For the past little while, I've been wondering if my little brother is genderqueer. When he plays games where you can pick the gender of a character (video games or LIFE), he will almost always go for the female option. The difficult thing about this case is that he is eight years old and has mild autism so I can't be certain if some traits are part of his autism, a quirky eight year old or potential gender queerness. Are there any other "signs" of gender queerness that I could look out for? I just want to let him know that it's all ok and tell him about me being pan, younger brother being bi and our parents are homophobic etc.. Thanks
It might be a small sign, but if that's the only sign, he could just be a boy who prefers female characters. I think it's normal to stray from gender norms, but dysphoria (being uncomfortable with sex specific characteristics or being seen as your birth gender) is the only way to tell, really. You could just ask him what gender he is or how he feels about his gender.
You're definitely reading way too deeply into this. Maybe he just likes playing as female characters because it's different. I'm very confident in my gender identity and I also play as female characters occasionally.
I don't think this really means anything...It's actually not that uncommon for little kids to explore different gender roles. My brother was extremely girly acting as a kid, but grew up to be masculine and heterosexual. You never know.
I think it's best not to over-analyze it until he's a little older, or says something about it. There are a lot of potential causes of him wanting to play as a girl, and while it may mean something, it may not. It's best not to make assumptions about this sort of thing, so don't worry about it too much.
It's not uncommon for children to stray outside the gender norms, only to grow up to fit right into gender norms. Also, the thing about autism is that it makes it difficult to pick up on social norms. As a result your brother wouldn't be as influenced by the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. I have Asperger's and, whether it's among boys or girls, I've never been into the things my peers are into. Many other autistic people experience this. As others have said, it's best not to over-analyse the situation at this point. At eight years old your brother hasn't even hit puberty, so it's far too early to assume anything about his gender.
I feel like I may have played as girls when I was a kid. I always liked peach in Mario Kart. I'm cis.
Oh, I missed the part where you said he had autism! People with autism experience things differently, so you really can't compare them with the neurotypical experience. For the most part, they don't even understand social roles and just do what fits them. As a woman with aspergers, I was very masculine oriented as a child. It's pretty normal for ASD people to reverse their gender roles and yet still be cis.
