Article in Balans, a magazine about autism

for parents and healthcare professionals

Read about the connection between autism and gender dysphoria in this article.

The American autist and stay-at-home mother Tar-Míriel explains the link between autism and gender dysphoria in 'Gender Rebels'. Online, a harmful hierarchy of victimhood has taken root that stifles girls' growth and freedom.

A rising sense of unease

The current Generation Z, which grew up with smartphones, reports a growing sense of unease. Girls invariably lead the way: loneliness, self-harm, eating disorders, anxiety, depression. How can this be, in an age when we have everything we could want, in a country where girls are free to study whatever they please?

Bullying and body shaming

I mentor a teenage girl myself. She was the first person I interviewed for my book, because I could see how she was suffering — from bullying, body shaming, boys in her class calling girls 'cancer whores', and the online pressure to be a flawless beauty. In therapy she is learning to talk about her fears, with the pitfall that she sometimes becomes too caught up in her feelings.

External demands take over

Then there are the countless hours spent on social media every day, where girls pore over photoshopped women and nine-year-olds are given make-up lessons. The lure of cosmetic surgery plays its part too. Think of twenty-somethings getting Botox or having their labia 'trimmed', because no one knows any longer what a vulva looks like that has not been photoshopped. Demands to look perfect rule the 'me era' and squeeze girls into a very narrow, 'feminine' role.

Being different has become harder

Girls who do not fit in — because they are tough, want to wear their hair short, are socially awkward, or are questioning their sexual orientation — have an even harder time of it. 'Being different' is more difficult than it was in my own youth, in the early eighties. They are now asked a question that did not even exist back then: 'Are you a boy?' That makes them doubt themselves all the more, just at the stage of puberty when the search for one's identity is central.

You are fine just as you are

I remember vividly how hard it was to find your own place in the world. In my book Gender Rebels I want to encourage our anxious girls with the old-fashioned feminist message: you are fine just as you are. Your body is beautiful; no one is born in the wrong body. You may behave and dress however you wish — pink on Monday and blue on Tuesday, whatever your gender or sex.

Teach boys respect

Tips I picked up from the experts who contributed to the book: spend less time staring at your phone, visit a friend, walk the dog, read a good book, get some exercise — it all helps you feel better. Sadly, our world is still full of misogyny, sexual violence and discrimination, and every girl has to learn how to cope with it. Parents can sign their daughters up for boxing lessons, teach them to call on bystanders for help when they are in danger, and remind them that they are beautiful. That, too, builds their confidence. The best tip of all: teach boys to treat girls with respect.

Gender identity

I felt it was important to gather as wide a range of voices as possible. So in Gender Rebels you will read the perspectives of black girls, girls with disabilities and lesbian girls. As a teenager I wanted to be a boy for a while, and later I called myself queer to escape the constraints of gender and feel freer. It has long been known that, for some girls, there is a connection between gender dysphoria (discomfort with one's own gender and body) and autism. As the daughter of an autistic mother, I had to give autism a place in this book. But how? I wanted someone younger to talk about her own autism and gender identities.

A world of their own

While I was searching, I stumbled upon a subject I knew nothing about — and, I suspect, most adults do not either. For twenty years, millions of young women and girls have been writing and reading online fiction about characters from particular novels, films or bands. It is called fanfiction, and it is overwhelmingly gay — Harry Potter, for instance, ending up in a relationship with his 'enemy' Draco. Google 'Drarry' and you get four million hits. For the first time in history, minors have built their own world without the support or supervision of adults. Wonderful in its way, but it has also led to excesses and exclusion.

Weird nerd women

I found an American woman who calls herself autistic and had been active in this fanfiction world for fifteen years. Over the course of months, I kept putting fresh questions to her, to which I received long, detailed answers. I am tremendously proud that I was able to help her write an exceptionally interesting chapter in this way. She offers an affectionate analysis of the online development of her fellow 'weird nerd women'. She explains candidly that those who take part are mostly highly sensitive, obsessively neurotic women. They are afraid of rejection, yet join in rejecting others as hard as they possibly can. This fuels a culture of insecurity and anxiety around 'purity'. We learn that today's practice of 'cancelling' someone whose opinion you dislike began online.

A hierarchy of victimhood

Many fanfiction participants identify as 'different' after a difficult childhood. From 2015 onwards, these girls' communities gained real momentum thanks to the mass adoption of social media. The result was a sharp rise in girls identifying as a man, a gay man or a trans man. New rituals such as sharing pronouns (she/he/it) began here, as part of self-presentation and role-play.

The American author explains how, after 'trans', autism became an online identity, followed by ADHD. By now, anyone can join the hierarchy of victimhood by means of self-diagnosis. Reporting a developmental disorder, just like being trans, means you are more special, more creative and more morally pure.

If this analysis intrigues you, I can promise you will enjoy her full text in Gender Rebels.

You can read more about the book Gender Rebels and about Sybilla Claus here. You can also already read a chapter from the book, and find references to further articles and useful books on girls' online behaviour, growing up in today's world, and gender issues.