The multiplied self: a critical phenomenological investigation into autistic trans experiences of camouflaging

Autistic transgender (trans) (AT) people routinely engage in camouflaging: they adopt certain behaviours in order to fit into neurotypical spaces (Petrolini et al., 2023). First-person accounts suggest that AT people experience camouflaging in a unique, distressing, more complex and often heightened way than cis (i.e. not trans) autistic people (Purkis & Lawson, 2021). They have autistic and gendered traits to camouflage, as a doubly persecuted minority.

This project explores the following questions: 1) What is the phenomenological experience of autistic transgender (trans) camouflaging?

2) How might the phenomenology of being 'doubled' apply to this group, and does this explain their reported distress levels?

AT people have been neglected from all fields of research, and research on camouflaging has only focused on cis people's experience (Gould, 2017; Wood-Downie et al., 2020); AT people have been misunderstood and silenced, making this research urgent (Shapira & Granek, 2019; Sparrow, 2020). We need to understand their specific experience as a unique marginalised group.

My project provides a phenomenological analysis of AT camouflaging, using de Beauvoir's framework of 'doubling'(1953). De Beauvoir postulates that (cis) women are doubled: objectified into existing as both oneself and the image of oneself (ibid.: 335-6). Autistic people may be similarly 'doubled', experiencing their neurodivergent selves "inside" as well as their outer camouflage.

The need to manage gender presentation arguably causes many trans people to experience the former to a heightened degree, perhaps experiencing 'tripling' rather than doubling (Thaemlitz, 2004). Combining the two, AT people may experience quadrupling or even quintupling, which, I will explore, may explain their reported heightened distress levels.

This project is interdisciplinary, crossing philosophy and social psychology. My first research method is critical phenomenology (CP), which analyses first-person experience and examines how power relations and discrimination structure experience (Weiss et al., 2020). My second and qualitative method is interpretative phenomenologic alanalysis (IPA).

I will conduct semi-structured interviews with up to eight AT individuals (Smith, 1996). This additional data-gathering is required because I could not fully answer my research questions without engaging directly with AT people, having them talk freely on their experiences/views of camouflaging and 'doubling'. IPA allows for flexible and collaborative conversations where individuals can speak comfortably and openly, exploring ideas at a depth very rarely afforded elsewhere (Smith & Fieldsend, 2021). This will undergo rigorous ethics approval procedures.

I aim to provide AT people firstly with nuanced research which centres their voices, which they can access online and via AT networks and conferences I hope to speak at (e.g. the U21 autism research network and the AHRC funded queer studies network 'Beyond Radical'). I also aim to speak at philosophical conferences focused on autism and/or gender, as well as phenomenology conferences (e.g. the British Society for Phenomenology conference).

Furthermore, I aim to inform practitioners, such as clinicians, therapists etc., reaching them online via a website, and via a workshop, where I can present my findings and provide resources such as executive summaries, to aid their understanding of their AT clients' experiences.