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Post by vagueandrandom on Oct 30, 2015 14:27:40 GMT
There's been a lot in the news recently about gender, and the differences between sex and gender and sexuality.
I've noticed that there seem to be a higher percentage here than in the general population of people who are gay/bi/queer/fluid/non-binary, or just not completely cis identified.
I wonder what other people think? Is it just that society is more accepting and that gender/sexuality is more fluid/not very important these days?
Does ADHD with it's heightened emotions and intuition make men less traditionally 'masculine'?
Does the impulsivity and links to ASD make women with ADHD less traditionally 'feminine'?
I was reminded of this the other day when @alec77 said that he was a pretend man.
I have always felt like a pretend woman. I don't want to be a man, but I don't know what a woman is like. Women intimidate me. I don't understand them.
SO - any thoughts?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2015 14:50:39 GMT
There are suggestions that some of the genes associated with developmental disorders, and also some aspects of any disturbed foetal development, are also common with people with 'generous sexual leanings', by which I mean more experimental temperament or less set in stone gender identity (this is a minefield to write!).
It doesn't stop us being straight down the line straight and 'vanilla', either.
There's probably a degree of us being more open with each other (once you've admitted you're a nut job who's going to care on a forum like this?) which might exaggerate the effect a bit but it does look like we're much more likely to be not 'ramrod' straight.
BTW all innuendo is unintentional - but I am laughing at myself struggling with the words.
I think the lack of identity you feel is more to do with the general lack of connectedness with the NT world - I feel horribly isolated from it and need reassurance that my behaviours are reasonable on a regular basis.
That isolation might allow more leeway in experimentation for some because we've not learned to not care about the outcome as much, or too much for others.
It's always a spectrum thing with us!
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Post by vagueandrandom on Oct 30, 2015 15:18:28 GMT
Thanks @planetdave for considering this and not blocking the subject. I realise that we're a self-selecting bunch here.
The language thing is a total nightmare, I agree! I try to get it right because I know a few people who are gender/sexuality activists.
I suppose that I ought to say that I'm predominantly straight, but identify as queer non-binary, with the definition of queer being about not fitting into a box.
That's about feeling a lack of connectedness from the NTs, as you say.
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Post by clubby on Oct 30, 2015 16:43:46 GMT
Hi vagueandrandom. I know exactly what you are talking about. I look feminine but am a tomboy, I know I am a woman but don't identify with other women. Basically I don't feel like any gender, and I am not aware of gender in others. I just feel like a person who can do anything they can put their mind to. My body is feminine and I am happy with that but my mind finds the whole gender thing mysterious. It feels neutral. (and by that I don't mean bisexual - just irrelevant )
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Post by contrarymary on Oct 30, 2015 21:18:50 GMT
great thread vagueandrandom I think there was a poll on a similarish subject a wee while back... i'll see if i can find it and post a link EDIT - ooh! ooh! here it is
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Post by mypineappledream on Oct 30, 2015 21:27:29 GMT
There is research done in this area suggesting that a surge of testosteron in early development might be responsible for both neuropsychiatric disorders and whats called brainsex
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Post by vagueandrandom on Oct 30, 2015 22:48:41 GMT
clubby I think we were separated at birth! You express my feelings exactly. I'm a tomboy and if I do think about my inner self, I see myself as a teenage boy. I know I'm a woman and I'm a feminist and I have long hair and look quite feminine, although I mostly wear masculine clothing - I'm not averse to wearing dresses and makeup. I'm fine getting on with men - they're more predictable (or maybe I have a male brain) but it often gets me into trouble because I'm very open with everyone of any gender and sometimes it can be taken for flirting - I don't know how to flirt! So I stick with the freaks and the gays and am good friends with straight men who always fancy my sister.
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Post by vagueandrandom on Oct 30, 2015 22:53:42 GMT
mypineappledream I have skin and autoimmune issues, so have had my hormones tested and I'm in the normal range for a woman. I have come across this point before from a friend when I mentioned ADHD.
