Autistic perspectives on sexuality, gender, and sex education

Despite the common misconception that developmentally disabled people are asexual, autistic people have unique and varied experiences of sexuality and gender. Notably, up 70% of autistic people may be LGBTQIA+, and almost 80% have experienced sexual victimisation. The limited existing evidence based suggests that current sexual education opportunities are almost universally irrelevant and/or inadequate for autistic people. Using an emancipatory research framework, this mixed-methods project seeks to understand autistic adults’ experiences of sexuality, gender, and sexual education; identify features that are salient to effective sexual education for this community; and translate these findings into more effective sexual education practice.