Lo Bosco Maria Concetta
Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Professor Aníbal de Bettencourt 9, 1600-189 Lisboa, Portugal.
J Aging Stud. 2023 Mar;64:101101. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2023.101101. Epub 2023 Jan 19.
This paper investigates the intersections of gender, sexuality, ageing in the way autism spectrum disorder is medically described as a discrete category. On one hand, the construction of autism as a male-centric phenomenon results in a significant gender gap in autism diagnosis, with girls diagnosed with autism significantly less and later than boys. On the other hand, the focus on depicting autism as a pediatric condition exposes adult autistics to discriminatory practices such as infantilization and contributes to the disregard of their sexual desires or to the misconception of their sexual behaviors as dangerous or inappropriate. Both infantilization and the supposed inability of autistic people to "fit" into adulthood have a significant impact on both sexuality's expressions and ageing experiences. My study suggests how fostering knowledge and further learning on the infantilization of autism can bring important insight into understanding disability from a critical angle. By challenging normative notions of gender, ageing, and sexuality, autistic people's different bodily experiences question medical authority and social politics and criticize the public representation of autism in the broader social space.
本文探讨了在医学上将自闭症谱系障碍描述为一个离散类别的方式中，性别、性取向与衰老之间的交叉点。一方面，将自闭症构建为以男性为中心的现象导致了自闭症诊断中的显著性别差距，女孩被诊断出自闭症的比例明显低于男孩，且诊断时间晚于男孩。另一方面，将自闭症描绘为一种儿科疾病的关注点，使成年自闭症患者面临诸如婴儿化等歧视性做法，并导致对他们的性欲望的忽视，或导致将他们的性行为误解为危险或不适当。婴儿化以及自闭症患者被认为无法“适应”成年期，对性取向的表达和衰老经历都有重大影响。我的研究表明，增进对自闭症婴儿化的认识和进一步学习，如何能从批判性角度为理解残疾带来重要见解。通过挑战性别、衰老和性取向的规范观念，自闭症患者不同的身体体验对医学权威和社会政治提出了质疑，并批评了在更广泛社会空间中自闭症的公众形象。