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Post by mypineappledream on Oct 31, 2015 6:36:20 GMT
mypineappledream I have skin and autoimmune issues, so have had my hormones tested and I'm in the normal range for a woman. I have come across this point before from a friend when I mentioned ADHD. Me too. From what I understand that testosteron is temporarily present in early fetal development and alters neuron interactions. Do you have a low ring finger to index finger ratio? Ie the ringfinger is significantly longer.
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Post by clubby on Oct 31, 2015 9:17:50 GMT
vagueandrandom I asked my hubby the age of my inner child. The very quick reply was "12 or 13". Spot on. mypineappledream My finger ratio on both hands is exactly 1 but I do have a longer right hand 2nd toe! Oh dear. I feel as if my physical sexuality is heterosexual, my attitude is asexual, my emotions are pre pubescent male and my hormones are female. Quite a mix but I am very happy with it. I struggle with anyone who has a gender orientated attitude. It doesn't make sense to me. If you haven't got the power in your muscles you just get a bigger spanner.
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Post by mypineappledream on Oct 31, 2015 9:25:41 GMT
I thought I was born in the wrong gender until I was 10 and then I figured out that it wasn't anything wrong with me, just with society's idea of gender. Gender isn't two boxes and you just tic one based on physical appearance. It's a more complexed system of factors, I wish that could be common knowledge, maybe in the future...
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Post by hermanli on Oct 31, 2015 11:20:32 GMT
Oh dear oh dear, I think everyone here is surely sick of me talking about myself but this topic is so relevant to me and echoes things I have been thinking about too!
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Post by mypineappledream on Oct 31, 2015 11:39:16 GMT
Oh dear oh dear, I think everyone here is surely sick of me talking about myself but this topic is so relevant to me and echoes things I have been thinking about too! Talk away, I'm sure I have accidentally shared the same stories more then once on this forum
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Post by contrarymary on Oct 31, 2015 12:49:12 GMT
I feel as if my physical sexuality is heterosexual, my attitude is asexual, my emotions are pre pubescent male and my hormones are female. Quite a mix but I am very happy with it. snap. thanks for articulating it so clearly and concisely
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Post by hermanli on Oct 31, 2015 14:07:27 GMT
Sexuality Heterosexual, my identity/persona/inner self: a 5-6 year old who does not really identify with anything to do with other boys and their interests. Emotionally much more female, and have always had more affinity with females and the mindset than males. I struggled to find friendships with either, most especially girls though as a young person with the typical social difficulties of ASD. But now I am more socially fluent and confident, my only friends are female. Any blokes I know are just connections through hobbies. But with females I can sort of instantly connect at some deeper level - like we have had common experiences, I guess because of emotions and the like. My life, behaviour and personality reads more like an Asperger female. Basically exactly this: seventhvoice.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/the-gas-lighting-of-women-and-girls-on-the-autism-spectrum/In relationships, bonding, sex and all of that sort of thing. Very much female. Have had detailed conversations about this with a female friend who was convinced that Men dont bond and form the strong emotional attachments like Women in relationships, particularly with Sex. I guess the conclusion of that was that I am not male! Psychiatrists often describe Aspergers as the "Extreme Male Brain" as the Bias is towards systemising, sometimes with a complete absence of empathy and emotion - which are "Female" traits. The "extreme female brain" is considered to be schizophrenia (I think I remember that right, seems awfully sexist doesnt it?) I have always had massively overdeveloped, intense Empathy and Emotions. The Empathy in particular has caused me all kinds of difficulties and is the root of my MH problems. I have always shuddered at being called a "Man" - It happened for the first time when I was 16 and made me feel sick and repulsed. I do not identify with the term at all, call me anything but that. I guess I am mostly gender neutral, with a female lean. My gender identity feels overidden by my "age identity" Ive said I am mentally 5-6 years old in my opening phrase, I stand by that. If there is anyway to define me that is it. 5-6 year olds who dont engage in either boyish or girlish activities, what do you call that? I never identified with a gender then and dont now. Lastly just to make things even more complicated, I did have one piece of me that was "Male" this was the male sex drive/libidio/turn ons. But for some completely unknown reason, it dissapeared in Early 2013. Since then I have been Asexual, except for when I form very strong emotional attachments to Girls. When I may have impulses for things that would be seen as sex, but for me it would be purely a means of Affection. I do not feel any conventional sexual pleasure/desire anymore, I havent been horny or had an orgasm in nearly 3 years. I forgotten what any of it feels like.
