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      queer – adj. – (kwir)
      1: a: worthless, counterfeit
      b: questionable, suspicious
      2: a: differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal
      b (1): eccentric, unconventional (2): mildly insane: touched
      c: absorbed or interested to an extreme or unreasonable degree: obsessed
      d (1) often disparaging: homosexual (2) sometimes offensive
      3: not quite well

I am queer. Forget, for a moment, Chick-fil-a or that lovable character from Modern Family; focus, instead, on the definition printed above. What does Mr. Webster have to say? How do you measure up? Queer behavior would appear to be startlingly common.

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ~Alan Alda

Are you queer?

Do you ever feel awkward and phony while donning an uncomfortable social mask… at a funeral, perhaps, or on a first date? Do you secretly engage in harmless but potentially “abnormal” private behaviors? Have you ever believed the intensity of your interests to be a bit, well, intense, almost obsessive? Do attractive members of the same sex make you feel hot and restless within the denim confines of your new pair of skinny jeans?

Do you know the feeling of being an outsider, a misfit toy, playing the part of someone else, day after day? If you do, indeed, then you are not so remarkable – you’re as queer as the next human being! Humankind is a queer lot; sexuality is merely one reflection of our beautiful absurdity. Eccentricity and obsessive interests are characteristic of the autism diagnosis, yet in varying degrees, they are actually characteristic of homo sapiens in general.

While we’re on the subject of homo… er… sapiens, I should mention that I’m also queer in the popular and crude sense of the word – I’m a guy and I like guys. If that makes you uncomfortable, I can assure you that I understand. I’ve spent my entire life bombarded by a daily assault of heterosexuality imagery; a constant suggestion of my social irrelevance. Yeah, you’re sexual orientation makes me uncomfortable as well.

Though prejudice and social pressure inspired years of self-deception, self-loathing, and heterosexual mimicry (a: worthless, counterfeit), I can no longer deny it – I practically pranced out of the womb striking poses to the tune of Vogue. I may not be the biggest queen to ever purchase a Judy Garland album, but there’s no mistaking basic nature – I’m a queer (homosexual), a fruit, a flamer… whichever adjective is hurled across the bar by the drunken red-neck who will soon learn the meaning of “lanky strength.”

I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder one year ago. Six short months after my diagnosis I came out of the closet. After 25 years of claustrophobia, I no longer had the patience necessary to make my exit on quiet tip-toes, gently closing the closet door behind me. For many LGBT individuals, coming out is a process. Perhaps they tell a friend or trusted relative, then gradually the support of their confidantes brings greater courage, and they may begin to reveal their sexual orientation on a larger scale, and in a more casual manner.

Well, I’ve never respected conventional social protocol. Instead of enduring the typical, drawn out process, I chose to divulge my sexual orientation by writing an article… an article which drew… um… a decent amount of attention (gotta love the mass exposure available through social media). My family would doubtlessly have preferred a more private disclosure along with some time to come to terms with my little revelation, but hey, divas will be divas, and boys will be… appealing, with or without parental consent.

Aside from the gay, I’ve also got the Asperger’s. Unconventional? Governed by all-consuming interests (c: absorbed or interested to an extreme or unreasonable degree: obsessed)? Unconcerned with social customs, trends, and events (a: differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal). Yep, autism is a mighty queer condition.

An enormous body of anecdotal evidence suggests an unusually high percentage of LGBT among the autistic population, though few studies have explored the implications of a possible link. Is there a correlation between the mysterious and unique neurological wiring of the autistic mind and alternative sexual orientation? Or could it be that autistics like us, equipped with our natural resistance to social expectations, are simply more comfortable exploring and locating our role along the sexual spectrum. Let’s face it, sexuality is nowhere near as cut and dry as many would care to believe.

A friend once told me, “There’s a little bi in every guy.” Since becoming deeply familiar with the autism diagnosis, I’ve come to realize that there’s also a little autism in every person. I cannot think of anyone completely absent of at least one recognizably autistic characteristic. This never fails to bring a smile to my face. That’s right – like it or not, “normal” is a fading concept rooted in a dying social mythology. We’re all a little queer!

