As I have mentioned on previous posts, I am currently going through the diagnostic process to confirm my ASD diagnosis. This involves a lot of examining who I am, how I respond to certain things, my thinking patterns, my sensory sensitivities and developmental history among other things. One of the questionnaires I have filled out as part of the diagnostic process is the GQ-ASC which is the girls questionnaire for autism spectrum conditions and has two slightly different variations – one for Girls 5-12 years and one for Girls 13-19 years. I completed both, and my parents completed both, and all four were given back to my psychologist.
The GQ-ASC is a new tool and was only published in February 2018. It’s still in pilot stage, but my psychologist wanted to use it in conjunction with the other screening tools to provide further information for my overall assessment. There’s some info about it and a link to the questionnaires here. It was an interesting exercise for me to fill it out, and it really made me think about what I was like as a child and a teenager. I often think I have very little memory of my childhood but what I’ve recently discovered is that I have little snapshots of memory – sometimes just thoughts or feelings, or a flash of a situation. These are often out of context. I may remember how I felt or what I was worried about but not why, or what else was happening (outside of what was in my head) at the time.
There were questions on whether you preferred to play with girls or boy’s toys as a child, and whether you preferred to play with girls or boys. I didn’t like girls toys or clothes, although I did like soft toys (stuffed animals/plush toys) and I had quite a few of them. I much preferred playing with cars, though outside activities were more my thing as far as I can remember – sport, tag, playground equipment, skateboards/rollerblades, swimming, climbing trees and riding bikes. If I was indoors I was often reading a book. But both my best friends were boys and I wasn’t interested in most of the traditional girls things, like dancing and dolls.
I do distinctly remember thinking about wanting to be a boy though, and questioning whether I would fit in better if I was a boy and whether people would like me better. I preferred boys clothes and many of my clothes, especially from mid childhood to mid/late teens) were actually purchased from a menswear shop. I wore sweat pants, jeans or shorts, a t-shirt and a sweat shirt or hoodie. No makeup, no nail polish, no jewelry, except for a watch. I did get my ears pierced at age 11 but the only time I’ve ever changed my earrings is when one fell out and I was forced to buy new ones (the same as the ones I already had!).
I don’t like makeup, as I can often smell it and the smell drives me crazy and I can feel it sitting on my skin. Lipstick is awful as I feel like I am super tuned in to the feeling of it being on my lips. I have the same problem with nail polish, though in the last year I have discovered that I can stand one layer of polish on my fingers for a few days if I have to (I have a 10 year old daughter who loves to do nails).
From about the age of 8 I thought about being a boy. I remember wishing to be a boy but I wasn’t aware of trans people at that stage so I didn’t think it would ever happen. I read about Joan of Arc and people like her, wearing men’s clothes and doing things like leading men into battle, and I wanted to be like her. At other times though I was quite happy to be a girl. I never really developed boobs so that wasn’t an issue for me, and I was mostly allowed to wear the clothes I wanted to wear and play with who I wanted to and do what I wanted to, so it wasn’t a day to day issue. My main problem was having to wear a skirt as school uniform, though I was lucky enough to be able to wear pants in winter for a lot of my school career. I remember feeling fortunate that I had not been born 50 or more years earlier, when my preferences would have been more of an issue.
When I was 11 and in my first year of intermediate I developed my first crush on a girl. I don’t think I was really aware of lesbians at that stage (this being the early 90’s) and I was really confused because I was still sometimes thinking I wanted to be a boy. I felt sick to my stomach whenever I saw her because I was so confused about how I felt, but I still kept seeking her out. She didn’t know I existed though and I don’t think I ever introduced myself. The following year I had moved on to a boy, not that I ever let him know about that either!
Over the years I have had crushes on both girls and boys, but the girl ones tend to make me feel guilty and sick to my stomach. I don’t know why as I wasn’t exposed to prejudices against gay people as I grew up, and one of the boys I was best friends with as a child is gay. I don’t have a problem with it. I think the sick feeling is confusion and uncertainty about who I am rather than feeling like there is something wrong with me.
One of the only times I have ever been certain about my ‘womaness’ is when I became a mother. The experience of being pregnant taught me that I could feel comfortable in being a woman and still keep the parts of me that dress in shorts and t-shirts, that don’t wear makeup or shop or drink wine or want to wear high heels. It’s like being a mother proved to me that I could do the ultimate ‘womanly’ thing and create life, even though I have failed to conform to all the other sterotypes of what a woman is.
In the last few years I have done a lot of reading about gender and sexuality, and how these things seem to exist on a continuum, and especially sexuality seems to be influenced by hormones released by the mother when she is pregnant. I think I have finally got to a place where I am happy to be the ‘tom-boy’ girl, rather than wanting to be an actual boy/man. And I can accept that what I feel about my gender is separate from whatever my sexuality might be. And that I don’t have to label my sexuality or make a decision about it. Its enough to just accept that I don’t know at this stage and that may or may not change during my lifetime. My aim is just to be open to whatever happens rather than trying to analyse it. There’s an article about this here which explains better than I could why sexual fluidity is different to being bisexual and what it means. Some food for thought.
Ka Kite
ASD, BPD and Me 