Lack of research on females with autism and transitioning

The thing is I am happy with who I am and how I express my gender and sexuality - the problem is genuinly with other people.

It might sound vain but I suspect since I'm not the best NT mimic since I don't differentiate between men and women and I perhaps have rather strange body language I have been accused of flirting and making passes at people - it is also possible that I have been assumed to be flirting - but here is the rub I DON'T FLIRT! I have only ever had long term relationships with people I already know.

For it it has been other people assumptions about correct gendered behaviour that are far more damaging than how I felt about myself. My parents did not treat me any differently from my brother on the whole apart from the specifics (e.g sanpro) so at least home was a refuge in that sense. What infuriates me is that people are STILL putting boy/girl as a greater importance than human being.
I think if we ignore gender most of the time and evaluate people as people first it would make things a lot easier. There are sex differnces - most men don't need sports bras and sanpro, women don't need genital cups for contact sports but these aren't important when evaluating people most of the time.

For the record, I also have OCD as well as Asperger’s. Not HOCD but I understand obsessive and intrusive thoughts.

I was reading about Homosexual OCD (HOCD) last week.

People with this condition aren’t homosexuals with OCD, they are heterosexuals who suffer from obsessive or intrusive thoughts that they might be homosexual.

Sometimes they respond to such obsessive thoughts by suppressing them with excessively ‘heterosexual’ behaviour (machismo, promiscuousness, homophobia, etc) but sometimes they try to alleviate the symptoms by ‘outing’ themselves to friends and family and even beginning unsuccessful gay relationships.

I wonder how much gender dysphoria is related to obsessive thoughts about gender?

Pink yes same here re anger about females being under diagnosed. I realised our local diagnosis criteria were totally male oriented in last couple of years and did have opportunity to question and point out to local CCG. Are supposed to be working on it.

Am very concerned about autistic girls going for transition when they are not genuinely dysphoric and their issues are for other complex and diverse reasons. Know several parents of ASD kids very upset by Mermaids and the push to transition.

And yes Stark your point re later maturity is very important. Another reason for great care to be taken with autistic girls (and also boys)

I have written a lot on here about autism and gender. If you search my name you'll find it all. The prevalence of gender variance in autistic people is clear evidence that gender norms are socially constructed. Once you see that you see how externally imposed gender norms create dysphoria in autistic children. Combine this with proprieception issues so their bodies don't feel right or 'theirs' and you may in fact have the explanation for childhood gender dysphoria. Then there's the fact that girls have gone massively underdiagnosed and therefore unsupported. I contend the only reason why people can't see this, given that the social construction of gender is actually observable as it happens and has been extensively written about is because the sexist idea that male and female brains are fundamentally different has been deeply entrenched for millenia and psychology and sociology have not overcome it.

I read an article but can't remember where that talked about the higher prevalence of gender disphoria in people with autism irrespective of gender. The author was a psychiatrist. He noted that people with autism tend to focus very specifically on things and if they focussed on their gender then perhaps that might explain the disparity. I cannot speak of the facts as I don't have any data personally.

Anecdotally my friends daughter with autism is currently beginning to transition and it is making him very happy. I don't think telling him that this is a symptom of autism would change the decision. He is very intelligent and knows his own mind and seems more content moving towards a gender that better fits his own self image

There aren’t many negative consequences of being misdiagnosed as autistic if you are at the high functioning end.

So, you get a quiet part of the office with softer lighting, and you are left to get on with your work with fewer interruptions, and your work is broken down into easier to understand units.

Frankly there are neurotypicals who would love to have that too.

But being misdiagnosed as gender dysphoric means being put on a path that can lead to sterilisation and bodily mutilation.

So if there’s a possibility that your child’s gender non-conformity might be down to ASD that really has to be investigated first.

There is a lack of evidence on transitioning and autism. After everything that's happened I am still a trans ally but at the same time am aware of limitations and that there are things only genetic women will have to contend with. This is why we need this research as we don't want people transitioning by mistake - particularly children.

ASD women in terms of socializing tend to be more like genetic males - this has been shown in MRI scans. From my perspective I have always been ME first, girl second - a person first. I found gendering and gender-specific dress codes etc very uncomfortable. School uniform I could just about tolerate when girls could wear trousers (it boils my piss that in 2018 girls STILL have to put up with that gendered shit) I was accused as a boy so many times but even though I dressed androgynously as a pre-teen and teen I kept my long hair. I wear dresses and skirts when I feel like it as I have adult freedom.

My worry is that some people could transition by mistake if they have undiagnosed ASD. In some countries gay and lesbians have had forced transing to contend with simply because they don't fulfil social norms. My worry is that some people want to jump on the transgender trend to force 'acceptable' gendered social norms.

I too agree with the OP. I remember feeling very confused about my identity as a woman in my mid teens, and it was part of my social communication difficulties, which were undiagnosed. I think gender dysphoria can be part of feeling very uncomfortable in your skin, and there are all sort of co-morbid issues that would make that the case. Changing sex is not going to solve them. Proper understanding of why you feel alienated/outsider, uncomfortable/traumatised. Simply changing your body isn't going to solve all those problems. I have a child with autism who is older teen.

