Season 05 Ep 05: Autism, Gender, and Breaking Free from Social Programming with Sol Smith
You may be aware that there is a significant overlap between neurodivergence and transness. So today, I’m talking with a guest who is both an expert in neurodivergence–and he’s autistic himself–and a parent of queer and trans children.
Sol Smith is a social media creator and author of the book The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult. Much of his work focuses on neurodivergent adults who may have received a diagnosis or self-realized later in life and helping them figure out what it means to be neurodivergent and understand why their lives may have been a lot different than what they were told they should be.
Today we’ll be chatting about the overlap of neurodivergence and transness in our kids, and also how–because neurodivergence is genetic–when I tell a parent that I think their kid might be neurodivergent, I might also be telling them, hey, you might be too.
So if you’ve got a trans kid and you’ve ever had an inkling that maybe you don’t experience the world the way other people do, this episode might be for you.
Find this episode for free on your favorite podcast player.
Check out the full episode to hear about:
How pandemic shutdowns created space for Sol and his family to make big realizations about their identities
Why unpacking his history through an autistic lens helped make sense of his past, but not without grief
How the social environment impacts individual expressions of autism and who gets diagnosed in childhood versus adulthood
How strong family inheritance of autistic traits can lead to denial and second-guessing
How neurodivergence, transness, and strength of socialization overlap
Breaking down some key ways that autistic people differ from their neurotypical peers
Find out more about Sol Smith:
Instagram: @theprofessorsol
TikTok: @better_sol
The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult