Just what are autistic identity issues? Why does that make them susceptible to gender ideology? - Something about autism makes them have a "different sense of identity." What is that difference?

[doodoocaca]

"Autistic people have a different sense of self." This aphorism has almost become a thought terminating cliché, and seems to increasingly be used as such.
I'd rather actually know what that difference is, if there is one, and see if this might open doors to helping people with autism, and shed light into the mindset of those who are pressured or willingly taking up trans ideology in a way that might help them, or at least help reduce harm.

Also, I get to use my big book learnin' words to shitpost an amateur thesis.

In terms of actual scholarly research, since I cannot do that, I'll instead present a single link to newsweek that references an actual study, and paraphrase the finding:

• Autists have a smaller "personal space bubble" than normies
• Autists have a stronger, sharper, less flexible boundary between self and not self. It's described as an 'inflexible' bodily self.

This is alleged to somehow explain why they can't pick up on social cues or empathize. OK, sure, but it does not explain why spergs troon. It lends credence to "different" so it can be said, even if it's a useless thing to say, however. Whatever. Also, that inflexibility of bodily self would seem to clash with the physical mutability that goes hand in hand with gender ideology or transhumanist escapism, where the body is seen as increasingly vestigial.

I have seen chatter that improving the mind-body connection with autists can help them process and function socially to varying degrees. Maybe there's something there? There's no questioning that autistic people often feel uncomfortable. If you're uncomfortable with your body, and you're a kid right now, how are you likely to be 'helped'? With spironolactone.

The other explanation is, bluntly, "autists r different" is a cover used for shrewdly wanting to have it easier, knowing that women had lower standards, and now that trans-anyone has lower standards. A high functioning autist choosing to transmax checks out and, frankly, makes sense in some regards, assuming it's a purely personal, subjective choice. For those who can 'mask' well, why not mask in a way that makes it easier? For the lower functioning, I could see being pressured into it as much as being a last resort with little understanding of the repercussions.

A cursory view of this forum would back me up there.

Since we have many autistic kiwis here, and I'm done rambling, I'll put it to you: what is your sense of self? Have you wished you had it easier, have you fallen into grass-is-greener thinking, have you seen the clout and passes the T-word gives and wanted it?

I now can't help but see every trans person as autistic. Indeed, the more I reflect on transpeople I've known, the more it seems almost too good of an explanation to be true, which is why I'm going out of my way to recruit help in poking holes in it.

 

[Caesare]

I now can't help but see every trans person as autistic.

Same here. I don't know any, personally, but every time I read about one here or see an article one wrote about twitter or video games, I get the feeling that yes, every single one of them is highly autistic.

 

[NerdShamer]

OK, sure, but it does not explain why spergs troon. It lends credence to "different" so it can be said, even if it's a useless thing to say, however. Whatever. Also, that inflexibility of bodily self would seem to clash with the physical mutability that goes hand in hand with gender ideology or transhumanist escapism, where the body is seen as increasingly vestigial.

Basically, either it's because they assume that since they don't fit into certain gender roles; then they would be more comfortable living as the opposite sex...Without putting an lot of effort into it.

Other times, it's an subject that they'll become obsessed with an particular subject or two to where we see shit like this.

As far as I can tell, it's an combination of them not caring what society thinks of them and being unable to adapt to being expected to bringing something to the table.

And there's also the issue where some of them will "forget" who they really are if they've been masking for too long...But I mainly see this on Reddit, so who really knows what's going on inside their heads?

 

[doodoocaca]

Basically, either it's because they assume that since they don't fit into certain gender roles; then they would be more comfortable living as the opposite sex...Without putting an lot of effort into it.

Other times, it's an subject that they'll become obsessed with an particular subject or two to where we see shit like this.
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As far as I can tell, it's an combination of them not caring what society thinks of them and being unable to adapt to being expected to bringing something to the table

Before anything else, holy fuck, this is my first exposure to Dev-Catscratch. Reverse image search. Wow. I thought I couldn't be cringed anymore, and for some reason that face just blew me away. I feel like Tilda Swinton spiked my tea and open palm struck me out of my own body from raw cringe.

As far as "lower-functioning (or just extremely fucking lazy)" spergs going "women have it easier, I'm a woman now; am hole", that checks out. But it doesn't really dovetail into "there's just a different sense of self." It seems to more be they don't really understand things with any depth, are extremely desperate, or some combination thereof. Those who are high functioning enough to coin terms or pick up on trends, such as "identity is the easy button!" can probably synthesize an aphorism to hide behind, while those less capable just copy.

