A lot of people have read Elsa’s story from the Frozen movies to be queer. Relating her letting go of fear and embracing her true self to be similar to a coming out story. As a queer person myself, I can see why and I totally agree, but I would also like to share why I consider it to be autistic. I’m a little bias since her story helped me cope a lot with the changes I made figuring out I’m autistic. There was a lot of anger, fear, and anxiety which is very prevalent in her arc of the first movie and it connected with me a lot.

The 3rd song of the movie, “For the First Time in Forever“, has some really interesting lyrics from Elsa:

Conceal, don’t feel

Put on a show

Make one wrong move and everyone will know

This is during her preparations for her coronation, where I feel that she is having to mask. She has to appear normal and if she messes up, everyone will know she isn’t. I relate it a lot to social expectations, being reserved and scared to mess up. I’m still that way, because I haven’t really figured out when it’s okay for me to talk. I beat myself up after any social interaction when all I did was add to a conversation, but I feel like I take up too much space when I do.

Moving on, I get sensory overload really fast and it takes a really long time to recover and I need to be alone for that. This is where I relate to her outburst at the event, and she runs away. She reveals herself and retreats and it feels very very similar to slipping up and the need to hide because of that. It’s embarrassing to be autistic around people who don’t really understand.

If we consider Elsa’s ice powers as a metaphor for autism, there’s a lot that can be done with that. This obviously isn’t explicit in the movie, nor the intention, but I will do it anyway. I think using her hands for create spirals of ice, especially in her song “Let it go”, where she is finally free to be her true self, the motions could be considered stimming. Stimming can be a lot of different things, but hands movement is common enough that I can relate, and hopefully so can other people. Apart from that, I think that her having to hide that specifically is good for an autistic reading. Her powers is the specific thing other people can’t see and it’s the one thing preventing her from “being/appearing normal”. Her parents desperately trying to teach her to conceal the powers is a lot like being trained in behaving “correctly” (obviously this isn’t about “bad” behaviors, but rather harmless autistic ones).

If we rewind a little, to the beginning of the film, the ice powers being a source of joy for Elsa and Anna, is a lot like embracing differences before you find them to be “weird”, before you’re taught to not be *like that*. Anna’s inclusion in this reading is really meaningful, because she is supportive. We know the parents care, but are going about it in a terrible way. Anna’s acceptance and care are the only reason the movie can end with Elsa being embraced by the kingdom and being able to use her ice powers freely.