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Post by clubby on Oct 31, 2015 17:55:09 GMT
Thanks for sharing hermanli. I can remember being 5 when I was totally uninterested in other children. I found them very scary. I can remember a boy at school getting a cake with candles for his 6th birthday and everyone sang happy birthday. I had a panic attack that when I became 6, the attention would be on me. I kept very much to myself. On the other hand, at age 5 I was promised a pony ride and in anticipation I imagined a mechanical horse, on the basis that it would be cruel to put a beginner on a sensitive being. I was very surprised when the pony turned out to be real. At 5, I probably had the emotional age of 2 and the intellectual age of 17! The brain is utterly fascinating.
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Post by Bee on Oct 31, 2015 18:46:58 GMT
In primary school I didn't play much with the other kids, I wore blue camouflage baggy jeans and played at climbing mountains.
I don't have any proper friends now, I have people that aren't too bad so I can tolerate them lol.
I don't understand women. I just don't get the way they think, it always seems to me that there's a lot of saying one thing but meaning something else which I just don't follow!
Men generally seem clearer in what they say, they seem to say what they mean which makes daily communication a lot easier!! Also I've noticed that, at least with the women I work with, they KNOW that women don't say what they mean, so they're constantly looking for the insult in what you just said...
So even if I'm speaking exactly how I feel and not offensively, someone will still take it and twist it into something horrible! I'm so much more comfortable talking with men.
I'm often a bit confused, because I quite like being female, I like to wear pretty dresses sometimes, but I don't FEEL awfully feminine. I've got curves, and sometimes I can look in the mirror and go 'hey, not too bad!' But it feels a bit like I'm PRETENDING to be a woman.
I don't feel like a man, but I don't quite feel like a woman either.
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Post by vagueandrandom on Oct 31, 2015 19:29:25 GMT
Me too! to everything you say Bee except that I used to play trains, or hang upside-down on the swing bars for the whole breaktime. And my trousers were not camouflage. This is turning into a very interesting thread. Like most things here, you think that you're the only person who thinks like this, and then we're all 'me too'ing. I've never met another woman who admits to not really 'getting' other women. I have surprised myself on this forum by getting on with, and liking, other women. I was once offered a free place in a women's artist retreat weekend in a hotel, so I went and it was TORTURE! I couldn't believe that I was supposed to be one of them.
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Post by clubby on Oct 31, 2015 21:10:30 GMT
There are many things I don't get with women but the main ones are their obsession with pink, princesses and boobs.
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Post by clubby on Oct 31, 2015 21:23:13 GMT
Check out Britney Spears song
"I'm not a man Not yet a woman All I need is time A moment that is mine While i'm in between"
That is what I feel about adhd - that I need time and a moment that is mine because I am in between.
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Post by Bee on Oct 31, 2015 22:38:05 GMT
I think the lyrics say "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman"...
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Post by clubby on Oct 31, 2015 23:41:21 GMT
bee of course they do. But we have been discussing boyhood transitioning to womanhood so I made a minor adjustment to britney' lyrics.
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Post by contrarymary on Nov 1, 2015 0:02:26 GMT
i want to say me too to a lot of this!
*generally getting on better with men because they are simply clearer and more straightforward
*sometimes finding i have been understood as flirting when i have been simply communicating and friendly in a straightforward way
*not playing with "girls" things; being interested in things for their own sake but regarded as more of a tomboy
*not having friends at primary school - not understanding this sudden huge boy/girl divide, not being particularly bothered about playing with others
*not havimg any friends at secondary school, except the people i hung out with just because they were there or because we had interests in common - but having real friends outside school by mid/late teens - of all ages, mostly allied with a particular music scene, goig to festivals together etc some of whom i'm still in contact with. i think we were all "weird", or i'd found a tribe.
