I give advocacy support to a gay man with asperger syndrome, who won't go to the gay village because some pratt in his past wrote a risk asssessment saying it was too dangerous a place, and he would need two female support workers with him at all times in case 2 of them were attacked in some way. He took this very literally, and would not even go to the village with his partner of 5 years. Do people think that the gay community is more predatory to people with aspergers, or did the risk assessor just reflect their own emotions about gay communities? I did support him by accompanying him through the village just by myself, he was fine, but more "aspieish" than usual, making sweeping gestures with his arms etc, so he did seem more "different" than where he feels safe and secure. However, this could have been due to the fact it was dark, very very busy due to Christmas shopping, and full of christmas lights etc. Didn't upset him at all though, in that he would go again. My feelings are that if someone hadn't writtten a different risk assessment for the gay village than for the rest of his life (he travels far and wide independently, attends college etc, gets taxi's back in the dark, otherwise public transport) he wouldn't act as he does when nervous and insecure, and therefore would be more secure! The trip was to go to "good as you2" a meeting place for gay adults with learning disabilities.
any help?
How do you see the two movements as different, and why are you advocating avoidence of the gay rights movement? Do you know anything about either one?
To answer the 2nd question I am not advocating avoidance of the gay rights movement, but I do see an avoidance of the black civil rights movement which really puzzles me.Where I come blacks and gays(including gay blacks funny enough) are treated very differently, and the way people have treated me often seems to have more parallels with a group of people who are visilbly different than the norm than a group whos difference is concealable. BTW Rosco, maybe you arent obviously abnormal but I sure as Hell AM because of my "odd gait" as well as some mild but nonetheless noticeable stereotypies(which are not uncommon in people with Autistic Spectral Disoders). BTW energia, you are quite right that many people still think of homosexuality as voluntary. BTW for you aussies(like EvilZakkie, etc.)
its my understanding that australian blacks are treated even worse than american blacks and australia has further in terms of (aboriginal)minority rights. I mean, from what Ive read they're still viewed as be "subhumans"! So that is an issue for Aspies-being viewed as inferior as well as being different. Many urban white liberals see aspies this way and even blacks too whereas they view gays as being different but in an irrelevant and non-threatning way.
It is my understanding simply from meeting huge numbers of different people (I was a taxi driver for ten years and I have often worked in other jobs where I had a lot of co-workers and/or a lot of contact with the public) that most heterosexuals do feel threatened by gays. 'Tolerance' is reluctant, and 'acceptance' very rare indeed.
I don't presume to understand why, but most of the people I have met have really do not like anyone to be too 'different' and fear difference; a fear that can easily be transformed into hatred. 'Gay bashing' is still prevalent in so-called 'liberal' western societies; and being gay is still punishable by death in many others.
After an incident in Boston last month.....
Pressed, police probe alleged gay-bashing
By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent | December 9, 2007
Somerville police last week were investigating an alleged hate crime and possible police error after outcry from a gay-rights group.
Don Gorton, chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said Lisa Daloia of northeastern Massachusetts and two other women were beaten up in the early hours of Nov. 18 while leaving a friend's house.
A man allegedly started taunting Daloia and her group of six friends earlier in the evening at the On the Hill Tavern in Magoun Square. Gorton said the same man then confronted several of the women at a Dunkin' Donuts, saying, "You're a [expletive] lesbian" and the like while his sister flashed her breasts.
Daloia was knocked unconscious, Gorton said; her friends, he added, received "bruises all over their faces and parts of their bodies." Daloia has been experiencing post-traumatic stress since the incident, he continued. She now fears for her safety and no longer wants to talk to the press.
Police Department spokesman Paul Upton said that as far as police at the scene knew, none of the victims required medical treatment. The only person transported to the hospital in the presence of officers, he said, was "the sister of the man being accused," for an unrelated ailment.Upton would not identify the alleged assailant, but said he lives "substantially away from the city" and was identified by relatives at the scene.
Gorton wrote a letter to the Somerville police chief on Nov. 24 urging an investigation and expressing concern that the alleged perpetrator had not been arrested.
