Online Focus Group Study on How Autistic People Think About Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

I’m an autistic doctoral student at Widener University researching how autistic people conceptualize the ideas of gender identity and sexual orientation, both for their personal identities and as general ideas. The aim of this study is to see if autistic people think about these ideas differently than neurotypical people do, since there is a higher percentage of LGBTQIA+ people in the autistic community than the non-autistic community.

To participate, you must be: autistic, diagnosed or self-ID’d; over the age of 18 years old; living in the United States; have reliable Internet or mobile network technology access; able to use messaging app Signal; have an 8th grade English reading level; able to sign a consent form.

Anyone interested will first be expected to complete an interest form which ensures they meet the criteria and asks basic demographic questions. This form is open October 1st, 2025 through October 30th, 2025. Once closed, participants will be selected; everyone will be emailed if they were accepted or if they were not accepted. If accepted, they’ll be asked to meet with Lindsay Mixer for a brief 15-30min window on Zoom to go over the study and consent form, after which they’ll be emailed the form to sign.

The focus groups will take place over two one-hour periods on November 7th and November 8th, 2025, from 3PM to 4PM ET each day via the message app Signal. One day will focus on discussing sexual orientation and the other will focus on discussing gender identity.

After the focus groups, all participants will have an opportunity to read over the research findings before it is submitted to my doctoral committee and provide comments, clarifications, and corrections.

There is not a lot of research conducted on the prevalence of LGBTQIA+ identities within the autistic population. What research does exist notices the higher rates of LGBTQIA+ identity, usually within small groups, with two notable large scale studies which found a prevalence of 25-30% LGBTQIA+ identity in autistic populations in two European countries–compared to the 10-12% rate usually quoted in large scale general population studies.

As far as the researcher is aware, no studies have really looked into why these higher rates might exist. I theorize that autistic people may come at the social constructs of gender identity and sexual orientation differently than non-autistic people, leading us to be more open to LGBTQIA+ identities. This focus group will ask specific questions around this topic from a social constructionist lens, and by letting participants interact with each other in answering will provide much richer data. Hopefully, this will give autistic people some answers why they feel the way they do about gender identity and sexual orientation, and help non-autistic people and researchers to be more open-minded about autistic queer identities moving forward.