While researching intersectionality for this podcast, as well as for my own studies, I came across a 2022 article from academics Monique Both and Kristen Gillespie-Lynch, called ‘Come As You Are: examining autistic identity development and the Neurodiversity Movement through an Intersectional lens’.

This is a brief overview of a complex identity issue within autism research. All gender identities are valid. This episode talks about how gender is discussed within autism academic research.

In academic research, gender and sexuality can often be conflated. I have outlined the difference between gender and sexuality, and explored the romantic and sexual academic literature on autistic people.

I will talk about recent research on autism and friendships, family dynamics, and anthropomorphism.

Autistic children become autistic adults, yet academic research has yet to uncover many intersectional autistic adult experiences adequately. One aspect of these experiences is sexual debut, pregnancy, and parenthood.

Fong and others (2021) found in their research that individuals without severe disabilities are eight times more likely to be employed than individuals with very severe disabilities.

Very few studies have been done to determine how ageing affects different neurotypes, but we do know that camouflaging or masking is a frequent aspect of being autistic, and that women appear to do so more than men for social and cultural reasons.

As perimenopausal characteristics can sometimes be intense and uncomfortable, autistic perimenopausal women can be at even greater risk of autism-associated reduced lifespan, elevated suicidality, high stress levels, and incidence of chronic illness.

Masking, or camouflaging, is a characteristic of autism, and is highly prevalent in autistic women and girls. It means to purposefully, or subconsciously, display behaviour that is thought to be neurotypical in order to conceal the autistic person’s authentic behaviour.

The Neurogender Podcast is going to explore recently published research on a number of different neurodivergent labels. The research I am most interested in are those involving neurodivergent women in midlife and later life.