This was made abundantly clear to me several days ago when I went on the most unusual date of my life! A very sweet and sexy guy arrived on time to take me to dinner. Common enough, right? Not so much…

My date eyed me over, then nodded in approval and informed me that we would be eating at the buffet adjoining the casino. He then turned the volume knob and I was horrified to hear Weird Al Yancovic’s most recent CD. We listened to Yancovic until we reached the casino. Thankfully the drive was brief. Between songs, he spoke almost entirely of his most recent dental checkup.

Over our meal, which I struggled to select from the massive smorgasbord, my date informed me that he recently graduated from the most prestigious school of magic in the country. Yep, I was out at the casino with a professional magician on his third month of overbite treatments!

After staring awestruck as he consumed enough food to force Michael Moore into a mindless, apolitical stupor, we headed downtown and began strolling aimlessly beneath the twinkling city lights. Somehow our wanderings found us standing unexpectedly among the crowd at a Montgomery Gentry concert. Homo or not, I still shouted the words to every song and though surrounded by rednecks, there was not a single hateful word uttered. We only stayed for several songs before wading on back through the crowd and onto the city sidewalks of earlier.

“You know,” he said, “When I was a kid they thought I had something like you. Maybe I do. Either way, I like who I am and get along just fine.”

I dropped to my knees, shaking with laughter and more than a bit relieved. “Thank God, you said that!” I snorted. “I’ve been trying not to diagnose you all evening!”

Some people take comfort in labels. Some people do not. Gay? Straight? Autistic? Neurotypical? Caucasian? Disabled? ADHD? One thing is for certain; all labels will become utterly useless in the event of a zombie apocalypse, nuclear holocaust, the election of Mitt Romney, or some other global catastrophe of epic proportions. An education in the magical arts, however, might come in handy.

Dr. Seuss, that wisest of contemporary philosophers, once said, “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

Upon receiving my diagnosis I made a promise – I would be uncompromisingly true to myself no matter what the cost. I had no idea what an incredible journey this promise would take me on. Never could I have truly estimated the cost or the reward.

Though my life was fully transformed in under a year by the application of two simple labels, I do not wish to be defined by autism or homosexuality. I can credit only nature for my extra helping of quirkiness and would sooner be recognized for my personal and professional accomplishments, struggling to gain the gratification of genuine pride, a feeling which is earned rather than inheritted.

This does not mean I am hesitant to reveal any aspect of my identity. Unappologetically myself, I still strive to live by the golden rule, and demand nothing more than respect and common courtesy. Gays must set examples of self-respect, confidence, and self-advocasy at all times… because you never know who may be watching. Homosexual youth are four times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers. One act of fearlessness and integrity could unknowingly save a life. For that reason I am out and will never go back in. Besides, maybe someday I’ll fall in mutual weirdness…”

Anyway, I’ll stand by my man Seuss. Own your weirdness, embrace your inner oddball, and love without shame. If you fail to do so, you may unwittingly meet the simplest criteria within Webster’s definition of queer; not quite well.

The post A Rather Queer Year – By John Scott Holman appeared first on Wrong Planet.

Recently, an article appeared in the New York Times featuring my boyfriend, Jack, and me. It was about how autism affects romantic relationships, though really it was about how our autism affects our relationship. Every relationship is different, and every autistic is different.

One criticism of the article that really resonated with me was about my comment about how learning to dress differently opened me up to more romantic venues. I said, “A lot of it is how you dress. I found people don’t flirt with me if I wear big man pants and a rainbow sweatshirt.” Now, like many autistics, I have trouble communicating my thoughts and intentions when speaking aloud. I am far more eloquent in text, thankfully, but nevertheless, my speech difficulties lead me to say things like this. I want to clear up exactly what I meant, because out of context, this statement can be quite hurtful to many people. After my explanation, I want to address the larger picture behind the controversy: the autism world is currently extremely hetero-normative.

Read on. . .

Now, the quote was part of a larger story. When I was in high school I cut my hair myself. I always kept it short, going so far as to simply cut as close to my scalp as I could with thinning shears. I wore ill-fitting men’s clothing from thrift stores, and I had an obsession with rainbows. I had a rainbow belt that was my grandmother’s in the 60s that I wore every day, I wore rainbow pins on my backpack, and I painted rainbows on my clothes with acrylic paint. I didn’t learn until the end of high school from some classmates that plenty of boys had thought I was cute, but everyone had just assumed I was a lesbian because of how I presented myself. Interesting, isn’t it? Without even realizing it, I was advertising a social niche. I was sending non-verbal signals about my identity to those around me.

