Cross-Domain Identity Development In BIPOC Autistic Adults: A Grounded Theory Study

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Abstract

Racial and autistic identity development both involve navigating stigma, seeking community, and contending with dominant frameworks that constrain authentic self-expression, yet existing research has not examined how these processes interact for individuals holding both identities. These interactions unfold within structural conditions such as diagnostic disparities, culturally specific ableism, and racialized consequences of visible autistic expression, which shape how identity development proceeds for BIPOC autistic adults. This study investigated whether and how the core identity processes of exploration and commitment proceeded for this population. Nine BIPOC autistic adults participated in written interviews analyzed through constructivist grounded theory, with identity status theory applied as a sensitizing concept. Analysis produced four categories of identity development processes—Developing Understanding of Autism and Difference, Encountering External Frameworks, Managing Visibility and Risk, and Variation in Belonging—revealing that autistic and racial/cultural identities operated as mutually constitutive experiences, with conditions in one domain shaping what was possible in the other. This produced a core category that represented three configurations of identity stability: Cross-Domain Exploration and Commitment, Exploration Under Constraint, and Commitment with Limited Stability. These findings suggest that identity development and stability among BIPOC autistic adults is shaped by context, rather than following one universal developmental path. Clinical implications include attention to domain-specific barriers to identity exploration (e.g., cultural ableism limiting access to autistic identity, or White-dominated autistic spaces marginalizing racial identity), access to intersectional spaces holding both autistic and BIPOC identity at once, and exploration of strategic masking as an adaptive survival response.

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