To think that the majority of trans people are neurodivergent

I’m probably much older than you and I don’t think it was geographical.

I just googled and it was a measured article that explained it well (in my opinion). But you seem so set in your beliefs you can’t take a second to read and just rule it out due to pre conceived ideas.

I’m not an expert, just a mum surrounded by gay and lesbian teens who use the term queer in a non offensive way and I listen to various views at work with the aim of selecting wording that doesn’t offend, but as this thread has proven, it’s tricky.

Can you share a little about the reasons?
can I ask whether a reason for you, qualifies everyone to whom that reason is valid as also being enby?

Can I also ask when you say enby/NB/non-binary what do you mean?
Also is your ND diagnosed by you or by someone else?

Thanks and I know this isn’t AMA, sorry.

More making the point that people can describe themselves how they like - she described herself as queer, and she was not being self-derogatory.

One of my very close friends in school is/was trans. She was sexually abused by her stepdad when she was a child and when she became a teenager she began transitioning to male. She’s currently in therapy and has realised that the reason she wanted to transition was subconsciously because of the sexual abuse: to escape the gender that attracted the abuse. She’s now in the process of detransitioning and healing, but it is extremely complicated and slow. One thing she’s working on at the moment is using she/her pronouns again.

Obviously this isn’t the case for many trans people, but in my friend’s case, abuse absolutely ‘caused being trans’.

I am aware of that. I didn’t say they were.

Neurodiverse includes mental illness.

Who the hell do you think you are to tell gay and lesbian people who lived through the “queer bashing” era what is or isn’t offensive? How dare you.

People with mental illness often don’t know they have mental illness. Doesn’t mean they don’t have one.

This 100%.

I'm autistic.

I never understood gender stereotypes as a little girl and used to get frustrated when people told me the things that I liked were for boys. 'I like it, and I'm not a boy, so it's not just for boys,' I'd say, and because it was the early 90s I was allowed to get on with playing with my brothers' toys and games (video games were 'for boys' in my house) even though my mother was very invested in stereotypes.

Had I been born decades later, I'm sure that liking 'boys' things' and not fitting in would have led me to a different conclusion. That I wasn't a girl/woman, but some sort of in-between, non-binary person. I thought other women were happy with the stereotypes, for the most part. A lot of my knowledge of people came from reading and TV. It was overly simplistic and I didn't know it.

I think you've identified a genuine correlation, but the explanation is that many ND people are using the gender identity framework as a way to try to make sense of their differences. Which wouldn't be a problem if it didn't lead to men in women's spaces, and teenage autistic girls having their healthy breasts cut off.

I'm not sure what you mean by this? You think my friends are going to revise their strongly held beliefs because a dictionary says otherwise 🫠

Perhaps it's a generational or geographical thing. I don't remember the word queer being used at all as a teen, negatively or otherwise.

"Gay" on the other hand some people would most certainly use derogatively or would snigger if they heard it. I am glad I don't hear it used in that way any more .

Yes you're absolutely right. I have never once claimed anything I've said to be fact. We simply don't have enough facts on the subject at all. None of us do. It's all theory, conjecture and debate.

Why are you upset by my post. I'm incredibly open to every possibility out there. This is a fascinating subject. I enjoy discuss all theories

I have a non trans ASD DD, and I can see how it happens, just from seeing how she focuses and fixates on things.

I can quite comfortably recognise that my skill set and personality might align with male stereotypes, I just don't care and can dismiss the stereotypes as stupid. I can see that if my DD drew the same conclusion she would want to fix it or do something about it. Then add in the confidence of all the people telling her exactly how to fix it and make it all "right." Perfect storm.

I don't think the middle aged men fit though, lots of different paths lead to trans these days, it's a mistake to group them together.

I have a group of trans friends.
One’s a registered nurse.
One’s a social worker.
One’s a law student.
One’s in a managerial position at a bank.
None of them are neurodivergent or neurodiverse or autistic or have Asperger’s or whatever you choose to call it. They’re responsible adults with responsible jobs living their lives.
They’re a part of a larger group of trans people (the trans alliance in my nearby city) I met in 2013 — and I never hear them discussing non-trans people and their mental issues.
They talk about their lives and their jobs and the cost of groceries and stuff like people talk about on Mumsnet every day.

Not to mention the pandemic and lockdowns, which meant many teenagers spending more time than usual online.

This is deeply offensive.

You can't be born in the wrong body. And having been a child in a family where my mother did this, and totally fucked up both of us by projecting her sexism onto us and gaslighting us into believing there was something wrong with us, I strongly suggest you think about what you are saying.

