Autistic girls seeking answers ‘are seizing on sex change’

[cycomiko]

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.

I've seen this trend as well. However, a UX designer friend of mine pointed out that such careers tend to be less customer facing and therefore are more free dress and identify as they please. Would be interesting to see if it's actually IQ that drives people into those fields or if it's the draw of the relaxed nature of the workplace.

 

[prideandfall]

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

well since the article specifically mentions that infertility is a big side effect, if you buy into the idea that gender identity issues are DNA related that seems like a problem that solves itself right there.

 

[repoman]

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

well since the article specifically mentions that infertility is a big side effect, if you buy into the idea that gender identity issues are DNA related that seems like a problem that solves itself right there.

No, I think it is related to how adolescence sucks and social media. Some or most are "naturally" going to being transgender with no social inputs. But if it is like being a brony and grasping at straws because of autism and misery that would be dreadful.

 

[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.

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.

I've seen this trend as well. However, a UX designer friend of mine pointed out that such careers tend to be less customer facing and therefore are more free dress and identify as they please. Would be interesting to see if it's actually IQ that drives people into those fields or if it's the draw of the relaxed nature of the workplace.

My experience as a software engineer, it is largely that these types simply care less, so people find ways to accommodate their non-conformity with regards to identity. Mostly, you can only indulge a wizard for so long with inane expectations of pomp.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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

Interesting point and I suspect you're right.

 

[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

Interesting point and I suspect you're right.

It's a hypothesis I've been entertaining now for at least 5 years, and I think I debuted it here? Though I can't be sure at this point.

I guess my point is, I would like to see this studied but I have no clue how I would be able to go about that. I mean, autistic people, furries, etc. aren't in a behavioral vacuum. There is some real mechanism and I doubt it is strictly comorbidity, especially because there is no sensible causal link between being trans and wanting to be a dog person. At that point, "being a different gender" is less controversial than "being a different species" and so people feel more socially liberated to seek it.

What we are seeing is, I suspect, an indication of what the true instance of trans affect is among the population, which is then suppressed through normative society. It would make a great deal of sense as I expect "invisible" discordance to be more common than visible discordance, and visible discordance is some 1% of everyone.

 

[repoman]

I don't agree with this but this is how some see it.

 

[Jarhyn]

View attachment 31290

I don't agree with this but this is how some see it.

Who cares if they see it that way?

If people, given a full and dispassionate listing of ways they may address their feelings, decide that transition is the path they wish to walk and that this is supported by qualified therapists and doctors, what right do "tomboy respecters" have to the existence of tomboys*?

*Spoiler:

Show

None. The answer is none. I learned this in trying to steer one of my past relationships towards what I wanted rather than the identity that fit my partner. It's abusive. I was abusive. Stop apologising for and lifting up abusive viewpoints.

 

[Elixir]

Anyone else suspecting that Meta has a problem with girls?

 

[prideandfall]

View attachment 31301

Anyone else suspecting that Meta has a problem with girls?

uh... that's somewhat like 'suspecting' the earth might be round, or having some notions that it's possible that water might be wet.

 

[Metaphor]

View attachment 31301

Anyone else suspecting that Meta has a problem with girls?

Go on. Explain to me what the problem I have with girls is.

EDIT: Actually, can a mod remove Elixir's childish off-topic "contribution"? It wasn't an irrelevant aside in a post responding to the OP. The entire post itself was an irrelevant aside.

 

[Emily Lake]

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...

Adopting gender neutral or fluid expressions and behaviors are perfectly fine. The concern is that children who may not be genuinely transgender are being prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

It seems to me that sterility and permanent physical changes should be of concern, and not so easily dismissed - especially when the children in question have other mental health disorders and/or autism.

 

[Emily Lake]

Physically changing one's sex is an important and irreversible (? or extremely difficult to reverse) process.

If the person takes cross-sex hormones, the changes are not reversible in any meaningful way. Once a body begins developing facial hair, it does not go away, once a person grows breasts, that tissue is permanent. A transgirl could conceivably have a mastectomy to remove that cross-sex hormone driven breast tissue, but that's not a small surgery. Similarly, a transboy could have electrolysis to remove facial hair, albeit at great expense and usually not as permanent as we are led to believe.

If the person only took puberty blockers, and did NOT take cross-sex hormones, then the delay is moderately reversible, but there are still long-term risks. If a person desists with the blockers, they will resume puberty and develop their natural secondary sex characteristics.

 

[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...

