Autistic gender minorities profiles and the prevalence of sexual assault

Authors

Abstract

The present project takes place into a context where more and more studies show that autistic women and other gender minorities are particularly at risk to experience sexual assault during their life. Autism is positively correlated with PTSD, and autistic people face higher risks of polyvictimization than non-autistic people. While this is true for the whole autistic population, recent studies show that autistic women in particular seem to experiment more sexual victimization than others. Often diagnosed later than their male peers, autistic women struggle to get access to appropriate care. They tend to use camouflage strategies more than men in order to blend it, as well as non-binary autistic individuals do too. While recent studies identify the high risk of sexual victimization for autistic women, none of them seem to provide tangible information as to why. Some hypotheses are made, but at this point it is unclear why autistic women face this particular risk. The present project wishes to furnish data that could help understand that phenomenon. Moreover, gender diversity is more common among the autistic population than it is in the general population, and non-binary autistic people seem to share some similarities with autistic women. That is why our project also includes some populations that are not women, but who seem to have a similar experience, in order to take into account their lives as well. The goal of this project is to interrogate those populations in order to provide numbers, and to study their profiles. Because healthcare professionals and professionals from social structures play an important role in how autistic people access appropriate care, it is important to also collect data interrogating that population.

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