Identity within autism

I was doing some searching on autistic language and I happened upon this:

https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/52787

The Clinical Gestalts of Autism: Over 40 years of Clinical Experience with Autism

This point in particular caught my attention:

'Identity diffusion is central to autism, and this will include their sexual and other identities. This is probably due to the neural connectivity problems in the brain [9]. Contradictory identities can exist side by side in their mind. They can switch to another and opposite identity very rapidly. This can be confused with so-called multiple personalities. This identity diffusion can cause stress in making decisions and in employment, and despite intelligence and good education, they may withdraw and cease to seek employment. They can confuse people with these contradictory identities. They do not have a clear sense of themselves and people find it difficult to understand them. This makes it very difficult for them to have a clear sense of other people. This increases interpersonal stress. They are often mistaken for the opposite sex and come across as being androgynous. Males can appear to have a soft female facies and females with a somewhat harder male facies. They may dress more like the opposite sex, which always causes confusion and shows signs of gender dysphoria. A small number will have transgender problems. Sometimes they feel unreal and de-personalised as living in a film and having an “as if” personality. Older adolescents with autism or Asperger’s syndrome often appear to be “asexual”. This can be very deceptive as the very same people can get involved in perverse, dangerous sexual activities'.

Parents
  • I don't know what it's like to be the opposite sex, but I don't really put much importance into my identity, because I rather put my effort into learning how to do things, rather than how I look like. I don't really follow the mainstream trends of looking good, because clothing textures can be uncomfortable, fashion can be confusing, and applying anything to skin can be irritating, and all of it can be expensive and impractical. So I don't bother with it. 

    Weird that the writer can observe someone to be "asexual." Is it because autistic people seem to lack social skills or something? I didn't know someone's sexual orientation or lack-there-of, can be openly seen like that. Is it strange that people on the spectrum can have relationships and even children one day? Or does this writer have to know every little detail about an autistic person's grown up and consentual bedroom activities? I mean, I cannot imagine asking anyone about "that" for a paper I'm writing, and then judging them about how perverse and dangerous their bedroom activities are. 

Reply
  • I don't know what it's like to be the opposite sex, but I don't really put much importance into my identity, because I rather put my effort into learning how to do things, rather than how I look like. I don't really follow the mainstream trends of looking good, because clothing textures can be uncomfortable, fashion can be confusing, and applying anything to skin can be irritating, and all of it can be expensive and impractical. So I don't bother with it. 

    Weird that the writer can observe someone to be "asexual." Is it because autistic people seem to lack social skills or something? I didn't know someone's sexual orientation or lack-there-of, can be openly seen like that. Is it strange that people on the spectrum can have relationships and even children one day? Or does this writer have to know every little detail about an autistic person's grown up and consentual bedroom activities? I mean, I cannot imagine asking anyone about "that" for a paper I'm writing, and then judging them about how perverse and dangerous their bedroom activities are. 

Children