There is hardly anything more sacred than being truly accepted and understood for who you are. But that level of affirmation can be hard to come by for queer and marginalized people — especially those who are autistic, like myself.
Many autistic people often express ourselves with physical gestures called stimming, or self-stimulatory behavior. These are repetitive movements or noises we make that help us get out feelings from our bodies, as well as regulate our emotions and handle sensory inputs. For me, stimming can be anything from dancing and jumping around to Carly Rae Jepsen, which might be considered more socially acceptable, to squawking and walking around like a dinosaur — or some other sweeping gesture that helps me externalize the intensity of what I’m feeling.
“Autistic people often express feelings very physically,” says Kimberly Vered Shashoua, LCSW, a therapist who specializes in working with transgender teens and young adults. They explain that common expressions of joy for autistic folks include clapping, hand flapping, rocking, shimmying, and humming. “These movements can be different for slight nuances in joy.”
Plenty of people who are non-autistic, also called allistic, stim as well — like when they play with their hair or bite their nails. But because autistic folks might use more pronounced movements or express ourselves using our whole body (depending on the degree of emotion or stimulation we require), allistic people often view our physical expressions as abnormal.
“There's this perception that if you're stimming or doing something else out of the norm, then there's something wrong with you,” Vered says. In order to “fit in,” many autistic people become used to monitoring our behaviors in a practice often referred to as autistic masking. It involves constantly analyzing and moderating our behavior in order to avoid conflict or people’s concern and judgment. Doing this takes a lot of spoons, a term that many disabled people use to refer to the amount of energy we can extend, and a great amount of focus.
Masking can be doubly exhausting for many queer and trans autistic people, like myself, who also have to worry about how the world perceives us when we express our gender authentically. Studies have shown that autistic people are more likely to be gender diverse, with up to 26 percent of gender-variant people meeting the criteria for autism and up to 8 percent of autistic people being trans. Plainly put, these queer and trans autistic people are much more likely to be misunderstood and feel forced to hide who we are in order to survive.
Choosing to express ourselves with our bodies, in that sense, can take a lot of bravery and should be celebrated. As Vered says, “When we have the audacity to be neurodivergent in public, we are taking up space. We are saying ‘I deserve to be here and be seen.’”
To show a more nuanced and holistic view of how autistic queer and trans people feel and show our joy, we spoke with a few people who identify as such about why they feel stimming is so important, and how it helps them feel more connected to their bodies. Their responses below have been edited for length and clarity.