Autigender

Autigender is a type of “neurogender” that is connected to a person’s autism. A “neurogender” is a gender that is linked to someone’s neurodivergency.

It is not autism as a gender, but rather the gender of a person that is very influenced by their own autism.

This is due to gender being a social construct created by neurotypical people, hence, not taking into consideration that neurodivergent people may have a different perception on genders. Autistic people often have difficulties with social constructs in general.

However, not all autistic people are “autigender”, only those who identify as it due to being strongly influenced by their autism.

The term is made up of “auti”, short for autism, and gender.

It was coined in the late 2010’s by Tumblr users autismgender and esperancegirl, who defined it as ‘autism as part or whole of gender identity; a gender that can only be understood in context of being autistic’.

“Autigender” as a proposed new gender was accepted by the LGBTQ community, however, it received massive backlash. One argument against it was that “not everything has to be a gender”, while another states that being autistic is not a gender, and calling it a gender is derogatory towards autistic people.

Those who argue for the term, however, claim that those who are strongly affected by their autism have their own perception of gender, and should be allowed to have an own term to define their identity.

LGBTA Wikia claims that “autigender” is an exclusive gender, meaning not anyone can be “autigender”. You must be on the autism scale to identify as “autigender”.