Autistic girls seeking answers ‘are seizing on sex change’

[Metaphor]

A summary of the evidence presented in the Keira Bell case from the UK.

A global expert on autism has warned in newly released legal papers that girls who are autistic or anorexic appear more likely to say they want to become boys.

The evidence by Professor Christopher Gillberg was given in a High Court case that led to a landmark ruling last month saying children under 16 were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo treatment with “experimental” puberty-blocking drugs, which almost always leads to taking cross-sex hormones to change their bodies.

...

Gillberg, a psychiatrist at Gothenburg University in Sweden who holds posts at several universities including Glasgow, is reviewing research into what happens to children who receive treatment for gender dysphoria. The study has not yet been published.

He told the High Court in a written statement that research showed that, left alone, the condition usually resolved itself, and that as girls grew up they accepted that they wanted to live as women. Gillberg said that in 45 years of treating autistic children, he saw few cases of gender confusion until 2013. Since then there had been a worldwide explosion in the number of children saying they wanted to change sex. In Sweden, as in the UK, he said, most were girls who wanted to be boys.

Research showed that teenagers with autism or anorexia as well as those who had endured difficult childhoods were more likely to say they wanted to change sex. One paper published last year suggested autism spectrum disorders had “a prevalence of 6%-26% in transgender populations, higher than the general population”.

Gillberg said teenagers were finding online transgender sites that suggested their problems would be solved if they changed sex. Autistic teenagers, he said, were particularly vulnerable to seizing on a single answer “to the lifelong identity problems they have suffered”.
“Thousands of adolescents are being offered ‘treatment’ with puberty blockers, sex-contrary hormones, and then, finally for some, with a variety of surgical procedures. In the UK as in Sweden, this is in spite of the non-existent research evidence that these treatments are of any long-term benefit to the young people in question,” he said.
IQ might be damaged by puberty blockers, he added, and effects such as a deeper voice and facial hair, as well as possible infertility in girls taking the drugs, were irreversible.

Gillberg said there was “growing anecdotal evidence that many would regret their decision to undergo the biological sex change”. Doctors should tell families that they were “dealing with a live experiment on adolescents and children”.

“Adolescence can be a particularly turbulent time when young people often make reckless decisions they later regret. Young people with autism and young people with anorexia nervosa are particularly vulnerable,” he said.

...





The number of referrals to the Tavistock’s gender service has risen sharply in recent years. In 2009, 97 children were referred. In 2018 that number was 2,519. Most of the children being prescribed puberty blockers from the clinic are girls. In 2011 the gender split was roughly 50-50 between girls and boys but by 2019 the split had changed so that 76% were girls.
Professor Sophie Scott, director of UCL’s Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, told the court that “puberty blockers have profound effects on the developing body, and as part of the changes seen in adolescence involve hormonal effects on brain function, the impact of these drugs on the brain maturation are likely to be deleterious”. She said she was “concerned that the current treatment regime is exposing young people to significant risk of harm. The greater susceptibility to peer pressure in those under 18 may make them especially vulnerable to risk-taking, and this may well be enhanced by social media, where actions can be encouraged without any responsibility for outcomes.”


...


Levine also said that black and Asian children, adopted children, girls and autistic youngsters were more likely to be diagnosed as trans in America. “Contrary to trans persons’ hopes that medicine and society can fulfil their aspiration to become a complete man or woman, this is not biologically attainable ... It is a rare gender-dysphoric young person who has no associated psychiatric diagnosis or symptoms suggesting one,” he said.


...



John Whitehall, professor of paediatrics at Western Sydney University in Australia, another expert witness, said that information given to families attending the Tavistock clinic “does not appear to share with confused children and their parents and carers the statistical assurance that almost all confused children will revert to an identity congruent with chromosomes through puberty, that ‘puberty blockers’ and cross-sex hormones have structural effects on the brain, and the warning that the rate of suicide in adults is significantly higher after transgendering.”

 

[repoman]

So in the same way that many cis people can't understand how someone can be transgender I wonder if there are mentally healthy transgender people who can't imagine that a mental disorder could lead to obsession about being transgender or non binary and so on.

Let's say that mentally healthy transgender people have a pinpoint section of the brain that relates to experience of physical body gender, but the rest of their brain is ho hum normal. Does this mean that it is impossible for other people to have an obsession about gender roles, orientation, fitting in, puberty and combined with the hyperfocus that autism and Aspergers can bring on to see their gender as an answer?

