However, roller derby was not a purely positive experience for me, at least at first. It was in many ways a challenging sport to pick up, as a result of my being on the autism spectrum. When I started taking part in roller derby minimum skills training in early 2017, I knew I could functionally rollerblade in a circle in my teens, and assumed that would translate to a natural aptitude for derby basic training. What I had not counted on going into my first session was how much my brain would fight me every step of the way.
When it comes to living with Asperger’s, one of my big issues is often audio processing. I find it incredibly difficult to mentally tune out unnecessary background noises and as a result often find it tough to pick important noises out of a wall of sound. In derby there’s constantly the whoosh of skates, the screech of wheels as people slow down using T or plough stops, the echo of these sounds off the venue walls, the noises of other sports going on the other side of a net partition, loud whistles and talking, and all of these noises change intensity rapidly due to the nature of quickly moving around the room. What this means in practice is that I often find it tough to pick out important audio commands given in the heat of the moment. I might fail to hear someone shouting my name or derby nickname, I might struggle to understand an instruction shouted from the other side of the room, and the general level of background noise is constantly taking up a part of my brain. The noise at derby is a constant low level static, and I have to make a conscious effort to hear through it, and to not get stressed by it. During the heat of an actual derby game, this can cause some real issues. In terms of gameplay, being able to communicate with your team is vital, and if you miss a shout from them it can really prevent you engaging with the strategy the other players are working towards. On top of that, for safety, it’s important you’re able to respond swiftly and efficiently to referee commands as they are shouted. If you break a game rule, and a referee shouts your name and number and tells you to get into the penalty box, you have to leave the track straight away or you risk being called for insubordination and ignoring the referee, and being kicked out of the game entirely.
Thankfully, there are some accommodations available that over time helped me to adapt to the noise aspects of the sport. After talking to my team’s referees about my sensory processing issues, they let me know that roller derby refs make accommodations for people marked down as hard of hearing, allowing them additional shouts, or the option of eye contact and a visual cue, before insubordination is called. Apparently, while not deaf, my sensory processing issues with sound qualify as hard of hearing and entitled me to additional accommodations to ensure that I was not unfairly punished for failing to hear a referee command over the sound of the static in the room. They let me know that my league, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, not only support hard of hearing accommodations for skaters with auditory processing issues, like those experienced by some on the autism spectrum, they are also incredibly protective of the right for trans women to skate at professional levels within competitive play. Both of these revelations made me feel far more confident about continuing to stick with the sport long term.
Beyond the audio issues, I’m very specific about the terms on which I am okay with physical contact. The short and oversimplified version is that I do enjoy physical contact when I am able to initiate it and have control of the intensity and duration. If I feel like I have control, and can opt out of the situation if needed, then that is a big part of me being comfortable with that contact. In derby, opting out of unexpected physical contact isn’t really an option. Pairs weaving pace lines, whips, hits, blocks and general pack weaving and movement all involve uninitiated and often unexpected personal contact. I find physical contact emotionally and mentally draining: I am constantly aware of any parts of myself in contact with other people, feel vulnerable and endangered, and fixate on memorising the other person’s position so I know I’ll notice if they put me in an unsafe situation. I get paranoid about germs and dirt and all sorts of uncomfortable tactile sensory information. I can’t do much about it, but it’s a reality of derby I’m having to work out how to handle as we move into more and more areas of the contact element of the sport.
Thanks to being on the autism spectrum I suffer with a whole host of coordination issues and motor control issues that were not a barrier to general skating in a circle as a teen, but have been a barrier to overcome while trying to get serious about playing roller derby. I struggle considerably with posture and balance due to my inability to properly predict how changes in balance will affect my stability, my movements have always been uneven leading to notable weakened muscle strength and motor control difficulty on my left side compared to my right, and while I have a lack of fear in the grand sense that allows me to really go for things, small-scale body shifts cause me to panic, leading to me slamming on my toe stops at the slightest sign of a wobble. One stumble and I panic for rest of a given session and my form goes downhill. While I can skate well enough in a circle, walking left to right on a straight line and swapping which foot passes over or under the other with each step is a nightmare situation for me, and one I have had to practise day in and day out at home. I still can’t get it right. I also struggle to do things like left-footed T stops or the left leg component of plough stops because my left leg just won’t obey me the way my right leg does.