And here we are.

What the fuck is with the bandage on his navel!? Does he fuck those plushies? God dammit.

 

[RonPaul2008]

The difference is heavy metal poisoning.

 

[Caesare]

@NerdShamer That's in the top 3 of my favorite Chris pictures for sure. "Want Women!" lololol. It didn't take too long for "want women!" to become "senile mother will do".

 

[doodoocaca]

@NerdShamer That's in the top 3 of my favorite Chris pictures for sure. "Want Women!" lololol. It didn't take too long for "want women!" to become "senile mother will do".

What I would fucking give to go back to cringe-Chris from rapist Chris.

 

[NerdShamer]

But it doesn't really dovetail into "there's just a different sense of self." It seems to more be they don't really understand things with any depth, are extremely desperate, or some combination thereof.

I mostly saw it as an "all-or-nothing" approach with the guys, since liking feminine stuff obviously doesn't involve what's between your legs. With the girls, they actually have more stuff to deal with once puberty starts; so I can't really fault them over that. But apparently, the "it's okay for me to be what I was born as and still like animu" never crossed their minds because they tend to excessively categorize stuff to the point where it's detrimental. (Of course, this is only from an 1st grader.)

Those who are high functioning enough to coin terms or pick up on trends, such as "identity is the easy button!" can probably synthesize an aphorism to hide behind, while those less capable just copy.

Yeah, sometimes it's an grift (like ADF), every now and then, it's some weird fetish. But it's mostly just them emulating what other people are doing to themselves in this day and age.

What the fuck is with the bandage on his navel!?

It's an weird obsession that he always had. And no, he's not an plushophile, those are just some of the other shit that he's really into.

 

[Johnny Eastwood cash]

My best guess is they start to from a unhealthy obsession with gender politics or something of that nature but regardless obsessing about gender politics will fuck anyone's mind up especially autistic people. This is why incels are a laughing stock online because the human brain wasn't design to constantly be thinking about the opposite sex

 

[FatalTater]

Some autistics seem to follow the crowd more, probably a side effect of masking or mirroring. Monkey-see-monkey-do kind of thing.

Some of them don't have the skills to know when someone is lying and get taken advantage of easily.

They feel so "other" no matter what they do, so the sense of something being not quite right with whatever they're being talked into gets ignored.

Look at how hard trandgender stuff has been pushed on kids in the past few years. Autistics didn't have a chance.

/r/detrans/ is a great lil' subreddit, until it gets shut down anyway.

 

[Apochrypha]

As an autistic person I don't think I've ever once really questioned my gender. I'm into girly things and also traditionally masculine things and was never criticized for it, I like what I like. however I do think that since a lot of autistic people are trans or queer or whatever the fuck it's mostly because they're easier to trick into these ideologies - some of them also have a very narrow POV on the world and an almost naïve way of thinking, and so they're more likely to consider themselves leftists and follow the troon pipeline. Some of them may do it to fit in as well since the general consensus today is that being an SJW is a good thing. Autistic people are usually either super trusting or constantly questioning everything around them to the point of madness, I know I'm definitely the latter.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Two things:

1. Masking. They don't intuitively pick up on various sociolinguistic things the way typical people do so they have to laboriously reconstruct a normal-looking interface with the world from scratch. Obviously the higher your IQ in the realm of deductive reasoning, analogies, and so forth, the more convincing your results will be, and thus you technically become "higher functioning." However the problem is that it is a constructed persona and it is exhausting to maintain. They're not trying to trick or fool people, but think of it this way- if you speak English as your native language and learn Chinese then go to China and have to relate in complex interpersonal situations- dating, sensitive work issues, medical problems- in Chinese, you're going to be running on a delay and burning a lot of extra brain power figuring out how the fuck to convey your thoughts in Chinese. You won't be able to relate to your date as smoothly as you are struggling to remember the right tones for saying "pretty eyes." You might fuck up and accidentally tell your boss "shove a rhino in it" instead of "the computer crashed and I had to start over." You will constantly be experiencing more anxiety and exerting more mental effort than a native Chinese speaker would.

