Hummmm? lol

The fact that you said that you wanted a baby to prove that you were a woman is what has many of us concerned. Things are obviously very difficult for you right now and I imagine that you are under a great deal of stress, it is none of my business but if I can offer an opinion I would say that having a baby under the conditions you describe would be an act of selfishness and I believe that your child would be adversely affected by being your sole source of validation, which, as your horizons seem to be set quite close to you is highly likely.  I apologise for being blunt but a child should not have so much expectation placed upon it-nor shoulder the responsibility for the level of your self-esteem.

Also, bringing up a bay alone is extremely hard work even for the most NT types who know how to navigate their way through the various hurdles of life by having circles of friends all with similar life experiences, we autistic people do not always pull that off and as the child can be very demanding many single parents spend a lot more time at home alone, so unless you are a very well-balanced and fairly confident woman this can be extremely depressing. 

I am not unsympathetic but I believe that you should talk to your Doctor-I do hope that it is a Female GP!-you need to find out what steps you can take to make your world into a more conducive place for a child to enter into and thrive. This will not happen overnight and will be hard-going but if that gets too much, being a single mum is infinitely more difficult.

So think very carefully before you go out looking for a sperm donor ( by the way, do you think HIV/AIDS is a thing of the past?) A baby will take over your life and you need to be on top of the job or it will wear you out and both of you will suffer-it would be worse for the child because none of it  was of their choosing but they will pay the price.

Sermon over.

Hello Sickle Moon ,  From what you have posted it does make sense that there is a lot to think about around becoming pregnant to be a mother !  There is nothing wrong at all in wanting to be a parent !    Have you talked to your GP about wanting to become a mother ?  Some of the things such as having unprotected sex with men ,  who as you said can be rough and hurt you , I honestly believe however difficult it is that you let your GP or Practice Nurse know this is happening ! 

well said!

Could be a lady boy but I must not discriminate against you because of the Equality Act 2010 

People think it's ok to be autistic because it IS ok to be autistic.

It's also ok to feel that you're judged by everybody and understandable to feel guilty about the behaviours autism prevents you from avoiding.

You're not defective though, you don't have a man's condition and your identity belongs to you and not others that mislabel you. Live your life your way.

Nice phrase Foxtrot Oscar Hahaha! I will have to make use of that.

Hold on a minute, everyone is unique and before you were diagnosed you were OK but now you are not.  You have unique talents that are strengths and just look at the diagnosis as one piece in the journey through life.  

Not every man/woman has empathy, some struggle to show/demonstrate love/care but that is how they are.  With our condition too we can take things literally, to heart, personally, guilty and put themselves down.  

I felt guilty for letting the Bullying Damagement make me a mental "basket case" but I now know I have the strength to stand tall and know I can change their world.

My philosophy has always been take me as I am or Foxtrot Oscar.

Take some baby steps, do what you enjoy and do best and build your confidence back up because with.without that piece of paper (Diagnosis) you are still the same person.

Maybe I'm a man then, I don't have kids, but last time I looked I wasn't. So if you think you are male because of your diagnosis then that means the rest of us females on here must be too?

So:

1) Having a child at this time for the reasons given is not a good idea, I hope that is established? You don't need to prove anything to anyone. If people won't accept you for who you are then don't be involved with them. I don't stick around my family much, it's better that way.

2) If you don't enjoy sex or are only having it to get pregnant, don't, it's a really bad idea and no one deserves what you are putting yourself through. And yes the risk of deseases is real, no one in a club is going to tell you they have something you may catch off them.

3) Are you getting any support? you need it and deserve it, that why we all pay into a system that anyone should be able to turn to. Maybe start with your GP?

This is quite possibly the saddest post I have ever read. You are femail and you can be as female as you want but to give your body to just anybody is so wrong how will you ever learn to love respect yourself when you continue to abuse yourself and let others abuse you.

Having a child is something I have never done and partly because I never met anybody I felt strongly enough about and partly because I didn't love myself either, its improving now but I get the feeling I am a lot older than you are.

If you cant love yourself or allow yourself to be loved how can you ever think you would be able to give a baby all the love and attention it needs.

Stop trying to fix yourself by abusing your body.

Reading this thread has really concerned me! I’m really sorry that no one wanted you to be a little girl when you were young, is sounds as though you’ve had to fight for your femininity for a long time. Being autistic doesn’t make you any less feminine or female though, you can still be as girly as you want to be. I’m also really sorry that you miscarried at 7 weeks, I’ve had 3 miscarriages and I know how rubbish it is when it happens. I am however really worried that you’re letting yourself get used by countless random guys just to try and have a baby. As well as allowing yourself to be completely disrespected you’re also running a very high risk of catching an STD, some of which are not curable and having such a disease would make it a lot more risky to ever have children. Children deserve to know where they have come from so they can have a proper sense of identity, it’s not fair for anyone to know they were the result of a meaningless one night stand, that could potentially cause all manor of emotional problems for them when they were older. Bringing up children is hard work too and it’s a lot harder on your own. I have 3 children, I had my eldest when I was very young and split from her father when she was a baby, he still saw her, he still sees her now but it was me that got ‘left holding the baby’ and it was really really hard work and I still sometimes feel that I failed my daughter because I was so young and inexperienced when I had her. With my younger two, it’s still hard work because children are hard work but it’s a lot easier having a husband to share the load with and I feel it’s a lot more emotionally stable for them too. I really feel that it would be wise for you to see  a counsellor or similar as it sounds like there are a lot of things bothering you and it would be beneficial to talk through these issues with a professional person.