There are lots of teenagers on Tumblr who are just being teens who have rants about this.



Do these kids exercise, play a sport, play in a band, volunteer? This is the new version of goth and emo. And yeah I feel lucky that I just listened to The Smiths and The Cure and didn't have this social media around then.

The question is are they only at base really genderqueer and so on and face mistreatment from that ---- or are they lonely, not confident in general and is this gender stuff is a way to get attention and status and a reason for why they feel bad and worthless?

 

[Politesse]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

 

[Elixir]

Gender dysphoria is but one type of dysphoria.
Not nearly so dangerous to others as the moral dysphoria and resulting tolerance for cognitive dissonance that afflicts right wing hypocrites.

 

[repoman]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

Is it a long term solution to the problem or just kicking the can down the road?

 

[ZiprHead]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

Is it a long term solution to the problem or just kicking the can down the road?

That's for them to say, not you.

 

[Politesse]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

Is it a long term solution to the problem or just kicking the can down the road?

None of your goddamn business, that's for them and their therapist to discuss.

 

[repoman]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

Is it a long term solution to the problem or just kicking the can down the road?

None of your goddamn business, that's for them and their therapist to discuss.

Why not just deplatform me then?

 

[repoman]

This is an interesting counterpount to the OP by a non autistic transgender about the relation of trans and autism. Raises a lot of good points to mull over



Especially about the therapy that trans undergo (and cis do not) uncovers autism at higher rates making a discovery bias.

 

[J842P]

If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business? Keep your hands in your own fucking pants. Just because someone is autistic doesn't give you the right to tell them how to handle their private matters. Fucking genital police...

Is it a long term solution to the problem or just kicking the can down the road?

None of your goddamn business, that's for them and their therapist to discuss.

Well, this is a total non-response. I understand you don't want to discuss these issues critically, because that would be anathema to your ideology. But others might.

For example, you ask, "If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business?". Well, how do you know it helps resolve their anxiety?

 

[repoman]

None of your goddamn business, that's for them and their therapist to discuss.

Well, this is a total non-response. I understand you don't want to discuss these issues critically, because that would be anathema to your ideology. But others might.

For example, you ask, "If adopting a fluid gender helps resolve their anxiety, how is it any of your business?". Well, how do you know it helps resolve their anxiety?

Going to the root, anxiety happens at all stages of life but adolescent anxiety can be really brutal. Is anxiety fueling "fleeing to being trans" or is a natural state of the teens being trans/nonbinary/genderqueer just another source of anxiety? Are they fleeing the treatment that they see adult and teen females get from males? Men can be predatory assholes and porn is part of the fuel for that.

Metaphor, what do you think about the predatory sexual behavior of men in general? What about translating that into how women and not gay men would feel about it.

The Tik-Tok cringe video is about these teens venting about constantly being asked questions about themselves and their gender, it is useful to see I think. Maybe it is a rorschach test though and will reinforce whatever the viewer wants to see.

 

[laughing dog]

Physically changing one's sex is an important and irreversible (? or extremely difficult to reverse) process. So it is vital that these children and their parents are extremely well-informed of the benefits and costs of such a process. It seems to me that the OP is trying to bring up that there may be more to the decision-making process that needs to be addressed, albeit in a ham-handed fashion.

This does not mean anyone is trying to get in anyone's face about the decision.

 

[ruby sparks]

Going to the root, anxiety happens at all stages of life but adolescent anxiety can be really brutal. Is anxiety fueling "fleeing to being trans" or is a natural state of the teens being trans/nonbinary/genderqueer just another source of anxiety?

I read that almost as many adults as non-adults identify as transgender, so it doesn't seem to be just a teen anxiety thing?

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/age-trans-individuals-us/



I don't know much about this, but I would guess that for some young people, there might be factors that could include confusion, or anxiety, or other things, but I would tend to assume that in most cases, it's a genuine gender dysphoria, that is to say it's totally real.

 

[RVonse]

A summary of the evidence presented in the Keira Bell case from the UK.

A global expert on autism has warned in newly released legal papers that girls who are autistic or anorexic appear more likely to say they want to become boys.