Thanks for this thread. I'll post later when I've more time since I am also a gender nonconformist women with AS too.

I hear you pink.

There is an adult Adhd forum if you google adult Adhd UK you will find it easily and they have a topic on this on the gender section that has a lot of research linked. (Asc has high cross over with adhd and a lot of the women on that forum either have both or feel they do for those not dx). It’s a really great site for research about nuerofiversity in general, shit tone of studies are linked.

Oh me too.

It’s also not the first time ‘they’ have realised women have been being misdiagnosed with something else, when they actually had autism. My first realisation my DD was possibly autistic was reading about sensory sensitivity around food, and the book actually talked about eating disorders and the link with autism and sensory issues around texture, how many women and girls were thought to have classic eating disorders were actually autistic. My husband is autistic but because he is so different to our DD, I never thought all these things I had been noticing were an indication of autism. I felt terrible but everything I had read previously was clearly based on how it presented in males, reinforced by seeing it in my husband.

So my point is, it’s not the first time ‘we’ have learnt something new about autism in females and how it might be misdiagnosed as something else. This time the ‘misdiagnosis’ or ‘something else’ happens to be a really contentious issue and is being handled really poorly because of it.

Yes it is a feminist issue and is tied to how autism was always seen as something men had as women present differently. The misdiagnosis and under diagnosis of autistic women is something people have only just picked up on in the last few years and there is still alot of ignorance. We do need to understand this link between trans and asd better or we are failing autistic women and girls again.

Stark
Your post made a lot of sense to me. I have a number if autistic family members. From my tiny sample I have seen more gender confusion before the diagnosis of autism is given when they did not know why they felt different.

I have an autistic daughter who is FtM - aged 20. Her autism was not diagnosed until after she told us she was trans - we didn't have a clue she was autistic until her life basically fell apart with severe anxiety and depression in her late teens. My suggestion she might be autistic was dismissed by several medical professionals.

The psychiatrist who eventually diagnosed her says she comes across lots of young women presenting with gender difficulties (and/or anorexia) who have not yet been diagnosed with autism.

There was a conference in Leeds last year on the subject of gender and autism - I don't know if there are any papers available, but some of those presenting might have published some?

www.andrewsimscentre.nhs.uk/filestore/documents/ASC_-Autism_and_Gender_Flyer-_19_1_18.pdf

Here are some interesting papers:

Prevalence of the wish to be the opposite gender in adolescents and young adults with autism:

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-018-1218-3

"I don't feel like a gender, I feel like myself"

www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/aut.2018.0001

OP I have links to several others if you want to pm me.

As to accusations that a diagnosis of autism is being used as a barrier to transition. I absolutely agree with most on here:

Girls women are underdiagnosed as autistic and left struggling for too long - that is a feminist issue.

Autistic people tend to develop emotional maturity later than their peers - so decisions on irreversible treatment are more risky

Difficulty identifying and understanding emotions, and a life spent not fitting in and not knowing why could lead to susceptibility to misdiagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Transition can lead to unknown long term health effects and sterilisation - that feels like eugenics to me.

Just an FYI from another thread that ended up deleted so I don’t have the link, someone posted a study which compared autistic people ( some people don’t mind that so I’m gonna go with what my family are ok with ) to neurotypicals, and those with autism were no more or less likely to be ‘ non-conforming’ but were more likely to be consistently either conforming or non-conforming than neurotypicals.

Yes we have far less research on women and girls on the spectrum, as with most things. We need to keep pushing for more research. But there are more professionals with experience diagnosing girls now. You can ask before you engage their services- we did. Any therapist of any kind I always ask, have you experience working with females with autism specifically.

I understand and would not question, that many parents say their autistic child is vunerable to this kind of ideology. My own teen gets angry if I suggest in any way she is vunerable to ideology of any kind- she is very definitely gender critical as are her group of friends with autism, I believe they discuss it a lot. I just wanted to put that out there, that not everyone with autism is desperate to fit in and is vunerable. Both my husband and DD say they’ve never been ‘desperate to fit in’ or particularly worried about anything like that. They were always aware they were different and totally ok with spending a lot of time alone.

orangesnail

You have violated Mumsnet guidelines on discussing transgender issues. They do not tolerate transphobia and misogyny here.

In addition, if you make ableist and ignorant comments about autism, the members here won’t tolerate it either.

Aspie I agree with you re who is denying whose existence. Autistic girls are vulnerable and an easy market for pushing an ideology on. A dark part of me thinks they are using them to experiment and test the drugs on. A darker part of me thinks that they are being groomed.
My dd is autistic and we have been pushing back against this medicating autism out of existence. Autistic families ( where a parent,especially mother have autism) tend to fair better at self acceptance and who they are in their non conformity. More girls especially asd girls need to see more asd women non conforming.