Five days later, the city confirmed, Mayor Joseph Curtatone and state Representative Carl Sciortino met with Daloia and Gorton. "The mayor expressed forcefully that hate crimes were not acceptable in Somerville," Gorton said. Curtatone declined to comment on matters being probed.
In a statement, Sciortino condemned gay-bashing and said he expects "both the incident and how it was handled by the police to be thoroughly investigated."
According to Upton, "as soon as the chief of police became aware of this allegation, he ordered simultaneous investigations" to determine whether the incident was a hate crime and whether the police acted appropriately. He added that the man was not arrested because he left before police arrived.
According to co-chairman César Urrunaga, the Somerville Human Rights Commission has "received few complaints" from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community this year. The "vast majority" of Somerville residents, he said, tolerate or support that community
It is my understanding simply from meeting huge numbers of different people (I was a taxi driver for ten years and I have often worked in other jobs where I had a lot of co-workers and/or a lot of contact with the public) that most heterosexuals do feel threatened by gays. 'Tolerance' is reluctant, and 'acceptance' very rare indeed.
What I notice is that many heterosexuals feel threatened by homosexuals of the same sex whereas they are actually turned on by homosexuality amongst the opposite sex. For example, many(quite possibly most) straight women really like gay men-but they feel uncomfortable around lesbians.I can tell you how many times Ive heard macho straight guys talk disparagingly about "fags" at the same time saying that 'dude, lesbians are hawt!'
From my experience, I agree with this observation. This trend is also damaging though, much like the stereotype of Asians being good at math. It seems benign to many people, but I can't help but think of the parallel of the stereotype of autistics liking and being good at math and science. Sure, there are those of us who fit one or both of these, but it can damage self-esteem (I'm not a savant, I must really be a tragedy if I have all these difficulties but without the gifts).
I bring this up because, being myself lesbian, it sets you up for the feeling of not being valued unless you're really attractive, which is already strong enough for the general population, and especially teenage girls. The boys at my junior high I went to, I know, that if there was a girl who was lesbian or rumored to be, if she's not attractive, they act about as bad as if she's a guy who's gay. I still got worse treatment for being autistic than for being gay ('retard' was the word used against me, far more than gay, lesbo, etc.)
There are specific things that can be gleaned from a number of civil rights movements and applied to the theory and practice of the autistic rights movement, but I think that on the whole, it is more comparable to the gay rights movement than to the black civil rights movement.
While I have not heard anyone specifically say, "Autism is a choice", I have heard and seen from behaviorists who treat autistic traits as things that can and should be trained away, which is exactly like what has been and is being attempted with the so-called "ex-gay" movement.
The refrigerator mother theory, while no longer in vogue, blamed autistic traits on traits learned from the mother - much like a strictly environmental theory of homosexuality would name the reason for a person's orientation being the behaviors and gender roles (not) assumed by parents.
Overall, I would have to say that autistic rights movement can best be compared with the disability rights movement in general, but as autistic rights falls into the category, it is much like comparing a grape to a bunch of grapes. (Not a very good analogy, but I wanted to use one.)
Hello there, this is my first post here after googling 'aspergers lgbt'... Right now I'm fighting with my GP to try and get a diagnosis but they think I 'just have depression'. I have an immediate relative with autism and it was only doing research on autism that I stumbled across AS - and as I'm sure that we all know, finding it yourself and reading about it is like looking into a mirror for the first time in your life. For me its been like a dam in my head has burst and all the times I just blocked out everything because of all the bullying, pressures and questions has came flooding out...and I'm not weird at all.
My university are really good with it and the disability dept are trying to get me referred through to different organisations to try and get me diagnosed because they've said they feel in their experience I do display signs of AS. So fingers crossed in the new year I'll have full confirmation for it. I know some people will ask why I'm not just happy with self-diagnosis but I've had that many problems in 24 years of being on this planet that I need to know to give me closure for other things.
