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The author presents an account of the psychoanalytic treatment of a girl diagnosed with Asperger syndrome which illustrates the constellation of feelings and fantasies, related to the construction of gender identity during puberty in autism. The author insists on the existential nature of what she names the 'autistic level’ of the Oedipus complex, to elucidate the specific nature of the conflict between tenderness and cruelty, related to the fear of the loss of bodily integrity, which can be observed in the transference. The author distinguishes between two situations, defined according to whether the capacity to identify with unharmed parental figures and to integrate them in psychic bisexuality has been sufficiently elaborated or not, prior to this period. The author concludes with a discussion of the technical implications this has for treatment.