This is what autistics experience trying to interact with people and not be misunderstood. They have their own way of seeing things but over time and painful experience, they learn that their way is incomprehensible to normies. So they have to translate. Something as simple as a normie says "how was your day" and the autist has to learn over time not only to not be truthful (don't tell the cashier "I had the flu last week and still feel like shit plus these shoes are really uncomfortable and my balls itch") and to lie ("great!") and to reciprocate as expected ("how about you?" and not "are you feeling ok you look pretty haggard, mate.") When people ignore them they tend not to take it personally- it's one interaction they don't have to struggle through- but normies do, so they have to learn to acknowledge them to not hurt their feelings. But not to acknowledge the wrong ones, or in the wrong ways. So you smile and say "hey" to the annoying store clerk, but you ignore the sad looking lonely guy sitting out front, and you don't offer to let him see the cool rock you found earlier in hopes of making him feel better. Because that's Not Done. It's complex and exhausting.

While most of these basic things have at least some practical or cultural rationale that makes sense, a lot of gender-based customs come across as infuriatingly arbitrary to autists. For instance: a man can sit with his knees akimbo, a female must not. Even if both are wearing loosely fitting thick pants. Why? If you think about it, it's because females are penetrated, so the gesture appears as a sexual invitation. But the female autist just wanted to relax her legs, not attract sexual attention. Yet now her peers are calling her a ho or her granny is smacking her for indecent behavior. Internalizing this set of rules is a real devilish thing for autists whose whole way of actually functioning in society is to kind of sleuth and deduce things rationally. Like Data.

So they learn over time to "mask" and automatically perform the social roles expected of them. Since it's all an exhausting, often unwanted theatre role to start with, it's not hard to imagine how they might want to switch it up- be Puck instead of Titania, be Ophelia instead of Polonius. Why not?

2. OCD. The same quirks of neurology that cause autism leave autists susceptible to OCD and OCD-like obsessions and compulsions. OCD is called the "doubting disease" and is highly culturally determined. That is, a person with OCD neurology in 14th century Spain would probably be obsessed with Catholic canon law and avoiding heresy. A person with OCD in the 21st century USA becomes obsessed with gender and sexuality. And so it goes.

 

[Ethereal Eye]

Fellow sperg kiwi here. I primarily think many other autists fall into the gender identity trap because of their lack of belonging and desire to find a place to belong. Growing up as an autist, you are always perceived as different and a tad uncanny due to your mannerisms, behaviors, and interests that dont fall in line with the typical order of society. Its hard to find a group to belong to, and if you do find a "group to belong to", its usually by masking and crafting an artificial persona half the time. The normies will find it amusing and even love said artificial persona.

Now, onto how this has anything to do with gender identity: The cultish behaviors of gender identity circles make it easy to reel in autists due to the lovebombing, promises of "being accepted when they find their true self", and the rush they get from their newfound attention and hugbox-esque coddling. Again, this can cram them into a confined box like any other form of masking because they now have to preform like a circus animal to a set of rules that is more ridiculous than your usual society's rules. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the burnout from being in gender identity LARP mode is worse than trying to LARP as a normie. After all, you can observe how SKY HIGH a transtrender or enby's anxiety can be.

If some of them took some time to carefully think, they could realize they can enjoy themselves as they were born, not fit into traditional gender roles, have their silly interests (as long as they are not harmful or dangerous), and AT THE SAME TIME be a respectful member of society who can contribute something meanwhile.

 

[GenericEdgelordSupreme]

As a massive sperg myself, I can confirm that it makes me feel disconnected from my physical body. If I were also completely out of touch with reality I might "identify" as a cyberdemon from the 69th level of hell or some such nonsense, but when I look in the mirror I see a human. I've never particularly felt like a human, but all the evidence points to the fact that I am one. If I tattooed the whole surface area of my skin red and got subdermal implants in my forehead, I would still be a human; just a ridiculous-looking one. My autism just made me a big nerd, but I can see how it could cause other autistics who were perhaps spoiled as children to totally lose touch with reality. If mommy always says you're a special snowflake who can do no wrong, that spoilage can easily swell into delusional narcissism. If a supportive community offers to indulge that delusional narcissism, it makes sense that they would join that community rather than remain alone with no validation other than that of the parent(s) they probably still live with. For a spoiled autist, people who will indulge narcissistic delusions like their parents are extremely valuable for the asspats. Being exposed to realists who don't want to play pretend would shatter their identity bubble. That's why they avoid looking in the mirror: they can't face that what they really look like differs so radically from their perceived self-image. However, some of us can feel disconnected from our physical selves without living in a fantasy where we think that actually makes us something else. I will always be a human, and they will always be their birth sex. Reality isn't willing to indulge tantrums.

