Gender identity in autistic teen girls

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I am a parent of a 15 year old girl with very high functioning autism. The last couple of years have been rough. Added to the general difficulty of getting through teen years the feeling of being singled out as different, trouble with schoolwork and topped off with recent divorce (amicable but still... big changes) and moving states twice.

In all this my daughter has gone through huge emotional stress. Teen years--everything is drama drama. Add to that Depression, missing friends and familiarity.

We are finally settled in a good place in a progressive more accepting community. She's found a great creative outlet and her niche in theater. Her new friends are good kids--so happy to see that. In that group are quite a few bisexual, gay and transgender kids.

Last night my daughter announced that she is confused about her gender identity. She has no romantic or sexual interest in girls and doesn't think that will ever change and is very attracted to boys, but she says sometimes she feels like a boy more than a girl. But not always. Her taste in dress is decidedly female. She is confused about these feelings. I would like to help but I don't quite understand myself. She wants to cut her hair short to be more masculine but doesn't want to change her style of dress. She says she doesn't even understand it at all.

I love my daughter however she is happy--which is just what I told her. But I know my kid. I have a strong feeling that this gender identity questioning is more an emulation of her peer group--that need to fit in than a real reflection of her own true self. She's always felt this need to follow her crowd--to assimilate to fit in--not be perceived as different and be accepted. My worry is that she is going down this road not because she is truly conflicted about her gender identity but to find any kind of peer acceptance she can.

So today we are flipping through cute short hairstyles and reading stylist reviews. Hair is nothing to worry about. It's where this road might go-- I don't want life getting any more difficult or complex for her than it needs to. It's already been tumultuous. I just don't know.

Anyone with similar experiences have input? I could really use it.

Not feeling like you belong to a specific gender is quite common in autistic girls (you can find it in the list of symptoms here): http://help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_a58d4f6 ... d4f6a.html

I have long hair and I usually dress in a feminine manner, (jewellery, dresses etc.), however some days I feel I want to dress in a more masculine way, and I have a lot of boy's/unisex clothes to do this. My default mode is kind of half-and-half, so I'll wear a girly dress with doc martens, or a pretty handbag with army surplus wear.

I just don't feel that either gender represents me entirely, and because I don't see myself fitting into that binary I reflect that in my appearance. I think gender confusion in autistic teens (and adults) might not be confusion at all, but rather a rejection/lack of understanding of the social 'rules' of masculine and feminine - after all they are pretty arbitrary. For example I've always been aware of people assuming that I'm weak (sometimes finding that weakness attractive), so I put a great emphasis on making myself strong and capable.

I don't say any of this to disparage people who wish to transition, but it's possible that your daughter is simply discovering that she doesn't fit/like the social rules of being a girl. Her new circle of friends (who sound great btw) have enabled her to consider her gender, and I think it's especially cool that you and she can talk about it like you have .

Meanwhile my dad makes snide comments that my boots and feminism mean I must be gay .

I'm an autistic female and I identified as a female from day one. I also went through a phase where I thought I was gender neutral and bisexual. Your daughter might just be "trying on" identities. I can relate to the whole fitting in and following the crowd. In middle school the "cool" girls were either Goth or preppy in my case. I tried both to fit in and as soon as I got into high school I slowly discovered what I enjoy and who I truly am.

With teenagers it seems that identity, even with something like gender, is like a pair of shoes. They try them on until the find a pair that fits. I think that your daughter may be doing that. My gender identity was a phase.

Even if this isn't a phase, you sound like a great mom for accepting her regardless.

Racheypie666 and xxzeromancerlovexx thank you so much for your replies. Hearing from girls who have experienced similar things it's good to know you found your ways through and that this isn't so uncommon. That is helpful.

May I ask--if you could have had any specific support or help from your parents during that time, what would it have been?

Racheypie--I am sorry your dad doesn't get some of your choices. He probably just doesn't know how to react. Regardless you deserve love and support. You sound like a bright young lady who he is lucky to have in his life. I hope someday he comes to that realization and ceases negativity.

Another mom with a 15 year old girl here! We also moved right before high school and had that whole adjustment process to go through. Sounds like your daughter is doing great overall. You've gotten some excellent feedback already. I'll just add that my daughter has always been heavily influenced by her friends, their likes, dislikes, etc. I think for my daughter much of her social behavior developed through mirroring what others did. We've had some discussions around this as she's gotten older, "What do YOU like, not X, Y, Z friend." To a certain degree figuring out who you are, what's important to you, possible career paths, etc. is a confusing process for most teens, whether on the spectrum or not. I'm trying to give my daughter the space and freedom to figure things out for herself. I trust her to make her own choices, make some mistakes along the way, and grow and learn. I've tried to step back and make my role be one of providing unconditional love and support, whatever path she chooses. You sound like a great Mom - your daughter is lucky to have you!

I hated being a girl and I still do. I couldn't wait to grow up so I could identify as male. I hated the expectations that my peers, parents and teachers had for me. I wanted to start my life over again as a boy. It got to the point where I distanced myself from my same-sex peers unless I was very good friends with one of them. I had no interest in guys. I never was interested in guys to be honest. I was more interested in getting to the age of moving out so that I could dress and act as I please (like a man).

I think there are large numbers of autistic people who don't feel the same way about gender that NT people feel. Some NTs seem to think that their boyhood or girlhood is a core aspect of their personality. I find that really weird. I mean, yes, genitals exist and sex happens, as do babies. But I don't "feel" like a man or a woman. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean I conform to a certain stereotype? Or maybe it means I've been successfully socialized?