*i like to wear dresses etc, carefully colour match stuff and sometimes wear makeup - but also want clothes to "work" - be comfortable & practical for whatever I'm doing so I can put them on and then not think about them. I was the teen in long stretchy black dresses, men's cardigans & DM boots: plus ca change!
* i think my inner self is about 7; i still find I get on better with children than i do the majority of adults. i sometimes annoy friends because i forget i'm supposed to talk to them and tend to focus first on their children
*really not understanding the majority of other women
and I recall that a lot of this stuff is identified with by many women with aspergers or on the autistic spectrum - i remember reading a blog about this a few months ago... I'll have a look for it.
(the traditional understanding of asperger's came from studies of males only, it seems that many women on the spectrum have slipped through the net - much like people with ADHD PI)
yet again the considerable overlap between adhd & autistic spectrum..?
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Post by tessaract on Nov 1, 2015 0:26:27 GMT
yip, yip, yip and yip! Sorry thats all i can muster for now. hmmm feel like i have a male brain. No interest in pink, fake tan or gossip or double meanings. Feels really sexist towards my own gender but there it is. Get really mad if I'm seperated because of my gender. Do not understand girly nights in out guys nights out - WTF is that?? Would rather buy jewellery tools than get my hair done, anytime. Constantly getting grief from my mother because I do not look like them, ie. glam, glitz, fake tan, high heels, ugh! Being made to get my hair done next week because my sister is having her hen night and i better not look out of place! So do you guys think this is ADHD with ASD crossover to varying degrees? Isnt it weird that we all feel the same?? wow.
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Post by Bee on Nov 1, 2015 0:43:43 GMT
Hahaha! Sorry clubby! I thought it was a genuine mis-hearing of the lyrics!
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Post by hermanli on Nov 1, 2015 1:51:04 GMT
Get really mad if I'm seperated because of my gender. Do not understand girly nights in out guys nights out - WTF is that?? Isnt it weird that we all feel the same?? wow. Massive Ditto to that! Do not get gender groupings at all. I know I said I lean towards the female end of things, but I definitely do not relate to any of that garish glam stuff or mindless shopping. Its more about feelings and stuff. I have however spent my whole life decoding the puzzle of the "typical" volatile & irrational female mind though, and I get it pretty well now. However I am totally unable to imagine how other Males think, of any age. If I try to imagine it, put myself in those shoes - I get a total blank. This is supposed to be a classic autistic deficit right, but I only really have it with Males.
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Post by Bee on Nov 1, 2015 3:59:51 GMT
hermanli, maybe you could educate all of us flabbergasted women about how to understand other women!
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Post by tessaract on Nov 1, 2015 12:46:44 GMT
Haha, and we'll teach you how to understand men. LOL Sorted!
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Post by blaze on Nov 1, 2015 17:48:00 GMT
There's been a lot in the news recently about gender, and the differences between sex and gender and sexuality. I've noticed that there seem to be a higher percentage here than in the general population of people who are gay/bi/queer/fluid/non-binary, or just not completely cis identified.[b Gay bi queer are sexuality not gender Perhaps living as a square peg in a round hole just makes it normal for us to be honest/open about sexuality or gender, maybe for someone who has allways been exactly what/who they are suplosed tl be or somelne who allways fits in it is much harder to step 'outside' the lines in this way. personally i cant pay attension long enough to lye r] I wonder what other people think? Is it just that society is more accepting and that gender/sexuality is more fluid/not very important these days? Does ADHD with it's heightened emotions and intuition make men less traditionally 'masculine'? Does the impulsivity and links to ASD make women with ADHD less traditionally 'feminine'? I was reminded of this the other day when @alec77 said that he was a pretend man. I have always felt like a pretend woman. I don't want to be a man, but I don't know what a woman is like. Women intimidate me. I don't understand them. SO - any thoughts?
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Post by clubby on Nov 1, 2015 22:11:38 GMT
I reckon my gender identity is a bit fluid, but i've also noticed a difference in my adhd within each one. Has anyone else experienced this?
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