 

[doodoocaca]

[a bomb ass post]

Are you a shrink or just a very well studied kiwi? Don't out yourself, naturally, but I'm curious now.

Also, would you say masking is 'an aspect of self' or a behavior with which to construct an identity? Seems to me it's more of a case where you have to put on an act to fit in more than you're a different kind of being doing the experiencing.

Fellow sperg kiwi here. I primarily think many other autists fall into the gender identity trap because of their lack of belonging and desire to find a place to belong. Growing up as an autist, you are always perceived as different and a tad uncanny due to your mannerisms, behaviors, and interests that dont fall in line with the typical order of society. Its hard to find a group to belong to, and if you do find a "group to belong to", its usually by masking and crafting an artificial persona half the time. The normies will find it amusing and even love said artificial persona.

Now, onto how this has anything to do with gender identity: The cultish behaviors of gender identity circles make it easy to reel in autists due to the lovebombing, promises of "being accepted when they find their true self", and the rush they get from their newfound attention and hugbox-esque coddling. Again, this can cram them into a confined box like any other form of masking because they now have to preform like a circus animal to a set of rules that is more ridiculous than your usual society's rules. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the burnout from being in gender identity LARP mode is worse than trying to LARP as a normie. After all, you can observe how SKY HIGH a transtrender or enby's anxiety can be.

If some of them took some time to carefully think, they could realize they can enjoy themselves as they were born, not fit into traditional gender roles, have their silly interests (as long as they are not harmful or dangerous), and AT THE SAME TIME be a respectful member of society who can contribute something meanwhile.

I've seen this both as a bystander and going undercover to see how I'd be treated myself, and I can say it's entirely true. If that's the only way to get such positive treatment, and the only way to maintain the support structure you've found yourself in, of course you'd cling to it. But what a shame it is that the only way so many people feel any belonging or have positive interactions is to play a character for people on the internet. Support being contingent on this is reprehensible, but of course I can only say that here because otherwise that would be twisted into some kind of 'phobia'.

As a massive sperg myself, I can confirm that it makes me feel disconnected from my physical body. If I were also completely out of touch with reality I might "identify" as a cyberdemon from the 69th level of hell or some such nonsense, but when I look in the mirror I see a human. I've never particularly felt like a human, but all the evidence points to the fact that I am one. If I tattooed the whole surface area of my skin red and got subdermal implants in my forehead, I would still be a human; just a ridiculous-looking one. My autism just made me a big nerd, but I can see how it could cause other autistics who were perhaps spoiled as children to totally lose touch with reality. If mommy always says you're a special snowflake who can do no wrong, that spoilage can easily swell into delusional narcissism. If a supportive community offers to indulge that delusional narcissism, it makes sense that they would join that community rather than remain alone with no validation other than that of the parent(s) they probably still live with. For a spoiled autist, people who will indulge narcissistic delusions like their parents are extremely valuable for the asspats. Being exposed to realists who don't want to play pretend would shatter their identity bubble. That's why they avoid looking in the mirror: they can't face that what they really look like differs so radically from their perceived self-image. However, some of us can feel disconnected from our physical selves without living in a fantasy where we think that actually makes us something else. I will always be a human, and they will always be their birth sex. Reality isn't willing to indulge tantrums.

I think this is part of the explanation as to why social media/forums/subreddits/blahblah turn into hugboxes and get colonized by trans mods. You have to keep the play going into the next act (see above) and you also don't want to be challenged on a personal level, because that's just even more stress.

On the other hand, this behavior of theirs, to pick fights and take space, is going to keep pissing people off and drawing more attention onto them and lead to shit like what just recently fucked up the forum for a while and made me take a stronger look at this all. THANKS KEFFALS.

Seems like the issue is more of this being a symptom of not supporting people who are autistic, neurodivergent, or otherwise socially impaired. Stopping this would be best served with some help in school, and even after graduation, so people can build social skills and maintain some kind of support network and friend group. Otherwise, people get desperate and do this shit to try to have something, politics gets involved, and it turns into a horror show.

This leaves non-autistic trans people (I'm having a hell of a time finding one though) and how to deal with the current cohort of future eunuchs, though. In the latter case, quiet obscurity and suffering out of sight is the likely outcome, as disgusting as that is, but props have a habit of being disposed of when not needed anymore.

What a fucking shit show.

