Network Autism thinks gender id develops in foetus (title edited by MNHQ)

Thingybob and KarenTheCashRegister and everyone else. I think you are absolutely right. I had the chance to listen to Wenn a while ago (for a massive fee).

I read up in advance and decided to give the lecture a miss. It seems very sad that little old me with little scientific knowledge could see this sounded decidedly off and yet a big national society doesn't!

It feels like because people are presenting as trans and some trans people have views about why it is so, we are accepting these views.

I’ve absolutely had enough of this shite now, my ds’s school did a week on transgender, what my autistic son took from that was, it’s a choice, it’s easy... just pick what you want to be? Like a hair cut. No joke. Followed by me showing him a video on YouTube of a penis being changed into a vagina. I felt I had no choice, to show him how serious it is. I honestly feel these “awareness” talks are promoting it. My son is going to no more at school.

network.autism.org.uk/about-community/network-rules-and-guidelines

Here are their guidelines - it really looks as though it is an online forum funded by the NAS.

Jessica - I'm honestly not sure. I've never had any success contacting the NAS, they just ignore my emails (which isn't great for a charity representing people who often don't handle telephones well!)

Just going by twitter it looks like it's the autism professionals' wing of NAS; they also have a research wing, and then there's 'National Autistic Taskforce' who seem to be retweeted a fair amount/maybe linked and is led by autistic people directly. One octopus, many tentacles?

This is organised by ‘Network Autism’. They are funded by the NAS, but I don’t know whether the NAS has direct control of their activities. It seems to be a network to share information. However, there is a difference between providing a space to discuss issues (the MN forum - no claim to expertise) and presenting information at a conference where participants are presented as experts.

The information presented was sloppy (confusing sex and sexual orientation is pretty bad) and I think it’s fair to ask the NAS how they were involved and whether they stand by the information presented.

Reading through a few more of the tweets from @ networkautism covering the event - it seems it is not universally awful and there is some good stuff on autism and relationships, autism-specific vulnerabilities to abuse/staying safe in relationships, and autistic takes on the labelling of sexualities.

The gender stuff is just horrendous, though.

TirisfalPumpkin thanks, I didn’t know that about this org and will be writing to NAS, not that they’ve ever actually helped us in any practical way in the first place! Are they just another charity that’s there to create ‘awareness’ and print pamphlets and not really ‘do’ anything?

I also agree with what you said above about those on the spectrum not being immune to illogical thinking, it’s important to say. There are a few positive stereotypes I think are unhelpful- Amy Schumer saying her husband is autistic so can’t ever lie to her etc etc

"I saw someone on Twitter saying that it's "fine because they saw Greta Thunberg talking about how people with Asperger's and autism spectrum disorders are very cynical and evidence focused", but what she didn't seem to register is that some are also very very suggestible. Children are suggestible, disorders or not."

True - and Greta is doing her fellow aspies a disservice by relying on tropes like that. It's no better than saying we're all non-verbal maths wizards.

I don't work in the field, but being on the spectrum myself, I think we need to be wary of positive as well as negative stereotyping. I personally know several autistic adults who are absolutely adamant that TWAW and will cherrypick / ignore evidence to support this conclusion. I've tried reasoned debate based on facts and evidence; it just doesn't work. You can't debate someone who has already decided what the outcome is.

We're not uniquely immune to illogical thinking - we just do better with clear and unambiguous information. For some of us, it doesn't matter if that information is factually true or not. I can see why the gendercult appeals to some autistic people with its offer of certainty and black-and-white stereotyping of complex and nuanced human behaviour.

Re 'Network Autism' - they say they are 'provided by' @ autism (NAS) in their Twitter bio, so I think OP is correct.

I'm amazed how this gender pseudoscience has become gospel in such a short time

This is a tweet from ‘Network Autism’ not the National Autism Society. They’re not the same thing as far as I know so you need to ask MNHQ to edit your thread title.

There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence that hormone exposure in utero has any effect on behaviour. This article sums it up well.

slate.com/human-interest/2010/10/rebecca-jordan-young-s-masterful-critique-of-the-research-on-the-relationship-between-testosterone-and-sex-difference.html

It's from 2010, but I don't know if there's been any more conclusive research since.

In the early 1970s, for instance, one study reported that boys whose mothers took a synthetic estrogen, which was thought to prevent complications in pregnancy, tended later on to show less masculine behavior like lower assertiveness or aggression. Soon, however, animal research found that testosterone converted to estrogen in the brain actually seems to do the opposite—to make boys act more typically masculine. And soon after that, the reversal showed up in human research, too: Another study suggested that boys exposed prenatally to a synthetic estrogen might show more masculine behavior, according to Jordan-Young. The data on synthetic estrogen and progesterone exposures are complicated. But what’s striking, in Jordan-Young’s telling, is that the researchers’ findings tended to dovetail suspiciously well with their assumptions.

From this it looks as though researchers often find what they want to find - and I wouldn't trust anything that Vickie Pasterski was involved with.

For clarification, does the term ‘prenatal hormones’ refer to androgens/oestrogen's produced by the foetus, or by the mother/carbon-based uterus-bearing reproductive unit?

I get confused because we are often told that these levels are measured in the amniotic fluid. Are these hormones released into the amniotic fluid from the child or from the mother and thus influencing the child’s development from the outside?

