‘These made-up things mean nothing to me’: exploring the intersection of autism and bisexuality in the lives of young people

Toft, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3734-2242, 2023. ‘These made-up things mean nothing to me’: exploring the intersection of autism and bisexuality in the lives of young people. Journal of Bisexuality. ISSN 1529-9716

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Abstract

This article explores the negotiation of autism and bisexuality in the lives of young people (16–25). Identity negotiation in this regard refers to the exploration of how the participants experienced the intersection of bisexuality and autism from a personal and a social perspective. To do this the article uses data collected from interviews and diaries to examine how the participants understood the intersection, how others perceived their identities and how the participants challenged constructions of sexuality. As a result, the article works to move beyond deficit focused research which aims to understand what is missing from an autistic persons’ make-up which results in LGBT + identities. In doing so, it is suggested that a more worthwhile focus is upon socially constructed categories such as sexuality which are more open to be challenged. Bisexuality is uniquely positioned as it challenges a number of preconceptions about sexuality and gender. When combined with being autistic, the lived experiences of young people demonstrate a challenge to sexuality based upon rejecting constructions which are seen as being fragile. Such imperfect labels, such as bisexuality, may be important in furthering our understanding of the intersection.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Bisexuality
Creators:	Toft, A.
Publisher:	Routledge
Date:	25 May 2023
ISSN:	1529-9716
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/15299716.2023.2214134 DOI 1760603 Other
Rights:	© 2023 the author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	31 Jul 2023 15:14
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2023 15:14
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/49483

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