Research investigating gender disparities between autistic individuals has been restricted to a binary scope, focusing on how and why females are often overlooked within the diagnostic process. While this research has provided valuable insight, it neglects gender-diverse youth, limiting the understanding of why there are higher rates of autistic youth identifying as gender diverse compared to neurotypical children. A potential explanation for this trend is that challenges understanding illogical social norms, including the performance of gender, may be an autistic trait. As such, this qualitative study utilized reflexive interviews to examine how 24 autistic adults, 14 of which identified as nonbinary, make sense of their intersectional identities separate from dominant narratives within cisgender and autism spaces. Using the theories of gender performativity and the feminist model of disability, themes were created from participants’ narratives of how the rigidity of being autistic disrupts the system of internalizing gender socialization, as does the lack of logic in gender as a social construct. Through this, our participants discussed their refusal to make sense within the dominant narrative of autistic and gendered presentations.
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