MY CLUMSY DANCE WITH AUTISM & QUEERNESS

Research and reliable statistics are few and far between when it comes to unraveling and understanding the murky waters of sexuality, gender identity and autism but, thankfully, the long held idea that autistic people are ‘not sexual’ is being slowly and firmly debunked. But more than this, a lot of studies into this area suggest that not only are autistic individuals, especially those diagnosed with ‘high functioning autism’, sexually and romantically active, we seem to have a much higher statistical likelihood of not identifying as heterosexual. Some studies put this at 15 - 35%, compared to 2022 ONS figures in the UK that put 93.4% of all individuals identifying as straight. This could be for a number of reasons, not least that surveying people on sexuality and gender identity is not going to be a foolproof way of collecting factual statistics. Many sex workers or anyone who’s ever been on Grindr for five minutes will be able to tell you with no uncertainty that there are plenty of men who most likely identify as heterosexual publicly but are far from it. And a common trait of autism is to speak pretty directly and honestly. During my diagnosis process, my therapist remarked that I answered many of the questions with such cold honesty that the same answers from a neurotypical individual would be signifiers of schizophrenia and narcissism.

For my own part, I think that those things are definitely at play but also something that goes more to the core of my identity as an autistic person. There is a blunt matter of factness with which autism provides you as a perspective on the world. The question for me wasn’t so much, ‘am I straight?’ as it was, ‘why wouldn’t I fall in love with a man’, which I very quickly came to understand transcended all genders as much as it did heterosexuality. It was a while until the word ‘pansexual’ entered my lexicon but when it did, it seemed to be the snuggest fitting glove. In reality, I would tell people that I ‘simply identified as Luke’, and that what mattered was who I fell in love with, not how they identified.

And so, if it is not only the case that autistic people are not devoid of sexuality, but in fact are more ready to exist in and express our sexuality in more open and diverse ways, this demands that we re-evaluate the social norms around neurodivergence in general, and also that we stop asking ‘Do We Exist?’ or ‘Why Do We Exist?’ and start asking how we embrace and celebrate our existence, and crucially, hold space for our existence within queer spaces.

But what does that actually look like and mean in practice? For one, widening the oft pursued ‘queer fantasy’ to be something beyond aesthetic aspiration and misogyny coded beauty standards. I could write at length how, in the last ten years, my observation of certain parts of queer identifying culture has transitioned from a political, activist community to an increasingly hollow beauty pageant where tokenism and onstage ‘inclusion’, particularly of BIPOC, disabled people and those embodying body positivity, can illicit plenty of ‘Yassss’s’ and Instagram clicks but do very little work beyond that for the community, nor even for their audiences.

And there are beautiful examples of how queer spaces can celebrate, centre and embrace people with disabilities to not only feel tolerated, but wanted, desired and welcome. For example, last year, at ‘Body Movements’ festival in East London, a friend using crutches and I were given support, resources and the mobile number of someone who would come and find us at any point if we felt overwhelmed, unsafe or in need. As a start to a day that, for many, could be anxiety inducing and daunting, it instead left us feeling supported, seen, heard and ready to have fun!

Or Sistxrhood at Glastonbury. A space for FLINT people where just stepping inside felt like walking into an oasis of acceptance and respect. I will not be able to articulate the power of walking into that space where I felt so held and nurtured in an environment like Glastonbury that can already be incredibly overwhelming for an autistic person, a queer person and someone who's disability requires regular access to a toilet! If I could only exist in spaces that are run how Sistxrhood is, I would be a very happy person indeed.

And then there's dating… I have lost count of the times someone has told me they would never date an autistic person. Just as so many feel entitled and comfortable to put racist, body shaming ‘preferences’ on their dating profiles, the fact that people feel emboldened to announce such things speaks to a huge need for a reframing of how we see, define and engage with desirability in the queer community.

Autism is often referred to as an invisible disability, but without challenging those systems, we can all too easily become invisible ourselves. Particularly as we spend the majority of our lives masking our disability, or trying to unlearn patterns and cycles of masking, when those systems are not interrogated, we can very easily feel like we disappear. But in confronting these societal norms, being seen is just a step in the right direction. Visibility is one thing, but acceptance, celebration and seeing joy in this diversity is something that takes intentional, active work by those with the power and platform to shape the narrative. And when it comes to autism and queerness, we are far away from seeing that.