Are disabled people 'born in the wrong body?'

What is gender? Describe it without using sexist stereotypes. I am serious. This is sexism.

Why is it that certain hobbies and interests pop up all the time? Why anime? Whats the deal with that? OVER AND OVER AND OVER Again. Strangley Japanese culture is one of the most heavily gender stereotyped cultures in the world.

Then there's Cass. The Cass Review literally says that yes there is a link between abuse and trans identifying. And being autistic.

So are trans people autistic? Or are autistic kids picking up on cultural ideas, getting carried away with them - egged on by social networks online which encourage this - precisely because they are more vulnerable because they are lacking in real world social networks and normal social interactions.

Heres the difficult bit. All the people saying they are 'trans affirmative' - so where does that leave you in terms of detransitioners. The range of detransition seems to range from upwards of 50 - 90% in young adults. It takes a number of years to detransition but it is happening on a much wider scale than many are willing to admit.

WHY? This is the million dollar question we must address.

We can't say that being trans is a form of neurodiversity if we have that going on. You can't suddenly cease to be neurodivergent. The trans stuff is a by product of SOMETHING which is more likely to manifest in someone neurodiverse.

I would argue its possibly a symptom of neurodiversity and neurodiverse teens and young people are looking for something and trans seems to be a magic solution (until its suddenly not) because of the social networking aspect to it (my experience of online community bubbles is that they tend to have a life span of about 5 - 8 years before they burst and people go their separate ways in real life (I've been in social media communities since 1998).

If so many are transitioning, why are we medicalising so early?

There are HUGE issues that Cass asks about in terms of vulnerabilities, comorbidities and other needs - such as a history of trauma and abuse that are going unaddressed PRECISELY because all the focus is put onto transition and not onto looking into other parallel and agacent issues.

My biggest beef here, is that there is no ability of people who prattle on about trans-affirmative and label everything they disagree with as transphobic. There is no willingness to even consider the possibility that people raising concerns have massive questions about it all BECAUSE THEY CARE, not because they hate anyone at all. Its always framed as this.

And I say all this, because age 19 I was talking like all of this. I was saying I should have been a boy. I hated being a woman. Etc etc. Its text book. And I am sooo sooo grateful I wasn't born years later. It took me a LONG time to finally come to terms with being a woman. I think I ended up coping for years, but I only really was at peace with it in my later 30s.

This is such a complex and difficult subject. Reducing it to trans affirmative versus transphobic as a binary either or, is frankly ignorant and harmful and deeply offensive.

Your beliefs are interesting but they are not connected to facts are they?

I just read about this online; the testosterone or male brain theory. The argument is potentially this is an explanation for the females who are both Autistic and wishing to transition to male.
I do believe there is the possibility of a biology component here beyond just ' being Autistic ' and identify/ trauma that comes with that.

I am not ND - my son is. His father has a very strong family history and I suspect also ND. I wonder if that could still support the excess testosterone argument

We grew up sniggering in horror at school at the word “queer” when used in poetry or a piece of writing from the past because it was a totally verboten, offensive slur for a homosexual person, so I can’t get my head around how it’s been reclaimed. I don’t understand what it means any more though.

Almost as ignorant as your suggestion that children are abused because they are trans.

What's wrong with saying ASD?! I thought ASD and autism were the same thing?! I'm so confused these days.

@Hinkuy ASD is autistic spectrum disorder. Autistic individuals are not disordered, they are the way they were always meant to be, just like being left handed or heterosexual or male etc.

I'm a gender critical autistic person. Sex is immutable and determined by the presence or absence of Y chromosomes. Gender dysphoria is a psychological matter. There isn't enough meaningful research into its causes for anyone to have a true understanding of it yet. So into the vacuum flows ideology. There may be a correlation between some forms of ND and gender dysphoria, but why that is just speculation absent serious study. I spent a long time in my youth feeling isolated and like an outsider and atypical before I knew of and understood my autism. I can see how with certain nudge factors, some people might conclude they are in the wrong body especially if they are depressed, and experiencing feelings of internalised shame regarding same sex attraction.

I think I'd read somewhere many years ago that gay, transexual etc had either a different genetic influence or a different hormone influence while in the womb. The fetus influences much of this kind of thing so genetics makes sense for the hormones.

I don't know if this is scientifically proven or not now as was a long time ago I heard or read it.

Trans and ND seem to have massive overlaps. I’ve always thought they were v v similar as ‘conditions’ and share many common features