My evolving views on gender

A few years ago, one of my friends came out on social media as nonbinary, and I handled it like a boomer. I thought about it like a boomer too. I didn’t get it. If someone who is clearly a man tells me they’re a woman, I just couldn’t believe them. Men and women look different, and you are what you look like, right?

I was wrong. There are trans women who look like my definition of women, and there are trans men who look like my definition of men. So maybe as long as you pass, your gender identity is valid.

I was wrong again. Why should the feelings of people who can look a certain way count more than the feelings of people who can’t? I struggled with the idea for a long time, and during that time, I refrained from saying anything about it. Instead, I listened to what other people had to say. I especially listened to the voices of trans and nonbinary people and those who were where I wanted to be with it. I wanted to understand and accept what allowed others to be at peace with their gender identities and the gender identities of others.

The first message that really started to get through to me was that people who deny the stated gender identities of other people are jerks. That’s what shut me up about my opinions on the matter. I knew that whatever I had to say about it would out me as a jerk. I knew this from experience too, as it drove away one of my friends whom I should have been supporting. I wanted to be a good person, not a bad one.

Then it occurred to me that I’m nobody special. Who am I to decide what a man or a woman is? I don’t have the authority to tell someone else how to live their life or what to call themselves. And when I gatekeep people’s gender, I’m not just being a jerk, but I’m also contributing to the voices in the world that drive so many to suicide.

Seeing the ways different men, including myself, express their masculinity revealed to me that it really is a spectrum. Right-wing pundit Matt Walsh can grow a beard, wear flannel shirts, and speak with an artificially deepened voice (he might not do the last one), but there’s something about him that is just “girlier” than Dwayne Johnson. That femininity isn’t a bad thing. It’s part of who Matt is, and it’s unfortunate that he’s so ashamed of it.

When I look at my own expressions of gender, there are areas where I am more feminine than masculine. I spend a good portion of every day telling my dogs what cute babies they are in the cutesiest voice I can muster. It’s extremely satisfying. Femininity is a source of strength. Don’t let anybody tell you different. It’s what drives me to forge connections with other people, and it’s what makes other people open up to me so that I get to know them on a deep level very quickly.

But as often as I’ve found success in my relationships, I’ve also failed. Arrogance, quickness to anger, and pride have burned many social bridges in my life. I’m glad to say that my attitude regarding gender identity has improved greatly. I don’t mean for this to be all about me. I want for it to be about the conclusions I’ve drawn by observing and listening to others.

A woman is a person who identifies as a woman. A man is a person who identifies as a man. It doesn’t matter what genitals they have, what clothes they wear, what genes they have, whether they can impregnate or be impregnated, how they identified in the past, or how anybody feels when they look at them. It doesn’t even matter if they are a nice person. Every gender is valid, and there are more than two of them.

Being an employee blows sometimes

Since November of last year (2021), I’ve been working for a nonprofit organization that seeks to take creative people on the autism spectrum and teach them technical skills so they can use their creativity to land a job. Another of the organization’s goals is to show employers what kind of environment is most conducive to the care and maintenance of their autistic employees. At first, I was going to head up their media team, which makes promotional videos and other media to generate funds for the organization, but that didn’t really work out. I never really felt “in charge” of it, and there was already someone there who was much better suited to that who finally stepped up.

Seeing how well I work with my two stepsons, the boss put me in charge of the internship program. Part of being in charge was creating the program from the ground up. The interns would be unpaid, but we were open to taking in anyone on the autism spectrum who had aptitude for and interest in supplementing their creative skills with technical skills just like I’ve done.

But that didn’t really pan out either. I was recently told that budget issues meant the company was going to focus on the revenue-generating media team and drop the internship program because it wasn’t getting the grants that the boss was hoping for. It makes sense to me, since we only really had one intern. The only person getting paid was me, which made it too expensive to keep running.

What I should have done is get them to guarantee me a certain number of hours. I was willing to accept $16 an hour because the hours were steady. Now that they’ve been ripped away, I see that they could have always been ripped away. I was always at their mercy. The same is true of everyone who works as someone’s employee. I thought it would be different working for a nonprofit organization, but it all came down to how much money I’m bringing into the company. In the end, money mattered more than I did.

