TW: Dysphoria
Yesterday, my guy friend sent me a text that I’m still thinking about. I just wanted to vent about it here.
“I went to a recording of a podcast and one of the guests reminded me so much of you. Very similar speaking pattern and mannerisms. It was a comedy show with all autistic people so I guess that adds up.”
I should mention that there isn’t anything wrong at all with being autistic, but I’m personally not autistic and it gets old after a while constantly being assumed to have a neurodivergent identity I don’t. It’s also a delicate issue to just assume that about a trans woman due to how often the trans/autism correlation is weaponized. I can be a socially awkward person, especially around strangers, but I’ve had two therapists and three doctors and I’ve never been diagnosed with anything other than anxiety, depression, and gender dysphoria.
So far, not too bad, but it gets worse. I politely mentioned to him that I’m not autistic, but it’s wild to have seen someone so similar, and then asked about the podcast and who the comedian was. I then click into the video and realize he was talking about a male comedian. I did see, unfortunately, a lot of my pre-transition (or post-transition? I don’t want to know) self in this guy, not just in terms of mannerisms and speaking pattern, but also some of the physical traits I was most dysphoric about.
I don’t think my friend was genuinely trying to hurt me. It’s surreal and cool to see someone new you think looks like someone you know. But he just shouldn’t have said anything in this case. I can’t shake the question, Is this how my friend sees me? Is this how everyone sees me? We were friends pre-transition, so that’s a thing. I’ve just worked so hard on my appearance and my voice over the past five years, and I thought HRT was working great, but now I’m second-guessing all of it.
I’m not sure what to do. I definitely need some space. I don’t know if it’s worth it to have a conversation about this, since you can’t control how others perceive you. I’m even at the point where I’m considering if I want to remain friends with him.
TL;DR My friend texted me about a podcast featuring someone he thought looked and sounded like me, along with assumptions about trans women and autism. It turned out he was comparing me to a man. I’m feeling dysphoric, questioning all my progress, and unsure if I want to continue being friends with him.
first, yeah - genuinely shitty and horrible thing for them to do, but if they’re cis they may genuinely be clueless about how you feel or how trans people in general feel; it sorta doesn’t matter since you have to protect yourself from that kind of treatment either way - you could try to explain to him your feelings, but that may or may not go well.
Completely reasonable to not want to be friends with him (tbh I have always struggled to be friends with guys for various reasons, and transition was an opportunity for me to “move on” from the social expectation I maintain friendships with men - I don’t know how you feel about that, but finding female friends is probably a good idea).
yeah, most likely anyone who knew you before you transitioned will continue to see you as you were before you transitioned. This is my experience anyway. It’s rare cis people make the effort to actually update how they think about you.
This is just the way a single person who knew you before transition ended up seeing you. Don’t assume the way everyone else sees you will be the same. Instead, go out and see how you are treated. How do people gender you on the phone? How do people treat you out in public? You’ve been on HRT for some time, I assume - so maybe you also experienced being visibly trans in public, do you remember the glares and the way people treated you during that time? Do you still get that treatment?
Let those aggregate experiences help inform your sense of a consensus / social perception of you - don’t hang it all on this dude’s single, warped perception.
You can actually know for a fact that other people will not see what he sees, because other people did not know you before you transitioned and aren’t “undoing” your gender with their eyes. In general I find it goes the other way - if you look woman enough (or more like: if you don’t look overtly male enough), strangers and new acquaintances actually unconsciously ignore the masculine parts that you can still see, so they see you more as a woman than you do.
This is part of why I don’t like having connections with people who knew me pre-transition, it messes me up to interact with people who don’t see me as my gender when everyone else can see my gender.
On the autism front: I feel I should mention that doctors and therapists can be pretty terrible at recognizing autism, particularly when it’s not severe; also, as far as I know there are also now categories like “broad autism phenotype” to describe people who have many autistic traits but don’t have enough to fall within the diagnostic criteria for ASD.
Have you ever seen or been tested by someone trained to diagnose ASD, and have you taken intake questionnaires like ASQ to determine whether to get tested for ASD?
I don’t actually mean to imply you might have autism, for context I have strongly dismissed that I have autism in the past and only reconsidered it when I found several studies that showed shared genetic etiology between gender dysphoria and autism, and when I read books like Donna Henderson’s Is This Autism I struggle with how much fits.
I’ve also had therapists flat out tell me I’m not autistic (like you: only anxiety, depression, and gender dysphoria), but that was a therapist who had no training in identifying ASD. So I relate a bit to your experience.
In the end I hope I don’t have ASD, but I think it would explain a lot - and seeing someone with ASD having really similar body movements and speaking patterns as you reminds me of my own experiences interacting with people with autism and the way it intersects with my dysphoria. All this to say, it might be complicated and I just wanted to share info in case it’s helpful - if you don’t want to know that’s fine too.