hippie in those days (I still like a lot of their philosophies), and I think that can be enough to give some men that kind of an illusion about me. I suspect I'm similarly prejudiced the other way round, i.e. I don't allow for the existence of gentle giants, even though I've met one or two.
Just to complicate things more, I often have a somewhat "tough" turn of phrase when I speak, and a facial expression to match, and I'm afraid I don't feel as much patience as I'd like to feel when I notice anybody, male or female, who doesn't fight back when they're attacked, though I usually think it through and don't end up harshly telling them to get a grip. I've wondered a lot about this, and I think it may be down to projection or an over-empathic thing, I just hate to see anybody letting a bully walk over them. I've never equated it with gayness though, one guy I rather like is both gay and of a tough persona, and I'm sure it's not uncommon.
Then a lot of men are definitely not confident in their masculinity.
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Evil men will never see themselves as such, because it is the good in us that see's the evil within ourselves.
[I sometimes get a whiff of it when reading stuff by men on the Web, when they display what to me is a puerile, sex-obsessed mentality about women, and it seems depressingly common. Even when I was a teenager I wasn't too heavily into that].
Agreed, is it not the case that all the beery. aggressive, team-sports obsessed, violent masculine sub-culture, just dreadfully homo-erotic? I take no particular pleasure in the company of males for this reason. The members of this culture seem desperate to shout about how straight they are.
Agreed, is it not the case that all the beery. aggressive, team-sports obsessed, violent masculine sub-culture, just dreadfully homo-erotic? I take no particular pleasure in the company of males for this reason. The members of this culture seem desperate to shout about how straight they are.
I am against extreme feminism that calls any masculine traits as "toxic". I believe that men and women are inherently different, but equal. God made us that way. But what else is true, since we both have the same hormones, both men and women have feminine/masculine traits, but its flipped. In that a man will typically display masculinity as his dominant, with feminine attributes as his subdominant, and vice versa for a woman.
This was my dad (pretty sure he was an Aspie). He was quite easy-going, not into aggression or status, definitely interested in women but too diffident to pursue one aggressively. He did not strike me as "effeminate" but I know a lot of more alpha-male wannabe types were inclined to insult him that way.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
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