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“Why do we never do brunches?” Roxxxy raised a brow at Jinkx. The two were in for the night, eating takeout on the couch of their apartment.
“You can, Rox. I don’t like doing day drag. My makeup in the sun… the smell makes me sick.” She wrinkled her nose. “We can do regular people bruch if you want, though.”
“What?” Roxxxy looked up from the box of fried rice. “Not the regular brunch thing, the smell thing.”
Jinkx shrugged, still focused on her lo mein. “Sensory overload. Blame the autism, I guess.”
There was a loud clatter as Roxxxy dropped her fork to the hardwood floor. “What? No, you’re not autistic.”
Jinkx gave Roxxxy a look. “Yeah, I am.”
“But…” her face contorted in utter bewilderment. “You have like, feelings and stuff.”
“I sure do.” Jinkx smirked and set her and Roxxxy’s food down on the coffee table. “You’ve made me feel basically all of them. I’m autistic, not a sociopath.” Seeing the other’s eyes wide in panic, she took Roxxxy’s hands in hers. “Calm down, dear. Nothing is different from how it was.”
Roxxxy shook her head. “You can’t be. That doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense about it?” Jinkx blinked, bemused, at her lover.
“You’re smart, and you’re funny, and you have feelings!” Roxxxy exclaimed, shaking her head. “You can’t be autistic.”
Jinkx sighed. “We’re gonna need a crash course in autism here, aren’t we?”
Roxxxy nodded.
“Can we finish eating first?”
Roxxxy considered, and nodded again.
~*~*~*~*~
Finished with dinner, Jinkx sat across from Roxxxy on the couch and took a deep breath. “So, being autistic doesn’t mean you can’t be smart, or creative, or emotional.” Jinkx gestured to herself. “Clearly.”
Roxxxy furrowed her brow. “What does it mean, then?”
Jinkx thought a moment. “Well, it never is quite the same in any two people. For me, it means my senses are extra sensitive, and that it can be hard to understand people. I also get really tired when I’m around people a lot, because it takes a lot more effort for me to socialize than it does for everyone else.”
“Your senses?” Roxxxy’s voice was tight. She was trying to understand, but was really struggling.
Jinkx nodded. “Like with day drag, makeup smells different in sunlight and that smell makes me feel queasy. It’s nothing at night, but during the day it’s just awful. That’s also why I almost always wear women’s clothes even out of drag, they’re much softer. Rough fabrics are so distracting I can barely focus.”
Roxxxy sat up straighter, the gears in her head squeaking into motion. “Is that why you were so uncomfortable during the perfume challenge back then?”
“Well, partly. I was also being harassed by someone,” she looked pointedly at Roxxxy, “And I had a crush on Ivy at the time. But all those smells were really hard to handle.”
Roxxxy pouted and laced her fingers together. “But… you don’t look autistic.”
Jinkx rolled her eyes and let out a loud cackle. “What-” she was consumed by another burst of laughter. “What does- What- What-” she snorted. “I’m so sorry, I’m not laughing at you.” Jinkx wiped at the corners of her eyes with a napkin and cleared her throat. “Let me try this again.” she managed to look Roxxxy in the eye for longer than usual -- which was easier since she knew her lover so well. “What does an autistic person look like, Roxxxy?” Her cheeks were sore and warm from laughing.
Roxxxy stared down at the coffee table. A dimple appeared in her chin. Jinkx smiled despite the soreness in her face.
“Uh, touche,” said Roxxxy. Looking up at Jinkx again, she brushed hair out of her face. “Just now -- you looked me in the eye. You look other queens -- fans -- in the eye, and isn’t that supposed to be an issue? With autistics? And is ‘autistics’ offensive, because it kinda feels like it might be now that I think about it.”
Jinkx blinked and sorted through all that information for a minute. “I’ll answer your first question first. I looked you in the eye because I’m comfortable around you, and I know you, and it’s a thing people do. It actually stresses me right the hell out, but at least with other queens, and a lot of the fans, I can look at their eye makeup and they can’t tell I’m not looking them in the eye.