 

[GenericEdgelordSupreme]

@doodoocaca (because the quote button is missing on your latest post for whatever reason)

While I mostly agree that autists shouldn't have to troon out just to get emotional support, (therapy > a brood of troons) I also caution against the consequences of too much unconditional support. I think part of the reason for the troon epidemic is that some parents and friends are so supportive they'll throw their full support behind even a terrible idea (like their teen/adult child cutting his dick off, for instance) because they're too afraid of hurting feelings to give someone an honest reality check. "You will never be a woman" shouldn't just be an insult to use online; it should be constructive advice given by people who care, because they care. For instance, "You will never be a woman, but you might meet a power top who likes femboys someday if you keep your dick attached. If you cut it off, no one will ever want to have sex with you and you'll die a slow, painful death of rotting from the inside out. As someone who cares about you, I'd rather see you live a long, gay life than a short trans one." As a society, we're far too attached to the idea of prioritizing feelings over facts. You can always start with the facts and package them in a way designed to minimize hurt feelings without telling people outright lies such as "trans women are women." That's how we got into this mess: people are afraid to tell the truth whenever it might offend someone, even if it's for their own good.

 

[doodoocaca]

Support includes accountability to me. It's unfortunate that these days 'support' means enabling, but here we are.

I completely agree with you. Real support, not enablement, with accountability would really, really help a lot of people. People do need that kind of support, the kind with accountability, without precondition. It's not like you just drop your hands and give up if a child misbehaves, right?

 

[GenericEdgelordSupreme]

Support includes accountability to me. It's unfortunate that these days 'support' means enabling, but here we are.

I completely agree with you. Real support, not enablement, with accountability would really, really help a lot of people. People do need that kind of support, the kind with accountability, without precondition. It's not like you just drop your hands and give up if a child misbehaves, right?

The child throwing a tantrum comparison is extremely fitting, because that's what the trans movement is: a nationwide temper tantrum. We've taught them that if they make enough noise they'll get what they want, even if what they want is to repeal the First Amendment and Age of Consent laws because they're "transphobic." It's socially irresponsible and destructive to enable mentally ill people's delusions, especially when they're recruiting children to share them.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

@doodoocaca masking is a learned behavior. Some autists are better at it than others. They learn it through trial and error usually in mid-childhood and early adolescence, by seeing that their natural behaviors result in negative reactions and observing the behaviors others engage in that result in positive reactions. (NB: you can really see there how gendertrending can get picked up that way.) Generally speaking, higher IQ and female gender correlate with stronger masking skills. Some of those folks can "pass" for normal but they have to work at it. If they were not diagnosed as kids (or given good psychoeducation by their diagnostician, or had their diagnosis hidden from them by the 'rents, which is surprisingly common) they likely don't even know why they have to work so hard at what apparently comes naturally to others.

In a way, everybody "masks" but it's learned earlier in infancy/childhood and internalized so deeply that it becomes mostly effortless. Autists still have to manually process social irregularities like "acceptable white lies" and "pretending to be interested in something boring" and "withholding things others will be bored by" in a way most people don't have to pause over.

Because they run on these clunky analog, manually processed rule-sets, constantly having to refer back to the rule-set to know what to do, exceptions are cumbersome and that again brings us to the gender issue. Sally the neurologically normal is not confused by the fact that she likes to play baseball and also wear pink dresses. Sadie the autist may well be confused by it because the world is divided into sportsball players and pink dress wearers. It doesn't help that if an autist had a speech delay, he will have seen an SLP who likely had him spend a great deal of time practicing this categorization to help with word-finding. No one typically follows up to discuss the very helpful concept of "both/and" and the idea of statistical distribution- the average sportsball player is male, but there is a significant female minority- and overlap.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Autism and gender ideology unfortunately go hand in hand when you realize that social engineering can also affect the mindstate of thinking why it’s acceptable to use SSRI’s on people that are able to evade the social programming that destroys people lives.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors-ssris-information

Support includes accountability to me. It's unfortunate that these days 'support' means enabling, but here we are.

I completely agree with you. Real support, not enablement, with accountability would really, really help a lot of people. People do need that kind of support, the kind with accountability, without precondition. It's not like you just drop your hands and give up if a child misbehaves, right?

Accountability also means personal responsibility and owning up to your faults. Most of these new age Autistic™ individuals confuse this with entitlement and try their hardest to make it look like they’re the real victims.

That is, of course, when they proclaim on their social media accounts that they are a mix of LGBTQ+ and high on the spectrum.