This makes sense to me. Males with autism are said to be steered towards male cognitive brain functions on the bell curve. For example, autistic males are less sociable and sometimes even savants in mathematics (a male trait)

So it stands to reason that females with the same disorder would feel much more comfortable as males than females. Their brains already think they are males even though the genitalia was born female.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

The association between autism and gender dysphoria/ transgender identities has been known for some time (longer than just last year). I'm not sure if this was a new study or a meta-analysis of existing studies. 6-26% is a very broad range. It's difficult to understand a) how accurate this information is, and b) what the actual implications are. Of the 6-26% percent who may be autistic, an autism diagnosis doesn't preclude them from also being transgender. Obviously with higher numbers than present in the general population, it invites important questions. Is there a link between autism and gender dysphoria? A link between autism and falsely presenting with symptoms of/ attachment to gender dysphoria?

And what of the 94-74% who are not, in accordance with the study, on the autism spectrum?

Perhaps it would make sense to screen for autism in patients referred to gender identity clinics. Perhaps they would require different protocols. Perhaps not. Without a sense of the actual statistical outcomes for existing protocols, it's difficult to understand their efficacy. What studies I've seen on the efficacy rate of medical transition, it tends to be quite high. Like many studies concerning transgender people, there were limitations. And unfortunately, the data may not translate directly to, let's say, the current realities at Tavistock.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Doesn't mean that the therapists don't figure out they're wrong.

 

[Jarhyn]

The association between autism and gender dysphoria/ transgender identities has been known for some time (longer than just last year). I'm not sure if this was a new study or a meta-analysis of existing studies. 6-26% is a very broad range. It's difficult to understand a) how accurate this information is, and b) what the actual implications are. Of the 6-26% percent who may be autistic, an autism diagnosis doesn't preclude them from also being transgender. Obviously with higher numbers than present in the general population, it invites important questions. Is there a link between autism and gender dysphoria? A link between autism and falsely presenting with symptoms of/ attachment to gender dysphoria?

And what of the 94-74% who are not, in accordance with the study, on the autism spectrum?

Perhaps it would make sense to screen for autism in patients referred to gender identity clinics. Perhaps they would require different protocols. Perhaps not. Without a sense of the actual statistical outcomes for existing protocols, it's difficult to understand their efficacy. What studies I've seen on the efficacy rate of medical transition, it tends to be quite high. Like many studies concerning transgender people, there were limitations. And unfortunately, the data may not translate directly to, let's say, the current realities at Tavistock.

Honestly I expect that the higher instance of transitional efforts among trans people does not stem from a higher instance of core symptoms.

Rather, I suspect that the higher seen rates among autistic people stem from the fact that autistic people more greatly resist others telling them how they ought be.

Look at furries, they have a much higher instance of transitional efforts as well and similarly, furries have a community wherein the social emphasis on gender expectations is "who cares?"

It doesn't surprise me one bit that we are finding more points that land on "when someone is less liable to continue accepting others' demands over their identity, they are more often going to express their identity as not-cis

 

[repoman]

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P2nYKqwmHdYKARTG8/why-are-transgender-people-immune-to-optical-illusions

Related to things like this? Both more actual autism and diagnosis of autism in transgender people?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/diagnose-autism-with-simple-optical-illusion-study-science/amp

 

[J842P]

The association between autism and gender dysphoria/ transgender identities has been known for some time (longer than just last year). I'm not sure if this was a new study or a meta-analysis of existing studies. 6-26% is a very broad range. It's difficult to understand a) how accurate this information is, and b) what the actual implications are. Of the 6-26% percent who may be autistic, an autism diagnosis doesn't preclude them from also being transgender. Obviously with higher numbers than present in the general population, it invites important questions. Is there a link between autism and gender dysphoria? A link between autism and falsely presenting with symptoms of/ attachment to gender dysphoria?

And what of the 94-74% who are not, in accordance with the study, on the autism spectrum?

Perhaps it would make sense to screen for autism in patients referred to gender identity clinics. Perhaps they would require different protocols. Perhaps not. Without a sense of the actual statistical outcomes for existing protocols, it's difficult to understand their efficacy. What studies I've seen on the efficacy rate of medical transition, it tends to be quite high. Like many studies concerning transgender people, there were limitations. And unfortunately, the data may not translate directly to, let's say, the current realities at Tavistock.

Yes, I believe there is also an association with high IQ, similarly with homosexuality.

From my own life, the number of people with transgender identity that I meet in the world of computer science and software engineering seems to be much much higher than any other sphere. This also may be true in mathematics.

 

[repoman]

Humans have a lot of brain power laying about and if it is released from social bonding and constant social calibrations it can more easily be a tool in technical fields.