Trying stuff

I got my first job when I was 16. I worked at Whataburger, and overall, I hated it. I felt trapped when I was there, and I hated being in a position where I had to do whatever someone else told me. In the vast majority of the jobs I’ve had since then, it only got worse, especially when I was pressured to make sales.

I had more than a dozen jobs here and there until I was about 27 or 28, and it wasn’t just the jobs themselves that made me miserable. It was having to always have a job and thinking that that was just going to be my life. It made me unhappy, and it turned me into a paranoid narcissist. The only escape I had was believing that I was special and the world was trying to keep me down.

After Hollywood Video died and my job there died with it, I gave up on that kind of job. I could no longer even bring myself to fill out a job application. I still can’t. My girlfriend, Michelle, encouraged me to get my official autism diagnosis so I could get on disability for the freedom to explore what I wanted to do, and it has been so much better.

Now I have a number of different projects I’m working on, and though I haven’t struck gold with anything yet, I’m enjoying these beginnings of my journey to success.

Thinking differently

There are many voices in the autism community talking about how we have a hard time being understood by non-autistics. Mine is among them. But it recently really began to dawn on me just what the differences in our ways of thinking entail. And as I ponder this, it seems to me that I’ve had difficulties understanding non-aspies in the same way that they misunderstand me.

Unlike many aspies, I’m pretty decent at socializing. It tires me horribly, but I can get into “social mode” and make it through a social function, coming off to everyone there as “normal,” maybe even delightful. (I’m pushing it, I know. :p) But this is a persona based on imitating what I’ve observed as appropriate and entertaining behavior in others. It’s a mask made of my own genius.

On a much more fundamental level, the processes that take place in my mind as I take in information are very different from those in others. I don’t feel the way others do about things. I’m not patriotic, I’m not a sports fan, I’m very nonreligious, I’m not a feminist or an ally, I’m not outraged by the injustices that people bring up every day on Facebook, and there are many other things that seem to define a normal way of thinking that are totally alien to me. It’s as if I was born on another planet, and I’ve always felt that way. My sisters could tell you about the years of my childhood when I fantasized that I’d been born on Mars. Even back then, I picked up on the fact that there was something different about me.

And even though there are also differences in the way even individual aspies think, feel, and process information, I think we all know what it feels like to be different. In my opinion, the best way to begin fostering understanding between us and non-autistics is to work to understand them. It might make an interesting academic study.

Indigo Children = Narcissists

I once went to a counselor about some mental/personality issues I was dealing with, and she told me to look into this thing called “indigo children.” I looked into it, and do you know what I discovered? I am a wizard! I have supernatural powers and I am omniscient! I can leap tall buildings in a single bound! Obviously, that’s not true.

This garbage was recently brought to my attention, and I started refuting the bullet list point-by-point to my girlfriend when I realized I should post it here instead. First I’ll give you an overview of it.

Since the 1990’s, a growing number of medical professionals have dismissed the traditional ADHD diagnoses associated with long-term social and behavioral health problems, and have instead sided with their parents who insist that they possess supernatural powers.

I understand parents wanting to believe their children have no flaws and are special snowflakes for no other reason than that they are their babies, but that doesn’t justify eschewing real science and medical knowledge in favor of nonsense. The culture in the United States encourages people to value superstition and intuition over logic and reason.

So anyway, on to the bullet list.

How to recognise an Indigo Child

What are the behavioral patterns of Indigos?

• They are born feeling and knowing they are special and should be revered.

  Nobody is born knowing anything except that it’s frickin freezing outside of a uterus. If you encourage your child to believe he or she should be revered, you are raising a narcissist.

• An indigo knows they belong here as they are and expect you to realize it as well.

  Don’t even think about trying to help your child learn to get along with other people or get him/her medication so he/she can function in the world. If your child is a stubborn brat, just give him/her everything he/she wants. Then gaze in wonder at the narcissist you’ve unleashed upon the world.

• These children are more confident and have a higher sense of self-worth.

  These children are narcissists. How many times can I say it? Your child is not better than anyone else, so do not raise them to believe they are.

• Absolute authority, the kind with no choices, negotiation, or input from them does not sit well. The educational system is a good example.

  Your child is the authority, not you. He’s a wizard, not a narcissist. Bow to his every command.

• Some of the rules we so carefully followed as children seem silly to them and they fight them.

  We did not carefully follow rules as children. Every child tests limits and disobeys rules. They need boundaries, not magic wands.