The problem is that I feel very isolated. I'm a lesbian and I can't abide the gay scene and the cliqueness of the community in my area so I don't really bother with other gay people. I don't understand women (probably because I've always found things like computing and games more interesting and don't have the social skills to communicate with other women - all of my best friends are heterosexual men. Except for one other lesbian who displays AS traits too) which is horrible when you're gay. And being a triple minority - an AS gay woman - just makes me feel even more isolated. I don't care about being a part of wider society or even any society, I just want to be able to talk to other people who understand totally what it feels like to be me. I'm happy to be AS because its got me told that I'm postgrad material in first year - its made me a straight-A student in my field - its made me dedicated to education and academia - its made me perfect for my field as a sociologist because I've never been a part of wider society and have always seen it as that of an outsider, I have no sacred areas...I would never change it to be like everyone else. But I'd just like somewhere safe to escape to when I feel alone...
Help!!!
Welcome to AFF! I am also an autistic gay woman, and I remember when I was younger and not yet out, I remember thinking that I was the only one in this position, and feeling so lonely and that love would be hopeless.
Fortunately, it's not grim like that. Difficult, yes, but not grim or doomed. Does your university have a gay-straight alliance, or any glbt organization? This last summer I was taking a few classes at a local community college and attended several meetings of the Lambda Society, the gay organization there. I showed one of the girls there my gay autistic pride poster I made (I have it on my deviantart account - I'm http://hgmuffin-stuff.deviantart.com there).
Of course, you may have already tried this, but found them unhelpful. If the options in real life seem limited, there's a yahoo group called [ac-glbt], where the members are part of both the autistic and the glbt communities. And feel free to PM me anytime.
I also have trouble identifying with other women. When I was younger and sometimes asked if I was gay by one of my parents (who had already told us since very young that if any of us were gay, that they'd love us just the same; they don't have moral opposition to it), I would usually say, "I don't think I could stand being with a woman. They're into things like make-up and dresses and solving problems emotionally, and I'd have a better time relating to how a man thinks."
Have you tried the Internet for connecting with other people who understand the kind of isolation? I find the Internet a good medium, since I can take time with my words, don't have to be a social butterfly, can relax and be myself more (I also miss less what another person tries to communicate, since if I miss something, I can re-read it). Many auties find the Internet a good medium for socializing.
I agree, also, on the point that computing is much more interesting than much of what I hear women converse about. I only wish I knew more than some basic HTML (I used to know some C++, but I forgot it).
Jean-Pierre: While I understand some of the overlap, characteristics you describe (when I was younger, I felt like I didn't 'fit in' with other girls' makeup-wearing pretty-clothes-seeking behavior and wanted to be a boy). For me, however, I didn't truly identify with the male sex as some others do, as I discovered for myself, and I am quite happy to have been born a woman.
Really, the only way someone can tell for themselves is by looking at themselves and their own attraction. So, while a gender nonconformity may make people suspect something of others or themselves being 'different', ultimately gender expression is not a determining factor in orientation. Some people may express their gender differently from most, or may seem no different in this manner. The gay community is very diverse on this aspect.
So, while it is a good idea for anybody to examine themselves and understand, perhaps this is that I come from the viewpoint of it being rather strange to identify oneself as gay without having the requisite attraction to the same sex. Of course, there are those radical feminists who think every woman should be lesbian to avoid being with men, but this is by far the minority, and I have never understood this.
I know some people who are bi, and there's a lot of misconceptions, even within the gay community sometimes.
This thread has gone in so many different directions and conversations anyway...
Good for you. I wish I had been as confident as you at your age. You are just about the same age as my daughter ('jen' on AFF) and she seems way more secure in herself too.
It might be generational - each group of women becoming more confident than their mothers as we approach, ever closer, true equality.
I think that I would fall into the 'tomboy' category. Not preciously feminine; although I can 'dress up' I mostly live in men's clothes. But not gay. Heterosexual female with male brain? But I have loved being a mother, the whole pregnancy thing was rotten in some ways but I loved that closeness with each child before he/she/they were born.*
Male-ish brain, then? I always preferred engine oil to essential oils, and engineering to housework. Mostly worked in male-dominated jobs. At the last place I worked the women were outnumbered 10 to one except on the night shift. There were two of us who are English grannies, most of the rest are gay.
I don't think that it is possible to divide humanity into a couple of groups and then tell each of us "Thou shalt fit into that one, or else!"