Visual images telegraph quite a bit about identity to the community. Would you assume a male college student wearing a football jersey and a backwards baseball cap might be a sports fan, or a “jock”? Why? What would you think of the same boy with dreadlocks and a baggy sweatshirt? How about if that same boy wore a dress?

Many autistics are logical, straightforward thinkers. Is this shirt clean? Am I wearing pants? Ok, ready to go. For most of my life I put little if any thought into how I dressed, or how I wore my hair. I wore pigtails because a favorite cartoon character wore pigtails. My favorite shirt had a wolf on it because I liked wolves, and light-up sneakers sure were neat. As I got older it still never clicked. I wore a lot of teal because it was my favorite color, just like I wore rainbows because rainbows are pretty. I cut my hair short because I was too impatient to grow it out, and whenever I got bored, I would just cut it some more. I never once thought about how clothes could represent identity, beyond wearing a shirt with my favorite anime character on it.

I was a heterosexual girl, with no problems fitting into my assigned gender. Though I don’t consider myself extraordinarily girlie, I feel like a girl on the inside. I liked boys, yet I was communicating myself as off limits through my clothing. When I learned this, I started to make an effort to buy clothes more appropriate for the image I wanted to present. I started wearing skirts and dresses—and rainbow dresses ! And I began to grow out my hair. This in no way means that, if you’re a straight girl, to find love you have to turn into something you’re not. I never faked anything. I still wear clothes that I like. I still wear men’s clothes and rainbows sometimes too, though lately I’m making more of an effort to dress like an “adult,” whatever that means. I’ve found that I really enjoy having long hair. I can play with it and style it, and it’s an all around fun part of my body to have. I didn’t turn into someone I’m not to get male attention, though I’ll admit that I have tried and failed a few times. I simply learned how to speak the language of clothing.

If you’re a heterosexual girl who wants male attention but is so not girlie, then you don’t want to doll yourself up to attract guys who want something you’re not. If you want to wear baggy cargo pants and metal t-shirts and shave your head, go for it. Believe it or not, everyone is different, and sexuality is far from black and white. There are more than a few guys out there who will love your shaved head and non-conformist attitude. Or who will love your grandma sweaters and peasant skirts, or your dreadlocks, or your Mohawk. And guys, the same goes for you. You don’t need to like sports if you really couldn’t care less, and you don’t need to be something you’re not. Because even if you do end up attracting a mate by faking a role, you’ll never be happy with that person. You’ll have to keep on faking.

Now, something I have never once seen mentioned in any mainstream autism media is the fact that–gasp–autistic people can be gay, bi, trans, gender queer, or anything else for that matter. It’s hard enough for someone to whom social signals don’t come naturally to find a mate, let alone someone whose sexuality strays outside what’s considered the norm. How does an autistic teenage boy figure out whether the cute guy in his calculus class is gay or not? What about the autistic labeled by a driver’s license as “female” who doesn’t feel like either a girl or a boy? This stuff is hard even for neurotypicals, and autistics are basically left high and dry when it comes to sexuality in the first place.

As a straight, cis girl with only my own experience to draw from, I am in no way qualified to give advice on any of this. We live in a world where there are only two genders, and those genders are expected to always match up perfectly with biological sex. We live in a world where anything other than procreative intercourse is taboo enough to make most people uncomfortable, and any sexuality outside of heterosexual vaginal penetration is condemned. Why is it that a straight man that likes prostrate stimulation is seen as “gay,” even if it’s his wife he’s having sex with? There are so many problems with the way our culture addresses love and sex that I won’t try to get too far into it in this blog, but I will certainly write more on this in the future.

All I want to say for now is, if you’re reading this—yeah, you!—and you don’t feel like that daytime TV heterosexual, you’re not alone. Just because you don’t only like to have sex with a single someone of the opposite biological sex in missionary position with the man on top doesn’t make you a freak. If you’re a boy who wishes he could hug his friends like girls are allowed to, you’re not alone. If you’re a girl who’s sick of being judged the second you walk into a video game store, you’re not alone. If you’re a trans woman who can’t afford surgery who’s tired of being treated like some sexual pervert, you’re not alone.

We autistics are often classically considered to think in black and white absolutes, but I can’t think of anything more black and white than the modern view of sexuality and gender identity.

The post Kirsten Lindsmith on Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Autism appeared first on Wrong Planet.