Exploring Identity Importance for Autistic Adults and Associations with Disclosure Experiences: A Brief Report

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

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Love, A., Cai, R. Y., Edwards, C., & gibbs, v. (2023). Exploring Identity Importance for Autistic Adults and Associations with Disclosure Experiences: A Brief Report. Autism in Adulthood, 5(4), 450-456. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2023.0005

Journal or book title
Autism in Adulthood
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
5
Issue
4
Pages
450-456
Publication date: 25 May 2023 Added to AutiHub: 5 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
4
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 4 (25.0%)
  1. Abigail Love
  2. Ru Ying Cai
  3. Chris Edwards *
  4. vicki gibbs

Abstract

Background: A strong autistic identity can help to support mental well-being, reduce anxiety and depression, increase self-esteem, and strengthen a shared community for autistic people. Autistic people are regularly faced with a decision to disclose their autistic identity to others and report a range of experiences after disclosure. The purpose of this brief report was to examine the association between identity and disclosure decisions in a sample of autistic adults to gather preliminary evidence justifying future research. Specifically, we were interested in learning more about how autistic identity is associated with one's approach to disclosure, while also exploring associations with other identities such as ethnic, gender, sexual, and religious identity. Methods: Participants (N = 111) completed an online questionnaire about their intersecting identities and their approach to disclosure. The research team that conducted this study was composed of both autistic and nonautistic researchers. Results: Results demonstrated that participants who felt their autistic identity and sexual identity were highly important also reported frequent disclosure of being autistic. Religious, gender, and ethnic identity were not associated with one's disclosure decisions or their disclosure outcomes. Conclusion: Overall, the results of this study emphasize the link between autistic and sexual identities and autism disclosure, but more research in this space is needed to better support the wider autism community.

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: 3 Oct 2026 01:00.

Cited references
29
With a DOI
28
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
1
4 / 29 (13.8%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
1 / 29 (3.4%)
References with detected author names
28 / 29 (96.6%)
Without detected author names
1
Without a structured title
1
Without a stable identifier
1
References with raw author names still to review
1
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
97
From DOI or external metadata
97
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
1
52 / 97 (53.6%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 45 / 97 (46.4%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
4 / 97 (4.1%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 4 / 52 (7.7%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 4 / 90 (4.4%).
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