Aspies For Freedom

I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's and wanted to know if there were any other gays (men or women) in the group?  I know how picky the gay community is anyway, so I wondered what an aspie's experience might be.  I do have a partner (who doesn't GET the whole Asperger's thing) so I'm not looking to date.  Just to chat with other gay Aspies about their experiences.

well, i knew i was gay long before i knew i was an aspie and i can give a lot more info about the gay community than the aspie community.

on the social end, yes they can be very picky.  by this i mean the singles or party scene is very body- and wit- conscious... pop culture... the right clothes all that sort of thing.  ultimately, it comes down to not so much one's personal style or scene, but one's confidence in coming across as 'yes i'm cool and confident'.  it's a variation on the NT herd mentality i've seen referenced on these boards again and again.

and for an aspie, whether they are aware of their difference or not, it is extremely difficult to navigate.

on the flipside, the glbtq rights community (as opposed to the social community) is much more open to differences, and even tends to embrace them.  i haven't been active in the community since i became aware of AS, but i was embraced there before.  i can't say whether they would embrace me as 'out' about having AS.  i have 2 guesses though:

1) they'd be cool with it, since they respect diversity.
2) they'd be uncomfortable because there's not much room for other labels.  as such, they frequently have friction with bisexuals and the transgendered because of a question of whether those labels should or should not fit into their 'spectrum'.

of course, it could be either, or a combination of both, depending on the circumstances/people involved.

Thanks auralexcitement!  I've been out in the gay scene for quite sometime but never came "out" as aspie before.  Glad to know there's at least one other gay aspie here at AFF.  I think the gay community can be VERY picky at times regarding looks, body, etc. but, as you said, they can be very accepting too.  By the way, LOVE the Bjork quote! She's one of my favorite artists!

Yep, count me in, but I have to admit I could not (still cannot) abide the scene at all.  For women in my area, it was hugely dire and a no-way method of meeting people, and so very contrived with many groups of people forcing themselves to act in weird stereotypes instead of just being themselves.  As it was not the done thing to point and laugh, I gave it up.  I filed the whole thing under "tried that; didn't like" and that was that.

I met my partner on the net.  We were writing long letters four years before she said she wanted us to live together.  For me, that was the best way to meet.  We were writing daily by email (eventually chatting on Messenger), and in four years, that is a lot of time to find out about each other without any awkwardness of being together in person.  If I was left to meeting people in person, I would happily be living alone and far away from anyone else!

Strangefairy and Moonwind... I agree with both of you.  The internet was a godsend to me and dating.  I could never meet anyone in a bar because I didn't know what to say and just stood there waiting for someone to approach me (they never did).

I'm much better on the internet because I can think out exactly what I want to say before I write anything.  In person, I tend to speak before I think and that always gets me in trouble.

I met my partner on the internet too and we've been together a year and a half so far.  *fingers crossed*

I definitely think there is someone out there for everyone.  Obviously, we as aspies sometimes present a "challenge" to our partners but as long as they are understanding, all will work out.  Keep searching...

I am a lesbian, and an aspie.   My biggest challenge of course, its getting people to understand.  

Something I've discovered is that once lesbians 'see' a 'psychiatric' disorder in you, they lose all respect for you, and constantly try to prove the point that 'you need help'.    So, when I decided to 'come out' to the group as an aspie, it isn't accepted, because in their world view, I am <insert psychiatric disorder here>.  I've been called everything from bipolor, to schitsophrenic, to codependant, to having gender identity (???) issues..  Its rather disenhartening.

...And rather rude.  

This is what irks me about Asperger's.  If we state that we have hayfever, or are epileptic, then no-one questions it.  State that you have Asperger's, then suddenly everyone is (a) qualified to question you critically, (b) name some other condition you have instead, or © simply disbelieve you.

How dare they?!  :mad:

Like I said, I never was very good at being on the scene.  :wink:

Indeed... How dare they.

I've pretty much given up on the scene.. Its too stressful, overtaxing, and accomplishes nothing..

I've always half joked that once a woman determines she's a lesbian, she is autmatically given a degree in psychology.

I'm bisexual. I realized this a few months ago when I was out contra dancing (that's a real haven for aspies, btw) and there weren't enough ladies, so I ended up having to dance with a guy. And I kinda liked it.
I'm not sure if I really count, since, like George Alan O'Dowd, "I prefer a nice cup of tea...."
But I'll dance with anyone!

Quoted for agreement.

Rephrasing this to: Some may wonder why, but unfortunately this hasn't led to an alternative kind of mentality that is widely accepted.

Now let's get back to the main subject. Gay Aspies, this thread misses you. We want more stories!

