Wonder why so many LGBTQ+ professionals need more than just inclusive language and gender-neutral washrooms to be functional in an ‘inclusive’ workplace? Why would someone need noise-cancelling headphones in the workplace? The reason is quite simple and complex at the same time.
Being “neuro-queer” is more common than we realise, but the chains of invisible coercion keep it mostly hidden. Defaulting on heterosexuality, cisgender, monogamy and neurotypicality often suppress neuroqueer people, thus preventing them from achieving their full potential. In 2012, Government of India acknowledged at least 2.5 million Indians as belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, while activists estimate it to be 125 million. Deloitte reports 2 million of the Indian population to be neurodiverse. These numbers are more intertwined than we fathom.
As the stigma neuroqueer people experience make it difficult to establish their issues and its connections, creating better lives for them and those around is going to take a lot of unlearning and relearning. A prominent and necessary step in the process is to address the lack of research in India on neurodivergence and LGBTQI+ populations.
What do we know?
Existing research from Europe and North America shows a significant representation of the LGBTQIA+ community among neurodivergent people, while also acknowledging that the estimates might be lower than reality. A 2020 Cambridge University study found that autistic people are three times more likely to identify as transgender and gender-diverse. Autistic people, especially those assigned as females at birth, are more likely to be sexually diverse in the form of hyposexuality, hypersexuality, and lower rates of heterosexuality, i.e., identifying more as homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc.
Another research from 2021, which reports a sex bias in autism diagnosis, with males being diagnosed three to four times more frequently than females, found that neurodivergent individuals are eight times more likely to be asexual or be in various spectrums of it. Researches corroborates this from an LGBTQ+ perspective, finding them more likely to be diagnosed with autism, ADHD and OCD.
Unsurprisingly, a 2023 report by The Trevor Project attests to how autistic LGBTQ+ youth have 50% greater odds of attempting suicide as opposed to those who aren’t autistic.
What does this mean?
Most neurodivergent people feel sensory and emotional stimuli more deeply, including attraction and arousal, which can lead them to explore these more. Sometimes, such reconnoitre leads to Consensual Non-Monogamy (CNM) appealing to neuroqueer folks, especially if they are autistic.
In India, the unfortunate underdiagnosis of neurodivergence implies greater challenges and hence, higher but unfair incidence of mental health issues. Moreover, no matter the masking, neurodivergent people are still less likely than neurotypical people to adapt to social norms, making them more likely to question their gender and/or sexual identities.
A higher simultaneity of these two stigmatised identities, the reasons for which are less researched, leads to downward spirals of opprobrium and disempowerment. Consequently, we can observe the numerous similarities and intersections between the two experiences in terms of shame, invalidation, unnecessary and unhealthy efforts to “cure,” multiple coming outs, and other challenges in navigating mainstream socio-cultural norms and notions when these two identities are simply inherent to and interacting in one person.
What can we do?
Neurodivergence is more common than enumerated because most are left undiagnosed and struggling through life, visibly or invisibly, not to mention how expensive diagnostic assessments are. Acknowledging that Indian mental health professionals aren’t well-equipped to deal with neurodivergence, its quirks, and the resultant trauma due to medical gaslighting, presents a two-way challenge.
One is the need for better-trained mental health professionals, which translates into a more comprehensive and unbiased curriculum. Professionals with such elaborate training should also be placed and available in educational institutions, especially those for younger children, because children are less masked than adults, making it easier to identify neurodivergence and give them early and informed support, if they are queer. Periodic check-ups in educational environments should be made mandatory to make them more accessible.
The second is more complicated because of internalised ableism leading to imposter syndrome and heavy masking, which often makes it hard to perceive and discover the underlying trauma. This is where the need for research, diagnosis, acceptance, and enumeration comes in. Incentivized research and review opportunities, especially for people with lived experiences of these intersectional marginalizations, can provide information combating the dangers of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and sexism bleeding into one another. It’s also essential to take regulatory actions like healthy censorship to avoid the weaponizing of stereotypical images of low-functioning, high-support autistics “groomed” to be trans in the media.
All this can only start from us, NeuroQueer folks, voicing and sharing our stories with peers, colleagues, on social media, etc., and inspiring others to follow. So, be it through research or action, let’s come together to fill this spectrum of vacuum awaiting us.