During my minimum skills assessments period, I experienced two weeks where I missed out on big chunks of sessions due to unexpected situations completely outside my control. One week I injured my ankle and could not skate properly, and another week a part of my skate snapped and I was unable to continue skating until I cobbled together a makeshift solution. These situations were ultimately harmless, but both of them left me incredibly distressed.
The reason I struggle with these kinds of situations is they are sudden and unexpected changes to routine. With the constant onslaught of sensory information barraging my brain, routine and predictability are key to me being able to function with a semblance of normality in life. I plan, I predict, I am not surprised and I feel like I have some control over the uncontrollable. I avoid thinking about how loud the universe is on a cosmic scale, where everything is always happening everywhere and I can’t control any of it, and I convince myself things are understandable and predictable and controllable. When plans change and I don’t have options to adapt, that gets really distressing. That has been a factor in my minimum skills sessions more than once and I hope I can find a solution for that.
Beyond all these, there’s also the issue that most of the stimming solutions I currently make use of in my life are not suitable for use mid-derby, while kitted up in derby gear or while actively up on skates. This means that while a lot of these Asperger’s traits are manageable day to day, I can’t make use of my coping mechanisms properly during derby sessions.
I know this list probably gives the impression that I’m not enjoying roller derby, but in fact it’s quite the opposite. I have been loving every minute of my time doing roller derby for precisely these reasons; it’s challenging me on a weekly basis in an environment that feels nothing but supportive. Sure I struggle with a bunch of aspects of the activity, but I’ve been made to feel welcome and safe while learning how to adapt. Roller derby has given me a place to practise working through my autism symptoms, with a fun, challenging goal to work towards while surrounded by some of the most LGBT and mental health-supportive women I have ever had the pleasure to meet. It’s a group I don’t have to be embarrassed to be gay, trans or on the autism spectrum around, who have welcomed me in as a woman without any reservations, and taken me from a sports hater to someone proud to kit up and get out there with my team.
CHAPTER 14
Where Do I Go from Here?
So, here we are: the end of the book. Wow, this has been a bit of a journey for me to write. I know things got a bit dark and depressing in places, but I want to leave you all on a more positive note: where my life is now, and where it’s going in the
future.
As I write this, I am a 26-year-old gay trans woman living with an autism spectrum condition. I’m living in a beautiful part of the country full of fields and hills, with my fiancée who loves and supports me for everything I am. I’m holding down a stable job as a writer, making enough every month to live a settled life and have some fun, and life is pretty good.
While there are a lot of unique challenges that come with being a trans woman with autism, and they personally made my life pretty rough for a while, they’re all things that can be worked through with a little understanding and support from the world at large. Over the years I’ve become better at handling my autism symptoms, better at explaining them to those around me, and the people in my life have learned how to better understand and support me with my specific needs. My hope is that people not on the autism spectrum who’ve read this will come away with that new sort of understanding of the issues, and how to better support the needs of people like me.
I’ve also got much better at accepting who I am, largely due to the support of a lovely group of friends. The internet made it easier than ever for me to meet other lovely trans people to talk to about how I feel, but perhaps even more important were the friends who met me, never made a big deal of my trans status and just let me be another one of the girls. I really want to give a shout out here to my friends Becky and Makeda who were some of the first people to befriend me in early transition, back when I really wasn’t doing a good job of presenting as feminine. They never once brought up my trans status, and just made me feel wanted and accepted in a way that really emboldened me to believe transition was okay and wouldn’t ruin my chances of living a happy life. Seriously, if more cisgender people out there were willing to just accept at face value the gender a person tells them they are, assume they know their pronouns best, call them the name they want to be called, not feel the need to make a big deal of their trans status and be willing to defend those friends when they need it, a big chunk of what makes early transition difficult and scary would be improved. If, like me, a trans person wants to undergo medication or surgery, those changes take years and the results vary wildly, and we need friends by our side who will back up our right to just live as ourselves and be taken seriously as women, even if we wake up after a sleepover with a bit of stubble going on.
Sure, living life as a trans woman with autism is sometimes tough, but those challenges we face have created some of the most caring, empathetic, societally aware, loving people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. There’s something about going through difficult times that seems to give forth an understanding of struggle, and leads people to fight hard to ensure others don’t have to experience what we did.
