Detransitioning at the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality, and Autism: Kaylyn's Counternarrative

• In Event: Identity Making and World Making

Abstract

This paper explores the lived experience of Kaylyn, who identifies as a person with Autism and is currently in the process of detransitioning back to female after having lived for three years as a man. In order to tell Kaylyn’s story, we utilized a narrative inquiry considering her full life-story. While we utilized an interpretivist paradigm in order to analyze her story, we were also informed by queer theory throughout the study. We hope to be able to challenge the current limited and biased understanding of what it means to detransition and how that identity intersects with having ASD. We acknowledge, too, that we must walk a narrow line when sharing Kaylyn’s story due to the current political trans-exclusionary climate.

Authors

• Juliana Capel Velasco, University of South Florida - Tampa

• Leia K. Cain, University of South Florida