Help us make our own way

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Loomes, G. (2019). Help us make our own way. In Girls and Autism (pp. 136-146). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351234429-17

Publication date: 7 Feb 2019 Added to AutiHub: 29 Aug 2026 Type: Book chapter Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)

Abstract

This chapter discusses how autistic girls might approach adolescence, and how teachers might build positive autistic identities. Adolescence can be a time of fluidity; of precariousness; of experimenting with the options available and weighing up the possibilities teachers are offered. The chapter explores the ways in which discourses are used in the shaping of socially situated identities. It shows that for young autistic girls and women, there is a lack of appropriate authoritative discourses on which to draw in order to construct their identities, both as ‘autistic’ and as ‘women’. The chapter suggested that this renders essentially ‘voiceless’ and vulnerable. In order to build their identity, young autistic women and girls need access to discourses that speak to our lives and our experiences. Teachers often struggle with the ‘hidden curriculum’ of womanhood – whether and how to apply make-up, whether and when to begin removing body hair, how to develop and maintain intimate relationships.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 12 Sep 2026 01:04.

Cited references
1
With a DOI
1
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
0
0 / 1 (0.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 1 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
1 / 1 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
0
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
1
From DOI or external metadata
1
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
0 / 1 (0.0%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 1 / 1 (100.0%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
0 / 1 (0.0%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. No detected author names are currently linked to an author already present in AutiHub. Distinct people identified as autistic: 0 / 1 (0.0%).
  1. Nancy Bagatell (2007). Orchestrating voices: autism, identity and the power of discourse . Disability & Society, 22(4), 413-426. Informa UK Limited.
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