Coming out on the Web, 10 years on...

2005 marks an important anniversary for me. Back in 1994, I first logged onto the Internet from my own account. At the time, the Internet to me was a nice geeky solution to a problem that I hadn't yet found. Then one day it struck me to use Veronica to search Gopher for references on "autism" (yes, the web was in its infancy then). As expected, I found a LOT of useful information and started to make contact with people, but not one other gay autistic could be found...

So in 1995, I decided to tell my story to the world, mostly for the benefit of self therapy (writing about life's problems is a good relief valve), as well as in the faint hope that I would find people that understood. As it turns out, I got a LOT of positive feedback from parents, as well as autistic people, and even the occasional "please help me" question (sorry, I don't have professional qualifications, no one recognises even a Masters from the School of Hard Knocks" ;) ) .

10 years on, much has changed. I know dozens like myself, including several personally in my own city! There's a few gay autistic groups on the Internet, where we can interact at our own pace and discuss life issues. There's even adult autistic groups here (not gay specific, but I'm definitely not the "only one" there :) ). However, much ground needs to be covered. There's still a strong dominance of non autistic elements (parents/carers/professionals) in the autism community that sets most of the agendas, and there's a strong conservative bias from both the autistic and non autistic elements, which is cutting off a significant number of people from benefitting from shared knowledge.

Let's see what the next 10 years brings...

footnote: My earlier writings can be found at http://members.optusnet.com.au/tlang1/

Sometimes it's hard to find good help...

Sometimes I wonder how many problems society creates for itself by segregating out each non-mainstream element of the wider community into it's own little niche. We have the "Queer" community, which is in turn made up of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersexed communities. Then we have communities for various conditions... blind, deaf, autistic, and so on.

And there's the support for alcoholics, drug addicts, survivors of sexual abuse, and the list goes on. The problem becomes when you add REAL people into the equation. Real people do not fit neatly into boxes, and frequently belong to many of the abovementioned communities. This can mean that sometimes finding support, and even friendship can be difficult.

Using myself as an example... The gay community's most public face is a highly social, party oriented culture. While the gay community is increasingly recognising its diversity, that's still the most dominant facet. I'm not one for big parties. I prefer small intimite gatherings of friends and sharing deep conversation or common interests. The gay community also has some excellent support services (but a caveat below). The autism community is in a mess. This is actually at least two separate communities. The first (to develop) was the community made up of parents, carers, spouses and professionals. This community has driven almost all autism polict to date. The other, as I call it, the _autistic_ community is in its infancy, and has only become possible since the advent of the Internet. However, the autistic community is rapidly developing, both online and now in face to face meetings. Like the gay community, the autistic community is extremely diverse, with a wide array of people. The dominant face tends to be the so called "higher functioning" people, simply because these people are the ones with the resources to connect to the Internet and get out with minimal intervention by parents or carers.

Then we have the support groups. While my experience with support groups has been mostly positive, with GROW being one of the things that helped me to appreciate myself, there are still issues. The unique aspects of an autistic mind - highly retentive long term memory, strong associations, and a lifetime of living "blindly" in a subtle, social world take their toll. This damage accumulates over time, and can be particularly hard to address for a number of reasons (conventional counselling has very limted benefits for me because of the way I deal with contexts). Some of the mainstram support groups can also be a bit gay unfriendly, though the gay community (at least here in Melbourne) has its own comprehensive array of support services. The autism community, OTOH, would rather that I did not exist. Very few outside of specific circles such as gay autistic Internet groups or groups that know me personally want to even acknowledge the issue. Try getting an openly gay speaker into an autism conference to talk about their experiences, for example. In fact, even sexuality of any form among autistics is something that seems to have only recently been acknowledged.

This blinkered thinking is damaging people. I ran into an old personal problem which seriously affects some aspects of my relationships. After decades, I have just come to the realisation that this likely stems back to an incident during childhood. Given that this is adversely affecting my current relationship, I would like to deal with the issue and put it behind me, but who do I go to? Most professionals aren't equipped to handle the quirks of an autistic mind. The autism community would rather not know I existed, and aren't equipped to handle a gay man. The only possibility is a very busy professional who is not covered by the public health system, so that means a very expensive punt with no certain outcome, and one that I can't afford at this time, despite being well off compared to most. :-(

In the meantime, this lack of acceptance is damaging more gay autistics. It's time society faced up to the reality that some percentage of their auitistic kids are going to be something other than heterosexual, whether they like it or not. Best that these kids (when they're old enough) be equipped to survive in a community that can often be superficial, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality. I've seen so many people damaged to the point that even social relationships can get strained, because of anxiety caused by a innocent misunderstandings, which are trigged by a lifetime of bad experiences. I know I for one have some damage, though I do my best to recognise and minimise its impact, and I do my best to prevent new damage. But I'm lucky, I have a strong survival instinct and a very stubborn streak. ;-)

So where does a gay autistic go for counselling about childhood trauma? And where do young gay autistics and their parents, who ultimately should help guide them, go to learn to be "street wise" in a world where some people take advantage of easy prey?

Well, one day, I'd really like to be able to post here to say "I know just the right places to go for help, it's listed in both the gay and autism resource directories".

In the meantime, it's back to picking myself apart to see if I can face those demons.... alone.

Conservative conferences?

Yet another autism conference goes by... and the conservatives are in charge again, influencing the agenda...

I'm beginning to wonder what is it about autism and why does it seem to attract the conservative element in the NT (general) population, especially the professional community?

From what I'm hearing, seems that autism conferences around the world have a bias towards conservative subject matter and speakers. Is it some need to protect those "poor, socially inept kids" from undesirable influences? Or what is it?

If you ask me, it spells bad news for many of those kids as they get older. Let's face it, autistic people are like any other - they come from all walks of life, and like it or not, many are sexual, and a significant number of these people are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. In fact, some evidence suggests there may be a higher proportion of GLBTI folk among the AS/autistic population than the general community. I know, either personally, or via the Internet literally dozens of autistic men and women who cover the full range of human sexuality, from asexual to highly sexual, from straight to gay, and also a large number of transgender people, with a handful of intersex adults as well.

Hiding from this does not help these people, and it's a minor miracle that some of us actually managed to get through life and become balanced and healthy adults... I suspect many are not so fortunate as I am.

While I can understand being careful about what topics are raised in front of children, those adules that care for them, need to be given the tools and knowledge to help them guide their children into adulthood, whatever the child's orientation happens to be. Similarly, adults need to be aware of the issues they face in their sexually active lives.

Ignorance isn't bliss. It's just.... ignorance, and it's harmful.