Autism, gender diversity and respect across communities

Jeanette Purkis is an author, public speaker and advocate who has a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome and atypical schizophrenia. Jeanette has worked full-time in the Australian Public Service since 2007 and has a Masters degree in Fine Arts. She is the author of Finding a Different Kind of Normal (an autobiography), The Wonderful World of Work (an activity book to help teens on the Autism spectrum prepare for joining the workforce) and The Guide to Good Mental Health on the Autism Spectrum.

Last Saturday I reflected that I would be trolled as a result of the meme I had scheduled to post the next day but that I would post it anyway. The meme had the transgender Pride flag as the background and the text read: “Being trans and gender diverse is significantly more common among autistic people. This means whenever I am talking about autism, I am also talking about gender.”

Sadly I was correct and received a lot of trolling from several different people. One of the people I felt the need to block, due to their repeated online attacks, was someone I had once counted as a friend. It seems that transphobia is present even within the autism community and that fear and hate around gender diversity – for some people at least – is stronger than the ties of friendship.

So why did I post something which was always going to be contentious and ‘political’ and for which I knew I would receive criticism? There are a number of reasons. The most compelling reason became evident when several gender diverse autistic people thanked me for having the courage to post something affirming about trans and gender diverse experience. The other reason was that I simply don’t understand why gender diversity needs to be an issue. It upsets and irritates me that as a non-binary person to just be me and talk about my experience, I keep finding myself in the middle of arguments. I don’t think that this should be the case and I definitely don’t think it should be an issue within the autism or broader disability communities. I keep questioning why my gender is often seen as so very political when it is simply how I am.

The issue here is about how people see diversity. Some people seem to view diversity as only the diversity which relates to them. They can be, for example, a proud autistic person but then be transphobic, racist or homophobic…or whatever. This has never really been my approach. I like to think that if I expect people not to discriminate against me then I should be respectful to them as well. It makes sense as I see it but I sometimes feel quite lonely in this position.

Bigotry comes from a large variety of sources. We live in a society which can be very bigoted – fear-mongering about migrant groups, entrenched racism and sexism, attacks on anything which might be called ‘politically correct.’ As a member of quite a few diversity ‘groups’ I am often coming up against prejudice or bigotry of one kind or another. This is why bigotry within diverse communities baffles me so much. If a person doesn’t like being discriminated against because they belong to the ‘disability’ group for example, why then would they want to discriminate against someone else?

I think a lot of the issue relates to awareness and insight. A good deal of bigotry is the result of unconscious bias. This happens where people do not see their own privilege and do not realise that they are saying bigoted things or acting in bigoted ways. One way to address that is by building understanding of different experiences, which isn’t always easy but if it works it can be very effective.

One of the most important things is to raise the visibility of oppressed people’s reality and experiences. This can happen in a few ways. When I (or anyone else) posts about gender diversity within the context of the autistic community this is one way of doing that. I like the idea of perturbing people’s expectations and challenging them to see things differently and in a more inclusive way. I think another way of addressing this issue is by promoting a sense of pride in who we are and promoting an idea of our difference and diversity being a good thing. A lot of people don’t consciously identify with a diversity group so building their awareness and understanding of how their diversity fits within the world will hopefully get them thinking more broadly about the experiences of others.