Autigender
A gender whose experience is inseparable from being autistic.
Autigender describes a gender that cannot be separated from being autistic. It is not a claim that autism causes a gender, but that the person's experience of gender is bound up with how they process the world.
It is used only by autistic people. The word is a compound of autistic and gender, and using it otherwise would be an odd thing to do.
The overlap it points to is well documented: autistic people are considerably more likely to be trans or nonbinary than the general population, and various explanations have been offered without any of them settling it.
Autigender is not a claim that autism causes gender
It is read as conceding that trans identity is a symptom, which is the argument the word is most often used against rather than for.
The claim is about inseparability of experience, not causation. Someone autigender is describing how their gender is lived, not where it came from.
Saying it well
Say this
- I am autigender.
- My gender and my autism are not separable.
- Autigender, which is only for autistic people.
- Not caused by it. Bound up with it.
Not this
- So autism made you trans
- That invalidates trans people
- You cannot separate the two, so neither is real
- That is a stereotype
Questions people actually ask
What does autigender mean?
Having a gender whose experience is inseparable from being autistic.
Who can use the word?
Only autistic people. It is a compound of autistic and gender.
Does it mean autism causes gender?
No. It describes inseparability of experience, not causation.