That sounds a lot like me, but I'm a girl...
I've never, ever been into makeup, gossip, TV dramas, chick flicks, romance novels, fashion, flirting, pink, princesses, or anything else that people really associate with girls. I like some shojo manga, I like to sew, I melt over baby animals, that's about it.

On the other hand, I've never liked sports or cars or gross-out sex comedies or much of the stereotypical guy stuff, either. I think I tend to interact in what people think of as a "male" way, though, which gives some credence to the "extreme male brain" idea of autism...maybe.

And I don't play video games much, but I loooove horror in books and movies. I have a very high tolerance for gore.

Tourette Syndrome causes uncontrollable tics, not excessive guttermouth. In a very, very small percentage of cases profanity-shouting is a major tic, but then it is usually nonsensically inserted into otherwise normal conversation, not applied to the actual subject at hand. :s Also, I don't think Tourette's would affect one's writing, only one's speech and body movements.

I recently (about eight months ago) came out to my friends and family in my junior year of high school. When I told my sister Mary (who's been moved out for a few years), she said, "I knew it!" I've known I was attracted to other girls since I was little in elementary school, and I got so many crushes.

My other older sister Crystal, who had treated me horribly and abusively for my being autistic and rejecting of her superficial and prejudiced views of other people, well, when I was about eight I confided to her that I was attracted to girls, but not to tell anybody, as I was beaten so often as school as it was, and then she went shouting throughout the house that I was a lesbian, and I caught her telling her friends on the phone (she's uber-social NT, so in fourth grade she had about sixty people she talked to regularly). The kids in my grade level found out, and teased me about these thigns, and also rumors Crystal spread about me supposedly practicing the occult and of doing embarrassing sexual things in front of her.

So I promptly denied it, said that I was seeing if she'd react bigotedly (I know, probably not a word) if she found out I was gay, showing further proof that she was narrow-minded - we often had arguments when she made fun of Asians, gays, "***" people, etc. We were complete opposites in most aspects of who we were (she was the promiscuous NT heterosexual girl, I was the unpromiscuous autistic lesbian girl, just to state a very few of our differences).

Despite the fact that my dad had from an early age encouraged us all to be ourselves and that we'd be loved just the same if we were gay or straight or whatever, and that when I was diagnosed AS at age 10, my dad explained it as a difference in neurological wiring, I grew by this point so conditioned by the violence at school and the fear of Crystal that I was, despite believing that I should be myself no matter how unpopular, had learned by means of survival that sometimes I had to go underground. Knowing what a terrible liar I was and still am, hiding at school inevitably meant hiding at home, even though I knew I was so lucky to have this support of my parents in the event I should come out of hiding.

I remember highlighting the picture of a boy in my fourth grade class and showing my family, especially my sisters, and proclaiming that this was my crush. Telling my third grade classmates in what I pretended was a hushed tone that I had a crush on a boy in our class, when in fact I hoped the spread of this rumor would deflect others. I remember in seventh grade, when my thoughts wandered from trying to keep thoughts focused on keeping watch for the boys who would assault me daily to an attractive girl in the class, how I began to feel that these attacks were my fault, for the counselor I had to report every incident of violence to, she told me that as long as I stood out, looked and acted "weird," that I had to expect this kind of thing and that there was nothing she could do. I told her I never asked to be popular, just to be safe at school like the law entitled me. She told me I had to change who I was - that my being autistic, that my being lesbian (which at this time I still denied that it was true, and I was starting to deny that I was autistic despite how obviously I am).

I told her how even if I could and wanted to change who I was (she had also mentioned the fact that I dress in plain blue jeans and large Invader Zim T-shirts rather than the latest fashions --which are expensive here, and that year we were the family that the Christmas-time money drive for the poor sponsored-), that it is her legal duty to ensure my right to a safe education. Nevertheless, she managed to belittle me even more so than the kids, to make me feel worthless, powerless, and deserving of these things (even though I'd never gone to church and my parents had been accepting of homosexuality, I still felt guilty. I wasn't even comfortable with the term gay until recently, because right along with '***' and 'lesbo', these were the worst things you could call a girl, and I was often called, was so shocked when I learned that the original meaning of gay was happy, and even more surprised when I learned that it was gays themselves who used this term to describe themselves.

I came to believe that this was my inescapable fate until the day of high school graduation, and I thought of suicide and running away often. I strongly suspect that some of the kids there laced my drink with LSD once, because that day after lunch I experienced reality much like psychosis and got sent home. I almost got committed -- even before that day, my life was breaking down all around me, but it wasn't even my true despair that almost got me sent to therapists, whom at the school level had only taught me to hate myself, to change myself to avoid abuse rather than to deal with the real perpetrators of violence. In fact, it was a slightly depressing poem that makes no mention of suicide or wanting to die or hating oneself that got me sent to the well-meaning school psychologist who tried to convince me that the pain I was experiencing was all my fault. The worst and only punishment handed down at this time to them for their assaults, lewd remarks, and attempted rape was a conference with parents, which I doubt even mentioned ten percent of the things they did to me. I became convinced that police was not an option, that the school's deceiving me to protect its own image was something I just couldn't change. She told me if I told my parents that would just cause them to hurt too, that I couldn't put them through that unnecessarily.