• Rigid ritualistic systems are considered archaic to an indigo child. They feel everything should be given creative thought.

  To a child, ten years ago is the same thing as a million years ago. Children don’t know what archaic means. Not everything should be given creative thought. “Should I look both ways before I cross the street, or should I act like a chicken instead?”

• They are insightful and often have a better idea of method then what has been in place for years. This makes them seem like “system busters.”

  You mean than. They don’t understand the reason that rules are in place, and because they’re completely selfish, they would rather just do whatever they want. Kids break rules. It’s not a super power.

• Adults often view an indigo as anti-social unless they are with other indigos. Often they feel lost and misunderstood, which causes them to go within.

  Some kids are introverted. It’s ok. It’s not a superpower. It’s just a personality trait.

• The old control methods like, “Wait till your father gets home,” have no affect on these children.

  Don’t threaten kids with violence. That opens up a worse can of worms than the one  you’re opening with this “indigo children” nonsense.

• The fulfillment of their personal needs is important to them, and they will let you know.

  You’d better buy that kid every toy he or she wants and let them have ice cream for dinner. If you don’t, you’ll wake up one morning having been turned into a newt. And no, you won’t get better.

There’s another bullet list that could be a whole other blog post, so I’ll just leave this one off here. Check out the link if you want to read some grade-A woo.

Asperger’s on the Inside

Michelle Vines’s new book, Asperger’s on the Inside, is coming out on April 8, which just happens to be Autism Awareness Month. Hurray! It’s not a dry textbook about the clinical definition of Autism. It’s a personal story about her life and how it was affected by her Asperger’s Syndrome.

Yay for life

I tend to find things to write about mostly when something is bothering me, so I thought I’d post something happy while nothing is bothering me. I don’t really have anything specific planned to write. I just wanted to wiggle my fingers on the keyboard for a bit and see what words come out.

Since I got my lens back from Canon and switched to Linux Mint on my main computer, I’ve felt very satisfied as far as my aspie obsessions are concerned. I take a lot of pictures, I get to use a variety of operating systems among my various devices (desktop with Linux, tablet with Windows 10, and Kindle Fire running Kindle’s version of Android), I’m not sick or injured, I’m in a wonderful relationship, and I just discovered that I have powers like Superman.

You would think that this would be the part where I confess that I’m just kidding, but no. I’m Superman. Deal with it. :p

Another Autcraft follow up

Aspies and Minecraft go together like ham and cheese. I said I’d post some screenshots of what I’ve been working on in Autcraft, so here they are!

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Autcraft follow up

I’ve spent more time in Autcraft and learned a lot about how things work there, and it is pretty cool. They have different worlds set up for different things, like four separate worlds to build in (two peaceful worlds and two hard worlds), a world for gathering resources, worlds for mini games, quiet worlds where there’s no chat, and more. The resource-gathering worlds reset monthly, so all resources are renewable, unlike in a normal Minecraft world where the resources are still vast but finite.

There are also things you can buy, like commands that heal you, fill your food bar, and repair your equipment. For $2 a month, I have the ability to repair all of my equipment an unlimited number of times whenever I want. They also have one-time-purchase packages that give you a status in the chat (iron, gold, and diamond) and access to other commands. The iron status is $20, the gold status is $50, and the diamond status is $100. With diamond comes the ability to fly and designate up to ten homes, so I really want to get that.

As before, the community is very friendly and helpful, and they keep a close eye on the chat to ensure that any unpleasant interactions are kept to a minimum. I highly recommend it to autistic kids, autistic adults, and their families.

Autcraft

After hearing and reading so much about Autcraft, a Minecraft server for people with autism and their families, I checked out the website and filled out the application to be added to the whitelist. The site said it would take 1-2 weeks for the application to be processed, so I waited. A few days later, I had a message in my email saying I’ve been accepted. Yay! So I followed their instructions and logged in last night.

I received a very warm welcome. The moment I logged in, everyone said hi, and a few people came up to give me some stuff. Then one of the admins showed me around and showed me how to pick a spot to build my house. She also gave me some materials to build my house out of. It wasn’t enough to do as much as I plan to do, but it was a very nice start.

The chat is active and friendly, and I feel like if I need help, I can easily get it. I look forward to exploring Autcraft more and being a productive member of the community. I might also post some screenshots of my house once it’s impressive enough.