Why do people think it's OK to be autistic?

Pragmatism. If you have a life long condition with no course of treatment and no cure you can either hate hate hate it and marinade yourself in anger and self-loathing or accept it and attempt to salvage your self-worth and keep on living. Abandon your ideas of gendered illnesses. Autism effects human brains, end of.

You are right, women can present very differently to men and until recently that was not recognised at at women were dismissed and misdiagnosed as the testing was designed around males. It is only now that it is starting to become known that women can be very different in presentation but there is still no male/ female test I know the university of Kent is developing one but at the moment it is still just a standard one that is open for interpretation by the professional performing it. 

This should take nothing away from your femininity my daughter is very girly and she is awaiting assessment, however my other daughter is the world's biggest tomboy and neurotypical so it is really down to what you believe about yourself, I'm not autistic but I'm certainly not what you would define as feminine! I am a woman but the unrealistic portrayal of femininity is beyond me I'm a bit more practical about things.

I'm sorry to hear you are struggling with this at the moment. I just wanted to say all my tests were "standard" ones. I was not assessed differently because I am female but I am definitely very feminine and I am definitely autistic.

I'm okay with that. I can't change being autistic so I'm at peace with it.

I am autistic and my life is often difficult but I'm also autistic and very gifted at many things probably because I am autistic. These things bring me great joy, apparently greater joy than my friends who are not autistic. I'm autistic and I don't socialise well but actually I have a small group of friends who like me for my very honest but also funny personality. 

I could go on and on but being autistic has positive and negative aspects, it can't be changed so I feel that being okay with it is necessary to allow myself not to be defined by the negative aspects of autism and to make the most of the positive aspects of being me. That is very feminine but definitely autistic me.

Sickle Moon I'm kind of wondering how old you are and how you have internalised such a restrictive notion of gender - is this something the community around you feels strongly? I've always thought that gender is just one of those things that NTs get ridiculously aerated about but which doesn't actually mean anything, I don't often encounter AS people who care so strongly about it as you do. The medical tests to diagnose AS are aimed at male children - given that the entire world is aimed largely at male people I'm not surprised - this takes agency and self-determination away from AS women but it's my feeling that acting out the kind of male-orientated notion of 'femininity' you seem to crave also takes away agency and self-determination from women so I've always ignored any exhortations to behave the way NTs think women should behave.

Cruising clubs having unprotected sex with strangers is appallingly risky, if you must do this at least use condoms. Having a child doesn't solve anyone's problems and trying to bring up a child alone whilst coping with AS is a gargantuan challenge (particularly as it sounds as though you've recently been diagnosed and haven't come to terms with it at all). I'm wondering if this is more about you feeling alone in the world than it is about 'proving' what is just a natural biological fact of very little importance in terms of who you are. It sounds as though you're also feeling a great deal of anger against men as a category - again, men come in many shapes and sizes ethically speaking and it's no good trying to deal with them generically. You may feel that you're 'turning the tables' on exploitation but actually you're stooping to their level. I think it's very important that you seek counselling if there are no trusted older women around you to confide in, you need to work this out in a safe place not in clubs with strangers. I'm sorry if what I'm saying is intrusive but I sense (from my own far distant past) that you may be trying to make up for a lack of affection in your upbringing maybe - and landing yourself with responsibility for another vulnerable human being in the middle of this acute state of distress would be more likely to break the camel's back than save you.

What is is about 'femininity' that you feel has been taken away? What is it about 'femininity' that you feel is giving you power? Have you been offered any kind of counselling around your diagnosis?

Hi Sickle Moon. You have an identity crisis, I can understand that. I first suspected I was "Aspie" when I saw a woman in a documentary about Autism and realised I was a lot like her. There are lots of us women in this forum, but as we are visual learners perhaps it would help for you to actually see images or videos of autistic women, to help you understand that being autistic and female is much more common than most people realise. There was a documentary on tv a while back featuring autistic women but I don't know if it's still available in the internet. Perhaps search on YouTube to find something similar.

I did find some photos and personal accounts of autistic women on the BBC website though - 

www.bbc.co.uk/.../women_late_diagnosis_autism

Have a look at them, it may help you come to terms with your own identity. Good luck.

I don't know if there are two different "tests", I don't think that they use different tests for male/female. Regardless of what you think aspergers affects both males nd females and it is a medical fact! You are the one that seems to have decided that it's a boys only thing, it's not, as I said and I miscounted I have 3 female friends that are diagnosed, 2 of them are as feminine as feminine gets.

I love kids, but I'd never want one of my own. wanting children is one thing, beaing able to care for them is another and as much as you love a child having one to prove you are a woman will not help either of you long term.

Make some space for yourself before you make space for anyone else, whoever they may be - one-night-standers, lovers, partners, babies.  Try to learn who you are first.  Don't try to sidetrack that.