Gender, queerness and autism: Max’s story

I’m Max, I’m 20, and I am Autistic, non-binary, and queer.

From just looking at the first line, you can tell a lot comes into my identity. Getting to this point in my life, and in my self-understanding, has definitely been rocky.

I was diagnosed with autism when I was about 10. At that point, I was in my ‘kick-y punch-y bite-y’ stage, where school and life overwhelmed me and I resorted to violence towards myself and others as a defensive coping mechanism. But over time, and after being put into the right schools, I am in my final year of university. Life is going pretty well, given the millions of unprecedented events happening worldwide.

I have always found relationships challenging to understand. From the more traditional black and white definitions that people often first think about, to the more nuanced and fluid workings of most relationships. This has been the case for me all my life, making it difficult to understand relationships, including platonic relationships.

It’s hard for me to know what level of friend am I to you – am I just someone you sit next to in classes and friend by proxy? Or am I an actual friend?

I could only be where I am today because of my partner Dylan, another queer, non-binary person who has supported me through a lot. They were one of the first queer people I had a deep connection and relationship with, and were always one of the few people I could turn to with anything. We were close friends before being together and they made me feel safe and happy to discuss my mental health and sexuality.

Being friends with them helped me feel more secure and internally proud of who I am.

The change from friend to partner happened over a long space of time. At the time, I had the feeling of ‘I love them, but just in a friend way’, then it quickly changed to being a more romantic kind. Upon reflection, the shifts of feelings were obvious. Still, with this being my first proper relationship and with it transiting in a non ‘traditional’ way of ‘we’re this today and we’re that tomorrow’ way, it was difficult. They had to explain that they wanted to be my partner three ways before I understood what they meant. It was kind of difficult; the autism was showing that night for sure!

Like many queer folks, soon after I thought I figured it all out, I started to question my gender and again I turned to Dylan for advice and support. With their support, I understood myself to be nonbinary. I began the journey of self-understanding beyond just a label. This is a journey that I am still on. This journey has changed how I view and understand myself and others, and influenced my relationships as new respect dynamics were added to the other elements of relationships.

When Dylan and I started to be more intimate with each other, the thought of having sex was scary and intimidating. I felt like I was not ready, and was overwhelmed at the thought of having to do it. Dylan was incredibly understanding and comforting and was always open and constantly communicating with me, making me feel not pressured to do anything that I was not comfortable with. Because of this I slowly grew happier with being sexual with them.

One thing that both of us enjoy is that we can (and frequently do) laugh during sex, from the bodily noises and our joints clicking at the most random times to the highly random thoughts that pop into our head during sex, it makes for an amazingly laid back, comfortable and emotionally charged experience.

The autistic element of my identity is very important to me.

Being able to speak about my experiences of sex and relationships, while uniquely my own, might (and hopefully will), be comforting for someone to see and feel understood among the rampant infantilisation and stereotypes of autistic people.