*1981, boy; 1982, boy; 1984, girl; 1993, twin boys.
Sooo....
In the world according to Jean-Pierre, nobody can be happy making love to an equal; The world was much better when more than half of the people were miserable; and there was no erectile dysfuntion until 1996.
Dear Jean-Pierre,
I respectfully suggest that you cease until you are sober, as your rantings are inaccurate and offensive.
I doubt you have ever made love with anyone, as your description is about as far from the truth as it can be.
Stop reading/watching porn and try finding out how the real world works. Carry on the way you are doing, and the only celibate one will be you.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to find the study quoted in aspiedr's post hysterically mis-informed.
Given that the vast majority of adult Aspies are undiagnosed, it makes no sense to extrapolate
to the whole population the results gleaned from those individuals who have come to the attention of sexologists; presumably because they have dysfunctional relationships.
That is as bad as the old assumption that, since some women in the fifties were studied and found to be incapable of having a fulfilling sex life, our whole gender must be equally unable to enjoy it as much as men!
When will sexologists stick their heads out of the lab and see that there is a whole world of people out there getting on very nicely, thank you, who will never need their dubious services?
And since when has being homosexual something that results from being 'left without sexual guidance'? I thought that particular theory was discredited a very long time ago.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to find the study quoted in aspiedr's post hysterically mis-informed.
Given that the vast majority of adult Aspies are undiagnosed, it makes no sense to extrapolate
to the whole population the results gleaned from those individuals who have come to the attention of sexologists; presumably because they have dysfunctional relationships.
That is as bad as the old assumption that, since some women in the fifties were studied and found to be incapable of having a fulfilling sex life, our whole gender must be equally unable to enjoy it as much as men!
When will sexologists stick their heads out of the lab and see that there is a whole world of people out there getting on very nicely, thank you, who will never need their dubious services?
And since when has being homosexual something that results from being 'left without sexual guidance'? I thought that particular theory was discredited a very long time ago.
Were I not one of the clinicians involved in the study, I might find the results as amusing as you do. However, as most aspies here are suffering from poor relationships, might it not be plausible that you are fishing in the wrong pond?
And, no, the theory has never been discredited and statistics show that compared to aspies in heterosexual relationships, aspies in homosexual relationships fare almost 4 times better in terms of having lasting relationships.
Laugh all you will, but statistics point to different conclusions. Have any of you tried "switching teams" to test the theory? Do you have long lasting male platonic relationships?
What on earth leads you to the conclusion that "most aspies here are suffering from poor relationships"? Yes, there are one or two being quite vocal on the subject, but it is always the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, in this case the research dollars. Relationships that last for over a half century until the death of one partner (in my parents' generation) and over a quarter century so far in my generation, simply do not make it into studies.
Please allow us to test the validity of your assertions by giving us a link to the peer-review journal in which the study was published, and links to supporting studies.
How big was your sample? What was the age-range of the Aspies that took part? And why do you seem to assume that Asperger's Syndrome solely effects males?
logicalconclusion:
If you were interested in debating the politics of gay issues, or any such debate about how right or wrong you think it is, it would have been more appropriate to start a thread in General about that. This thread, if you read the first few posts you would see that it is supposed to be a safe space for discussing gay/aspie issues. If you made these comments on your own thread, then while there would still be much of the disagreement, I think fewer would perceive it as being an attack.
It is like the example of an atheist going onto a Christian forum, or a Christian going onto an atheist forum. If you are a Christian, would it make sense to go onto an atheist forum and say, "Atheism is immoral - it's okay to have your doubts about God sometimes, and I don't think people should force you to go to church, but you really should convert". How could such a person doing such a thing expect anything but this? Whereas, if someone wanted to enter a debate about the existence of God, they should go to a more neutral forum/thread and start that debate.
So while you might think it's ridiculous that someone is upset by you causing offense in this thread, remember that you chose to post in a GAY support/discussion thread. You could've posted in a more neutral place (like your own thread) - that would make more sense if you indeed seek to debate issues, rather than go to a place where the people there mostly have the same view of an issue.
Good! So now we can talk about how much we enjoy being dirty filthy sinners in peace! </sarcasm>