It’s an interesting point you bring up, the intersection of gender and sexuality presentation and autism spectrum conditions — there’s a tendency in the BDSM community (especially in the queer leather parts of it) to presume that wearing something on the left indicates that the wearer is a top or dominant while wearing something on the right connotes bottom or submissive. It gets as granular as the way boots and shoes are laced; some tops like their boots laced with the left lace over the right when in the handmaid’s or poor woman’s lace pattern. (Before I developed a sensitivity to horsehair I was a competitive bootblack, so I’ve seen a lot of people’s boots up close and personal.)

The way I lace my boots doesn’t have anything to do with my sexual, sex, or gender identifications. I lace my boots so that the laces are symmetrical across a mirror plane between my feet, either with an inside over outside handmaid’s lace or poor woman’s lace or a straight-across lace that doesn’t have the laces crossing visibly at all. Symmetry is a big issue for me and some asymmetries make for a lot of noise in my head. I wind up having to explain that way, way too much.

Having mobility impairments almost makes my gender presentation (most days I present as somewhere on the femme side of androgynous) easier in some ways; I have a good excuse to not wear the very feminine shoes that hurt and to wear the big stompy boots I love. I can’t lift my arms above my head to wear complicated hairstyles and wearing makeup more than occasionally makes my sensitive skin unhappy — and I’m not all that interested in doing either. Fortunately for me, aside from my height I have a body that isn’t visibly marked as trans so I can get away with skipping some feminine performance without having my gender questioned. Much.

My gender presentation has definitely interacted with my disability and my sexuality. I ID as pretty feminine, but thanks to AS I have a really, really difficult time telling what the connotations of various clothing choices are and am *terrified* of accidentally sending out some message I don’t mean to or know about by virtue of what I wear. As a result, I tend to always wear the pretty androgynous combination of jeans, T-shirt and hoodie because that’s a “safe” choice, even though I really like flowing skirts and other far more feminine clothing choices. Also, I simply don’t have the energy to manage things like make-up, jewellery or hair styling except on special occasions, and can often only just maintain minimum standards of personal hygiene let alone spend time on that kind of thing.

Sexuality also comes into it, because I’m asexual and am really, really uncomfortable with people being sexually interested in me. It’s a type of attention I do not know how to deal with at all. So although I enjoy looking attractive (in an aesthetic sense) my usual dress is often more focussed on minimising my sexual appeal (e.g. baggy hoodies). Would like to point out since it came up above that this isn’t de facto standard for asexuals, I don’t think my discomfort at sexual interest is that usual and I think most asexual people dress pretty much like most sexuals, really.
.-= Kaz´s last blog ..randomness =-.

I’m fairly low-key in my femininity (I’m cis)–my Big Concessions are wearing a nice shirt with my jeans, and matching jewellery to which of my four hairstyles I’m wearing today. It wasn’t until my disability became a public thing that my body became a source of pride. I guess when you defend something against all comers, you figure out you’re actually right when you say there’s nothing wrong with it. On the other hand, my disability balances out how far I can go with my gender, since the more disabled I look, the less sexual attention I get. “Sure, this is a really low-cut shirt, but I’ll have my cane with me so nobody will notice anyway.”