“And as far as people with autism are concerned,” she went on. “Yeah, ‘autistics’ is… not good. We don’t say ‘disableds’ or… well people do say ‘schizophrenics’ so that's a bad example. In general, use ‘autistic people’ or ‘people with autism’.”
Roxxxy nodded. “Because you’re people -- you are not the… disease you have.” She winced on ‘disease’, already able to tell that was the wrong thing to say. “Sorry, I don’t know the right words.”
Jinkx took Roxxxy’s hand again. “Don’t be sorry -- nobody’s born knowing everything. You’re learning.”
Roxxxy smiled and Jinkx saw her shoulders relax some.
“Autism is a developmental and processing disability,” said Jinkx. “It’s not a disease -- you don’t ‘catch the autism’ from vaccines or peanuts or genetically modified food. What causes it, they don’t know. But vaccines definitely, definitely don’t cause autism.”
“Disability,” echoed Roxxxy. “You seem… fine?”
Jinkx exhaled. “I do fine -- I work around my… issues.” She scoffed lightly. “You’ve always known I was disabled, Roxxxy. The narcolepsy hasn’t exactly been a secret.”
Roxxxy blushed. “Ah, right,” she cleared her throat. “That. Forgot about that.”
“But some autistic people don’t -- can’t. It’s bad for them and they can’t live their lives like most people. And some people make it to adulthood before they find out they were autistic their whole life.”
Roxxxy’s eyebrows lifted. “How can you go through school and shit and not know?”
Jinkx shrugged. “Their autism may be mild and people may not think it’s an issue, but without diagnosis, a lot of behaviors don’t make sense to neurotypicals. They get seen as ‘quiet’ or ‘sensitive’ or ‘wimpy’. It’s worth mentioning that women and people of color are wildly underdiagnosed for autism.”
Roxxxy blinked.
“Did that not make sense?” questioned Jinkx. She was learning Roxxxy’s tics, but she so often forgot people talk with more than just their words. Why couldn’t people just say what they meant so she didn’t have to make a mental chart for every piece of body language?
Roxxxy took a deep breath. “Now, I’m trying to riddle this one out on my own… neurotypicals -- don’t say anything I wanna get there myself. Neurotypicals are people… who are… typical… in their brains?”
Jinkx smiled and nodded.
The dimple showed up again on Roxxxy’s chin. “But I heard somebody use that word when they were talking about like depression or something.”
“Yeah, it applies to people who don’t have mental illness as well. Neurologically typical -- their brains work like they’re supposed to.”
Roxxxy nodded. “Okay.” Her voice got quieter. “Okay.”
Jinkx tilted her head. “What are you thinking right now?”
Roxxxy looked up and bit her lip. “Hm? Oh, just trying to process all this.”
Jinkx’ heart dropped. “Are you -- do you -- do you not want to date me anymore?”
Roxxxy’s eyes grew wide and she shot straight up. “No! No! Of course not! I mean--” She took Jinkx’ hand and kissed it. “Of course I still want to date you, kitten, it’s just a lot of information.”
“Oh,” Jinkx sighed in relief. “Do you want to be done? We can watch Netflix. I hear One Day at a Time is good.”
Roxxxy smiled and stared into Jinkx’ palm. “That sounds nice, just one more question, okay?”
“Of course.”
Roxxxy looked up at the ceiling. “What… are things… I should never ask you -- like what are the dumbest and most insulting questions you get? That I haven’t already asked, I mean.”
“Oh,” Jinkx groaned. “Girl, do not get me started. I could give you a list.”
Roxxxy laughed. “Really?”
Jinkx started counting on her fingers. “There’s ‘i thought autistic people couldn't talk’,’but you're smart’,’you're an adult, don’t you outgrow that?’,‘you're just not trying’, I have a whole powerpoint presentation on how awful Autism Speaks is--”
“Really?” Roxxxy saw a fire light in Jinkx’ brown eyes and she wanted her girlfriend to unload completely; she loved seeing that spark of passion. “Tell me more.”
Twenty minutes later, Jinkx stood in the middle of the living room and summed up her lecture with “And THAT is why Autism Speaks is to Autistic people as PETA is to animals.”
Roxxxy stood up and applauded.