Me too, but muted

“I hear so many people talk about how they get stared at in public, and honestly I’m really grateful because that doesn’t happen to me.”

“Ohhh, yes it does.”

If I could describe my partner’s tone at the time, while we were getting dressed for the symphony, it was anything but flirtatious. An undercurrent of meta-frustration at the world, with a hint of sad surprise.

As usual, there was nothing remotely low about my neckline. As usual, said neckline was high enough to hide a sports bra (arguably my first de-facto chest binder, as a man still three years from realizing just that). And, as usual, the dress went to my knees.

But none of that mattered, because the world stares at women.

I had to wonder how I missed this, and I think to some degree I know: the nonverbal world is not my home.

I am autistic, and whatever wavelength those stares and small movements and wordless horrors ride on — perhaps it goes right over my head.

My eyes don’t naturally lock with leers; my body language, if and when it exists, is an entirely foreign one. I am spared the subtler undercurrents of a sexist world, or at least I was lucky enough to avoid them by happenstance. (And I was a woman who happened to walk home from downtown Boston to one of its suburbs on a nightly basis, year round. What luck!)

Now, before you say, “Aha! This isn’t autism; it’s just proof that harassment isn’t the problem you feminists make it out to be!”, let me rattle off a few of the less subtle encounters my female form has had.

Right of the bat:

• Age 18: “Are you taking this bus? I want to know if you are taking this bus!” (A stranger who approached me and stood uncomfortably close when I was commuting home from Houston to my hometown of Katy).
• Age 19: “We’re having an orgy! Come join us!” (Yelled by a group of young men in the back of a pickup truck as I walked to class)
• Age 21: A man caught up to me on my morning walk and repeatedly refused to leave my side unless I took his email address. I finally took it after about 20 minutes so he would leave me alone and not follow me to my apartment.
• Age 23: While riding the train home from work, a man simply grabbed my hand from the pole to hold it without warning.
• Age 24: “Don’t let her take you for your money!” (A stranger in Boston, to my partner as we walked from the train station to dinner. For what it’s worth, we’re both software engineers, we made the exact same gross salary at the time, and we have never shared a bank account.)

So, yeah. Me too.

That said, I suppose my wonky mind was good for something far more important than I expected or perhaps will never know.