I support humans rights for trans people. But I am a little concerned that some autistic people are being treated with surgery and hormones because we don't do gender good enough. That's not OK.

I would just support your daughter in being herself, without needing to label that one way or another. It sounds like she's one of us who isn't going to have a strong gender identity.

I am already androgynous, so people often have a hard time figuring out if I'm male or female. I don't care about gender much, though I prefer feminine energy to masculine energy, and I am greatly attracted to girls [or guys with long hair who look like girls/ are androgynous].

This ^^.

"Feminine" and "masculine" are social constructs. Aspies aren't so great with picking up social cues, and we aren't much internally motivated to adhere to social standards and expectations. We just like what we like, and do what we do. Liking short hair doesn't mean that your daughter is really a boy. It just means she's a girl who likes short hair.

I've been thinking about that too. I may be wrong about this. However, I just feel that people should be able to have very fluid gender identities without having to resort to surgery. I don't really agree that gender is entirely a social construct - but large parts of it is, which you can see by studying different cultures. A lot of aspies are unusual when it comes to gender identity, and this might be hard wired into their brains. Which means that changing gender still won't solve the problem.

If you're stuck in the middle -1 or +1 is still 1 away from the middle. Sorry, too much mathematics. Not expressing myself well. Knackered from work.

Hello

Glad to see this is being discussed on this forum, as it's something I've been giving a lot of thought too since my 12 year old announced she was transgender. She has never shown any particular signs of being a boy, but can't seem to get her head around that not conforming to gender stereotypes does not automatically mean you are the wrong sex! I think it's a lot to do with body changes due to puberty and just feeling like she doesn't "fit".

There has been a great article recently on the Transgender Trend blog (sorry, won't let me add link) which my husband and I felt reaffirmed our thinking.

After posting on this thread, I recently heard a famous author saying: "As a teenager, I would have changed my gender if I'd known which gender to change to!"

I thought, what a perfect quote.

Teens experiment with identity. It's a really important part of growing up. If you want my advice, I would let her try all of the boy things she wants, excepting anything permanent like surgery or hormone blockers. Let her cut her hair, use a boy name, etc. It's not going to hurt her. Show her that she can be any way she wants to be in her female body.

12 is hard on girls. It's when they start to be expected to act like women, and that's really intimidating. She might even be experiencing some bullying because she's not conforming enough. 12 girls can be really brutal if you don't do your nails right or wear the right jeans. Thank goodness the rest of us are not required to conform to 12 year old standards of sameness! The world would be very boring, and very, very commercial. I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that some of the girls in school are saying she must be a boy because she doesn't want to do all that.

Hello. I am now 31, but I went through something similar as your daughter at that exact age. I was a tomboy as a preteen and dressed either completely as a boy or going way overboard into trying to be "feminine." I sometimes wished I was a boy...but not really at the same time. I had a boy cut at one time and wore more masculine clothes. I also wanted to be feminine at the same time, but the problem was I had no idea how. Boy clothes were simpler to put together. Girl clothes, not so much. At 28, I met a friend who loved shopping and I now emulate her style and I feel like myself. Anyway, I was also really attracted to the theater program in high school and connected with the people there who identified with the LGBT community. I never felt quite like I fit in with them either, but they accepted me until my odd meltdowns became too much and they dropped me too. There were a few friends who confided that they were gender confused and I kind of dove more into being even more confused than I was if that makes any more sense. Once I started making my own way into my 20s and stopped trying to fit into groups, I started finding my own identity and style. I am neither masculine nor super feminine. I've found a comfortable medium that feels like myself. This is just my experience, so I can't speak for your daughter or even imply that she shares any part of my emotions or feeling at all. I think she has a wonderful parent who is willing to help her out whereas I didn't.

I'm cisgender but haven't always felt like a woman - more as a balance of male and female, or neither. In my case it turns out that it's more that I couldn't relate to other women or the expectations society has for women. This does seem to be common among autistic females.

It's brilliant that your daughter can talk to you about this stuff. It sounds like she has a lot of support. If she is emulating her new friends, that's another really common thing in autistic females. Give her space and listen.

Hope she likes her new haircut.

Been thinking about this myself, and I'm almost 39 LOL.

I have female genitals, have always considered myself to be female, am sexually attracted to men (insofar as I am sexually attracted to anything-- which ain't much).

There were a lot of comments made about me being "butch," "a guy without a dick," "having a bigger dick than my boyfriend," "trying to compete with the guys." Both when I was younger, and still today.

Other than kids and canning and talking about feelings, I'm not into "woman things." Typical women bore the s**t out of me. "Man things" have always been much more interesting; other than romantically, men have always made much more sense to me than women.

Brain scans (fMRI I believe) have recently been done that demonstrate that the brains of autistic females function more similarly to the brains of NT males than to those of autistic males, NT females, or anything else they could come up with to compare them to.

So this is my conclusion. I'm not transgendered (or any of the 37,000,000 other 'gender identities' they've cooked up lately). I'm a perfectly normal autistic female.

I do think some people really do have an outside that doesn't match the inside, and another word for "transgender" is "person." It oughtn't to be a big deal. It's just something that happens sometimes. Why is that so hard??

I also think that our society has entirely too rigid an expectation for what it means to "be male" and "be female." If we could be just a little less rigid and deterministic, I think a lot of people's issues with gender identity (and my recurring anxiety that I'm not "woman enough" to remain attractive to my husband) would just melt away.