Belonging and camouflaging while Black, female and autistic
July 10, 2024

By Mike McNulty

To what extent does a person truly “fit in,” when fitting in requires hiding parts of one’s authentic self? What disruptions arise at the juncture between belonging and “camouflaging,” specifically for those who identify as Black, female and autistic? How can occupational science — a discipline that champions doing, being, becoming and belonging —advocate and enact more inclusive, safe and equitable spaces so that historically marginalized people can, finally and unapologetically, belong?

These questions and more are explored in a new conceptual article published in Autism in Adulthood by a team of USC researchers and students from the Disparity Reduction and Equity in Autism Services, or DREAmS, Lab.

Led by Assistant Professor Amber Angell, the DREAmS lab focuses on populations that are under-identified with autism, under-represented in research and underserved by health systems, such as autistic girls and women, autistic Latinx children and their families and LGBTQIA+ autistic adults.

Occupational science PhD candidate and DREAmS team member Marshae Franklin OTD ’21, PhD ’26, an occupational therapist who has worked with autistic and neurodivergent pediatric populations, is the article’s lead author.

“I was leading social skills for autistic children when I began realizing that I’m teaching them how to do everything but be themselves,” Franklin said. “‘Keep your hands still; make eye contact.’ I got uncomfortable with reinforcing conformity to neurotypical norms.”

Neurodivergent collaborators inform and enhance research

In recent years, camouflaging has increasingly gained attention in research literature and among autistic communities. Also referred to as “masking” or “passing as neurotypical,” camouflaging is a strategy that neurodivergent people may use to hide their neurodivergent traits so that they might gain acceptance by others or feel safer in a neuronormative society that upholds certain standards, expectations and ideals as the so-called “right” way to function.

According to Franklin and co-author Ellie Taylor PhD ’25, examples of masking include adopting non-autistic facial expressions such as forcing smiles, making eye contact despite discomfort and accepting unwanted physical touch, such as hand-over-hand guidance from a therapist without prior consent.

The topic of camouflaging, however, has not yet been addressed in any occupational science literature.

“In so many ways, autistic camouflaging is done for survival. But when you’re masking who you truly are — your autistic sense of being — can that ever lead to authentic belonging?,” Franklin said. “If occupational scientists say that belonging is about health and survival, then we’d better consider some of the ways in which camouflaging disrupts daily occupations, and how belonging is not always that healthy for everybody.”

Franklin wrote the article with a group of autistic and allistic (non-autistic) co-authors, some of whom are the Autistic Lived Experience Collaborators, a group of neurodivergent co-researchers who support research in the DREAmS lab. The article also critiques the ways in which Black autistic women have been largely ignored by researchers. The authors use a Black Feminist Disability Framework to highlight the unique experiences of people with intersecting marginalized identities based on race, gender and neurotype — what Franklin calls a “triple bind” experience of marginality.

The authors also offer perspectives based upon their own diverse life experiences and areas of expertise, with the aim of empowering autistic women with language and words that might better describe their personal experiences, including how camouflaging may have caused occupational disruptions in their lives.

“As I reflect, I learned so much working with autistic children on social skills, and now I’m learning even more from autistic adults, including the DREAmS lab Autistic Lived Experience Collaborators, and I’m excited to bring that knowledge to future research with Black autistic women in higher education,” Franklin said. “And I’m thinking about the people whose voices haven’t been included in research, and how I want to make changes for them in the future.”

“An Occupational Science Contribution to Camouflaging Scholarship: Centering Intersectional Experiences of Occupational Disruptions” (Franklin et al., 2024) is now available in Autism and Adulthood at doi.org/10.1089/aut.2023.0070.

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