I kept trying to fight back, but I simply didn't know what to do. At this point, all the harrassment, from the kids and the school, had me keeping as much bad emotion inside as possible, encouraged my pessimism to grow, and daily I fantasized about killing myself or of the world ending, or running away. I tried to fight physically, but one awkward 13-yearold girl with no self-defense training (I'd always wanted to learn taekwondo, or karate, or something, but we'd never had any money), against five or six 13 and 14-year-old boys was hardly an easy situation to get out of, especially when they had a crowd of at least a couple dozen others who would chase after me and throw rocks and stuff at me when I got away from the main guys. Most often, they would bring me back. I wasn't afraid of fighting dirty when the situation got desperate, such as when they tried to rape me in the school bathroom. But when I injured one or more of them, the others would punch me, and so would the one I'd injured. An adult walked by even, didn't notice what was going on, walked right by even though you could more or less see the area and I was screaming even though they had their hands tight over my jaw. I managed to get away when they slammed my head against the sink, and I almost wen tunconscious, but I'd gotten out of their grasps, and my back was hurting and I screamed, this time I didn't have anyone muffling my voice, and they ran off, scared.

When I'd finally dragged myself to class, I got lectured on the importance of attending class. I kept telling, broken words through, crying and saying I had to explain, she didn't know...Sternly, she asked what as she stared into her computer screen, cold, detached, and this was supposed to be NT, supposed to be ideal, who was ignoring my emotions, and when I told her, what had ahppened, she told me not to make us expcuses and egt back to class. I screamed and threw the detention slip at her and ran, at first to the bathroom, but I knew it wasn't safe after what had ahppened and besides couldn't stand the thought, so I couldn't go cry in there. Instead I marched back into her office and started yelling that I couldn't take this anymore, and began reading all the school rules that had been violated yet not punished, and I was sent to the psychologist. They tried to persuade me that I was overreacting, it was because of Asperger's, that I was making it seem like a worse deal than it was.

That was what i couldn't take anymore.

Then I got into an arts high school for my writing. Crystal was still living with us the first year there, but I joined five clubs my first year, made friends the first day (we're still close friends now three years later), and after some rough times in the last two years having to do with the administration (though not nearly as rough as back in elementary and middle school), I now feel so much better. I'm part of the Gay-Straight Alliance, which has maybe twenty members, and I'm also starting with one of my friends a Neurodiversity Club, in addition to the Invader Zim Club and Math and Science Magazine Club, both of which I began and currently lead. By August 9, I will have completed 15 credits of college coursework (4 for Statistics, 3 for Life Drawing, 3 for Electronic Paint, 5 for Japanese 101). In fact, it turns out that very many of my friends are gay or bi, and everyone of my friends has been very accepting of my being autistic, and I have a future to look forward to now, knowing that it's not shattered like I once thought it was, as the conflicted genius/*** of the school.

Sorry if it's a long post.

I have not been in a relationship, but the advice I can offer is that being direct is often the best way to go. My NT mother and I often have miscommunication issues, mostly ending in me saying, "Why didn't you just say so?"

Frequently, the body language an autistic person displays doesn't match up to what the person is feeling or thinking. I can't even remember how many times in my life I have been asked, "Is something wrong? You seem sad," when in fact I was just planning all the fun things I'm going to do on my vacation that's coming up in a week. Also very often NTs misinterpret my sometimes abrupt or terse way of speaking as rudeness or of me being upset with them, when in fact it is for economy of words. A lot of times speaking is difficult, or even hurts, even though I was diagnosed AS, which means I didn't have a speech delay (I was reading by the age of 2 and have scored as having a college reading level since I was twelve).

Also I am often averse to touch. While it differs for every person (some autistics love touch, others absolutely hate it), for me I am somewhere in between. For instance, while someone bumping into me, accidentally brushing against me, or touching me when I wasn't expecting it, usually causes me to jump and scoot away, or even shout. However, if I am aware ahead of time that someone is going to touch me (e.g. holding arms out prior to hugging and waiting until I've opened my arms too in order to indicate that I see them), and the touch is deliberate (I can't stand very gentle touch). Of course, every person is different, and, like I said before, directly asking and answering questions, even if it doesn't seem natural in the NT social/relationship environment, will likely get better results than trying to infer the other person's feelings through body language and other subtle clues. We just don't operate under the same rules.

Sorry if I can't help; like I said, my experience is limited, but hopefully I've helped in some way.