« Ça reste encore mystérieux pour moi » : récits et expériences du genre chez les personnes autistes

Abstract

This article focuses on the experiences of gender in the narratives of autistic people and their entourage. The social category of gender would make less subjective sense for autistic people because of an alternative relationship to learned social norms. We analyzed interviews conducted with autistic people, their relatives, clinicians and blogs. In the accounts, autistic people describe themselves as impervious to social, and therefore gender, norms. Signs of gender atypia in childhood are often posited in their accounts as precursors to the diagnosis to come: the relationship to gender and society is described by them as an intersection of dissonant experiences. Female autism is described as a phenotype, a kind of autism in itself. Thus, these experiences testify to the impossibility of disentangling (or at least distinguishing completely) the interweaving of the experiences of autism and gender.

Keywords

• gender identity
• gender norms
• sexual and gender diversity
• autism
• neurodiversity