(PS3-A16) Gender Diversity and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Examining Quality of Life and the Influence of Caregiver Attitudes

Research examining the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder and diverse gender identities has increased in the past two decades and continues to grow exponentially. As a dually marginalized population, these individuals likely experience, anticipate, and internalize stressors and stigma related to their identity that can lead to negative outcomes such as lower quality of life. Additionally, the relationship between minority stress and quality of life may be further influenced by protective and risk factors such as caregiver acceptance and level of autistic characteristics, respectively. However, limited research has been conducted assessing psychosocial outcomes for gender-diverse autistic individuals. The proposed study intended to address the paucity of literature regarding outcomes for gender-diverse, autistic individuals. The study’s design and aims were also informed by the knowledge and experiences of gender-diverse, autistic community consultants to better serve the needs of the community. A national survey including measures of perceived caregiver acceptance, nonaffirmation, quality of life, autistic characteristics, and demographics was administered to 140 individuals on the autism spectrum that identify as gender diverse. These individuals will be compared to separate established samples that will be obtained with permission from other authors who have published quality of life data. One-way ANOVAs will be used to examine group differences for these samples while multiple linear regression and moderation analyses will be used to assess the relationship between caregiver attitudes and quality of life. It is hypothesized that gender-diverse autistic individuals will have lower physical, psychological, social, and environmental quality of life when compared separately with neurotypical, autistic, and gender-diverse individuals. Additionally, gender-diverse autistic individuals will have lower autism-related quality of life than the comparison autistic sample. It is also expected that greater levels of autistic characteristics will significantly predict lower levels of autism-related quality of life. Lastly, it is hypothesized that participants' combined rating of their caregivers' acceptance of gender diversity will be positively predictive of quality of life, with disagreement between caregivers decreasing the strength of this relationship.