‘It’s quite difficult to put Autistic relationships in a box’: A qualitative exploration of romantic relationships in gender and sexually diverse Autistic adults

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Ciric, T., White, L. C., Allison-Duncan, C., Maloney, E., & Gillespie-Smith, K. (2025). ‘It’s quite difficult to put Autistic relationships in a box’: A qualitative exploration of romantic relationships in gender and sexually diverse Autistic adults. Autism, 30(3), 682-694. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613251407765

Journal or book title
Autism
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
30
Issue
3
Pages
682-694
Publication date: 29 Dec 2025 Added to AutiHub: 6 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
5
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 5 (20.0%)
  1. Tina Ciric
  2. Luka C.J. White
  3. Claire Allison-Duncan
  4. Ellen Maloney *
  5. Karri Gillespie-Smith

Abstract

Autistic people enjoy friendships and sexual and romantic relationships. Many Autistic people are also part of a gender or sexual minority, yet gender and sexual minorities are often under-represented in autism research. The current study asked, 'How do gender and sexually diverse Autistic adults experience and perceive romantic relationships?' Sixteen gender and/or sexual minority Autistic adults took part in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Four main themes were identified from the interview data: (1) 'It's Quite Difficult to Put Autistic Relationships Into a Box', (2) Challenging Social Norms, (3) The Perks and Perils of Online Dating and (4) Understanding and Neurotype. Overall, participants described their relationships as individual, inherently valuable and shaped by unique preferences, mutual understanding and explicit communication. They also emphasized the fluidity between friendships and romantic partnerships, the importance of mutual understanding and the inherent value of rejecting prescriptive social norms in favour of individualized romantic relationship dynamics. These findings highlight relationship structures in Autistic groups who identify as gender and/or sexual minority.Lay abstractAutistic people enjoy friendships and sexual and romantic relationships. A proportion of the Autistic community identify as being a part of a gender and sexual minority (e.g., trans, non-binary, gay, lesbian, etc.), yet this group is often under-represented in autism research. The current study focused on this group specifically and asked them, 'How do gender and sexually diverse Autistic adults experience and perceive romantic relationships?' Sixteen gender and/or sexual minority Autistic adults took part in interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Four main themes were identified from the interview data: (1) 'It's Quite Difficult to Put Autistic Relationships Into a Box', (2) Challenging Social Norms, (3) The Perks and Perils of Online Dating and (4) Understanding and Neurotype. The participants described their relationships as individual, valuable and shaped by unique preferences, mutual understanding and clear communication. They also talked about how the lines between friendships and romantic partnerships can be blurred, for example, sometimes they have sex with their friends and don't see this as an activity exclusively for romantic relationships. They also mentioned the importance of mutual understanding and the inherent value of rejecting social norms in favour of more individualized romantic 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: 3 Oct 2026 01:00.

Cited references
46
With a DOI
44
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
2
10 / 46 (21.7%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 46 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
46 / 46 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
1
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
143
From DOI or external metadata
143
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
77 / 143 (53.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 66 / 143 (46.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
15 / 143 (10.5%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 15 / 77 (19.5%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 11 / 122 (9.0%).
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