Adopting gender neutral or fluid expressions and behaviors are perfectly fine. The concern is that children who may not be genuinely transgender are being prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

It seems to me that sterility and permanent physical changes should be of concern, and not so easily dismissed - especially when the children in question have other mental health disorders and/or autism.

Even if we were to assume that every single autistic man being patronized and misgendered in the OP will decide to take puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones- and this would be silly btw, as most do not - is there any evidence that puberty blockers might cause any of the side effects you mention? If it's just a question of being confused for a few years, it is unlikely that the person would still be "confused" by the time they reached the stage of making permanent hormonal changes. The whole point of puberty blockers is to create extra time for addressing such questions.

Yes, once you start developing secondary sex characteristics, it's too late to change that without considerable challenge. But that is also true for a trans person who is not taking any medication. It's not your place to decide for someone else whether they want to develop in a way they aren't comfortable with.

 

[Jarhyn]

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...

Adopting gender neutral or fluid expressions and behaviors are perfectly fine. The concern is that children who may not be genuinely transgender are being prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

It seems to me that sterility and permanent physical changes should be of concern, and not so easily dismissed - especially when the children in question have other mental health disorders and/or autism.

Even if we were to assume that every single autistic man being patronized and misgendered in the OP will decide to take puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones- and this would be silly btw, as most do not - is there any evidence that puberty blockers might cause any of the side effects you mention? If it's just a question of being confused for a few years, it is unlikely that the person would still be "confused" by the time they reached the stage of making permanent hormonal changes. The whole point of puberty blockers is to create extra time for addressing such questions.

Yes, once you start developing secondary sex characteristics, it's too late to change that without considerable challenge. But that is also true for a trans person who is not taking any medication. It's not your place to decide for someone else whether they want to develop in a way they aren't comfortable with.

Nope. Their example of "consequences" arise from studies of little girls who started on them at precocial pubertal ages.

I keep pointing this out, and you hit the nail on the head: puberty comes for us all. These changes as a result of hormone exposure are well studied because we have been observing the results for millennia untold.

I very much think that self-determination is preferable to denial of agency, especially in a decision so few make counter to societal expectations in the first place.

An order of magnitude more individuals experience infertility merely as a function of being born, too. It's not like it's a new problem, or as if adoption isn't a thing, or even IVF, if it comes to that. As it is, my husband's machinery spins back up whenever he misses more than a single shot, which sucks for both of us.

Like, all this concern trolling for a minority of a minority who are nonetheless better informed of the consequences to their health than virtually any other consumer of health services, for which the instances of unwanted effects are vanishingly low.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Similarly, a transboy could have electrolysis to remove facial hair, albeit at great expense and usually not as permanent as we are led to believe.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of laser? Electrolysis usually requires several treatments for a single hair (though it varies depending on type used: thermolysis, galvanic, blend). Getting everything isn't easy. The process takes months to years. Some hairs may be missed or regrow, but I haven't seen anything where people experience significant regrowth after 5/8/10 years.

It is expensive, though how expensive is quite variable. Some people never grow much facial hair in the first place, and someone who hasn't reached the full extent of hair growth will have much less work to do. It may be easier to remove the hairs and their may be far fewer to remove.

For me, I don't know how long it took. Over two hundred hours on the table, and over $14k across somewhere between two and three years (though there were a couple of gaps due to my father's illness and surgery). It was painful. More than that, embarrassing. So, I don't particularly wish that on Bell. I sure as fuck don't wish it on my younger self. I guess where I'm a tad petty is no one presented me with any fucking options when I was young. It wasn't even about being wrong, I just didn't realize what was even possible, and even if I had, it would have been very difficult to access, and not everything that can be done now was available back then.

A before and after:



These photos are over a decade apart (I believe 24/25 in the first and just shy of 38 in the second), and one is a shitty, low res selfie I snapped just now, but they do illustrate a considerable difference: after hundreds of hours of electrolysis I now have a totally different hat.

On the left, I had last shaved clean between three and four weeks earlier. On the right, I haven't shaved my face for about two weeks (have never waxed or done other hair removal apart from electrolysis). No makeup (obviously) or retouching on my face. It's too low res to see that there are some hairs, but I've known cis women with more, and I also stopped electrology a bit early because reasons. There are only a handful of dark ones and while they sometimes get to me, tweezers can handle it.