While I personally struggled with early signs of dysphoria and autism being ignored, things on that front are improving over time. Diagnostic criteria are being tweaked to better catch people who previously fell through the net, social media has allowed information about us to spread and become more easily accessible, and children growing up like I did now have better access to explanations of what they are experiencing and how they might be able to seek help. I struggled in a pre-internet age, but the internet is in many ways helping kids like me to work out what they’re experiencing earlier than before.
While the lack of discussion of the overlap between autism and LGBT status was a problem for a long time, we are finally starting to see progress. I started writing this book because, for the first time in my life, I came across some of the statistics about the overlap in early 2018, and in the time since my writing on the book began, more and more articles have begun to pop up online on the topic. We’re a long way from this becoming common knowledge, or treatment that supports the overlap becoming the standard, but the conversation is starting and I really hope this book serves as a catalyst to get this conversation spreading.
Coming out of the closet as LGBT is still difficult, as is coming to terms with being on the autism spectrum, but with the internet age firmly upon us, children today have more role models to encourage them than ever before. From rock stars to actresses, YouTube stars to professional gamers, there are idols out there kids can look to, and just be reminded that being trans and having autism are not necessarily barriers to achieving your dreams and living a happy life. While transition can be tough for people on the autism spectrum, there are constantly more and more advice, tools, clothing and communities available to help find ways through those turbulent years without setting off sensory issues. The fact that I own seam-free clothing and stimming jewellery is a sign we’re slowly making progress.
While a lot of LGBT spaces are still not accommodating to adults with autism, the fact that Pride events are attempting to create spaces and London is soon to be home to a dedicated space for adults on the autism spectrum is a reassuring sign that there’s an awareness of the needs of the community.
Sure, things still suck sometimes. I’m having to get more comfortable than I would like about death and I’m occasionally judged by the world for trying to squeeze some childhood into my late 20s, but I feel proud enough of myself to no longer hide who I am.
My name is Laura, and I am a trans woman living with autism. My road to where I am today has been rocky to say the least, but I wouldn’t be who I am without the things that make me me.
I am proud to be a trans woman with autism, and no matter what the world tries, it’s not getting rid of me.
Further Resources
Now that my story is done, at least for now, some of you might be left wanting more information on some of the things I’ve talked about. This section of the book aims to direct you to some resources that might be useful to engage with. The following suggestions are in no way required reading, but they’re things you might find useful or informative after reading this book.
A Disproportionate Number of Autistic Youth Are Transgender. Why? by Evan Urquhart, Slate, https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/why-are-a-disproportionate-number-of-autistic-youth-transgender.html
Gender and Autism, The National Autistic Society, www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/gender.aspx
Life on the Autism Spectrum: A Guide for Girls and Women by Karen McKibbin (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
GLAAD Media Reference Guide: Transgender, www.glaad.org/reference/transgender
Mermaids, a charity dedicated to supporting transgender youth, www.mermaidsuk.org.uk
Transgender 101: A Guide to Gender and Identity to Help You Keep Up with the Conversation by Sam Dylan Finch, https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/08/transgender-101
What is Asperger Syndrome? The National Autistic Society, www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx
Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Understanding Life Experiences from Early Childhood to Old Age by Sarah Hendrickx (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
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Jenny and Ken Dale, thank you for supporting a child who often didn’t make life easy.
Becky and Makeda, thank you for being my Tres Horny Gals. I couldn’t ask for better gal pal nerds.
To everyone who has supported me, be it through friendship, engaging with my work, creating fan art, supporting me financially or just quietly reading and listening, thank you for letting me live the dream.
First published in 2019
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
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Copyright © Laura Kate Dale 2019
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78592 587 0
eISBN 978 1 78592 588 7
of related interest
He’s Always Been My Son
A Mother’s Story about Raising Her Transgender Son
Janna Barkin
ISBN 978 1 78592 747 8
eISBN 978 1 78450 525 7
Yes, You Are Trans Enough
My Transition from Self-Loathing to Self-Love
Mia Violet
ISBN 978 1 78592 315 9
eISBN 978 1 78450 628 5
Trans Voices
Becoming Who You Are
Declan Henry
Foreword by Professor Stephen Whittle, OBE
Afterword by Jane Fae
ISBN 978 1 78592 240 4
eISBN 978 1 78450 520 2
Uncomfortable Labels Page 14