I don't wish electrology on someone like Bell. It is expensive and it is shitty compared to just not having to deal with having facial hair. But of all the things that can and cannot be changed, it's one of the less harsh areas to deal with (should she feel the need). Now, the changes to her voice would be much more difficult to address if she felt inclined to. Even with surgery and/ or vocal coaching, it's not easy. I really don't wish any of that on her, but at the same time, I do wish I had the options and resources she had available to her available to me when I was fifteen (or younger). Part of the reason I don't wish any of that on her is I've lived it. Painfully. And some of it could have been spared from me for certain.

 

[Metaphor]

Even if we were to assume that every single autistic man being patronized and misgendered in the OP

Are you implying that every single natal female who presents at a gender clinic is, in fact, a transboy/transman?

Would you find it desirable instead to call them natal females rather than 'girls'?

 

[Jarhyn]

Similarly, a transboy could have electrolysis to remove facial hair, albeit at great expense and usually not as permanent as we are led to believe.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of laser? Electrolysis usually requires several treatments for a single hair (though it varies depending on type used: thermolysis, galvanic, blend). Getting everything isn't easy. The process takes months to years. Some hairs may be missed or regrow, but I haven't seen anything where people experience significant regrowth after 5/8/10 years.

It is expensive, though how expensive is quite variable. Some people never grow much facial hair in the first place, and someone who hasn't reached the full extent of hair growth will have much less work to do. It may be easier to remove the hairs and their may be far fewer to remove.

For me, I don't know how long it took. Over two hundred hours on the table, and over $14k across somewhere between two and three years (though there were a couple of gaps due to my father's illness and surgery). It was painful. More than that, embarrassing. So, I don't particularly wish that on Bell. I sure as fuck don't wish it on my younger self. I guess where I'm a tad petty is no one presented me with any fucking options when I was young. It wasn't even about being wrong, I just didn't realize what was even possible, and even if I had, it would have been very difficult to access, and not everything that can be done now was available back then.

A before and after:

View attachment 31328View attachment 31329

These photos are over a decade apart (I believe 24/25 in the first and just shy of 38 in the second), and one is a shitty, low res selfie I snapped just now, but they do illustrate a considerable difference: after hundreds of hours of electrolysis I now have a totally different hat.

On the left, I had last shaved clean between three and four weeks earlier. On the right, I haven't shaved my face for about two weeks (have never waxed or done other hair removal apart from electrolysis). No makeup (obviously) or retouching on my face. It's too low res to see that there are some hairs, but I've known cis women with more, and I also stopped electrology a bit early because reasons. There are only a handful of dark ones and while they sometimes get to me, tweezers can handle it.

I don't wish electrology on someone like Bell. It is expensive and it is shitty compared to just not having to deal with having facial hair. But of all the things that can and cannot be changed, it's one of the less harsh areas to deal with (should she feel the need). Now, the changes to her voice would be much more difficult to address if she felt inclined to. Even with surgery and/ or vocal coaching, it's not easy. I really don't wish any of that on her, but at the same time, I do wish I had the options and resources she had available to her available to me when I was fifteen (or younger). Part of the reason I don't wish any of that on her is I've lived it. Painfully. And some of it could have been spared from me for certain.

Not to mention that not everyone can even get cheaper or less painful hair removals done. There are certain things that just can't be addressed, fixed, or altered effectively after the fact of an unwanted puberty.

The goal is to have fewer expensive, painful, difficult interventions. We will have fewer interventions if we allow access to blockers through the teens for such people.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Not to mention that not everyone can even get cheaper or less painful hair removals done. There are certain things that just can't be addressed, fixed, or altered effectively after the fact of an unwanted puberty.

Yeah. There are so many complications and considerations, compromises, difficult decisions as it is. A lot of the decision making happens far past what you want, and is deep in 'what is it even possible for me to do?' territory. Time feels like your enemy through most of it. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of unqualified opinions on what trans people should do when wrt to medical/ social/ legal transition. They make it sound easy like flipping a switch.

The goal is to have fewer expensive, painful, difficult interventions. We will have fewer interventions if we allow access to blockers through the teens for such people.

I agree generally. Improved health outcomes are the highest priority. For instance, if a transgender girl starts puberty blockers early and goes straight to cross-sex hrt, it may limit options for vaginoplasty down the road leaving options which involve skin grafts or the use of colon tissue. In aggregate, that may still mean a reduction in difficult interventions, but it's so variable depending on individual needs. Tradeoffs at every step.

 

[repoman]

Does having a foreskin aid in having a more successful suurgery? Maybe that can be used to argue against infant circumcision.