In other words - if I’m getting my terminology correct - are prenatal hormones endogenous or exogenous to the foetus?

So, I went off looking for evidence of this claim:

*"Occasionally, the hormones that trigger the development of biological sex may not work properly on the brain, reproductive organs and genitals, causing differences between them. This may be caused by:

additional hormones in the mother’s system – possibly as a result of taking medication"*

since the page helpful provides zero citations, and found this 2015 paper Early androgen exposure and human gender development which "critically reviews the available evidence regarding influences of testosterone on human gender-related development". It covers research which links or fails to link sex stereotyped behaviour in children to prenatal androgen exposure. Some studies find a high correlation, other find non at all. It also covers the findings of one research group which "looked at the correlation between amniotic fluid testosterone and a range of characteristics related to ASD" saying that "These studies also merit careful examination, because they are widely cited to support a contribution of early androgen exposure to ASD."

Concludes:

"Thus, although a primary basis for interest in understanding the influences of testosterone on human behavior has been the idea that androgens might contribute to discrepant sex ratios for psychological diagnoses, research in this area has been relatively scant for disorders other than ASD, and for ASD has ultimately produced findings that do not support a contribution from prenatal testosterone exposure. This lack of research, and even the lack of clearly supportive findings, might reflect, in part, the rarity of individuals with both atypical androgen exposure during early development and a gender-linked psychological diagnosis and the lack of a powerful measure of prenatal androgen exposure in individuals without hormone abnormality."

and

"The relationship of finger ratios to prenatal androgen exposure appears to be too weak to be useful in studies attempting to relate prenatal androgen exposure to later behavior [9,16,17], and this review suggests that this may be the case for testosterone measured in amniotic fluid as well. Although one research group has found predicted relationships, others have not. Small sample sizes may have contributed to the failures to find significant effects, but the insignificant correlation that has been reported between testosterone in fetal blood and testosterone in fetal amniotic fluid [55] also does not support the robustness of the amniotic fluid approach."

So, no clear correlation between prenatal Androgen exposure and gender identity disorder, and no clear causal link between either of those things and ASD.

OK, so I went to take a look at the contributors and found Professor Melissa Hines of Cambridge University. In 2011 she spoke at the "woman's word" festival in Cambridge arguing that

"The overall conclusion, based on all these types of research, is that children’s toy preferences relate to the prenatal hormones they were exposed to. Not only do boys tend to play with trucks whereas girls tend to play with dolls, but within girls, those who are less interested in dolls and more interested in trucks tend to have been exposed to higher levels of testosterone during gestation."

Her key publication that she lists is “Prenatal hormones versus postnatal socialization by parents as determinants of male-typical toy play in girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia” coauthored, amongst others, by Vickie Pasterski. In fact, she authored at least 10 papers with Vickie Pasterski.

Does that name sound familiar? That's because she was the expert witness called upon to over rule social services on the transitioning foster children and in Jay vs Secretary of State for Justice -- getting a GRC on appeal after panel says 'no' three times

So, I think this would merit further probing.

I saw someone on Twitter saying that it's "fine because they saw Greta Thunberg talking about how people with Asperger's and autism spectrum disorders are very cynical and evidence focused", but what she didn't seem to register is that some are also very very suggestible. Children are suggestible, disorders or not.

Oh dear even the NHS is confusing intersex and gender dysphoria.

How can they give an account of "gender development" without a definition of "gender"?

Well here's what the NHS has to say on it:

What causes gender dysphoria?

Gender development is complex and there are many possible variations that cause a mismatch between a person’s biological sex and their gender identity, making the exact cause of gender dysphoria unclear.

Occasionally, the hormones that trigger the development of biological sex may not work properly on the brain, reproductive organs and genitals, causing differences between them. This may be caused by:

additional hormones in the mother’s system – possibly as a result of taking medication
the foetus’ insensitivity to the hormones, known as androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) – when this happens, gender dysphoria may be caused by hormones not working properly in the womb
Gender dysphoria may also be the result of other rare conditions, such as:

congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) – where a high level of male hormones are produced in a female foetus. This causes the genitals to become more male in appearance and, in some cases, the baby may be thought to be biologically male when she is born.
intersex conditions – which cause babies to be born with the genitalia of both sexes (or ambiguous genitalia). Parents are recommended to wait until the child can choose their own gender identity before any surgery is carried out.

This is after it get's don telling us about sex being assigned at birth, and how gender non conformance in children is an early warning sign. Sooooo do we think this page was written by a doctor, or...

see here for full word salad

Anything that falls outside of heterosexuality is a part of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella

I can't be the only one that finds this statement profoundly othering to the disparate groups being lumped together under that umbrella, surely? For all the statements that 'there is no such thing as 'normal' sexuality', grouping one set of people as 'heterosexual' and scooping up every other possible letter in a separate grouping just seems about as uninclusive as I can imagine.

A foetus does not know about gender, sex, identity, or any other bollocks. There is absolutely no scientific way of proving this utter nonsense. I hope whoever attended this 'conference' either challenged the presenter there and then or walked out.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Gender identity develops in utero. Fucking smashing. Say it enough times and the lie becomes the truth.

Oh wait.

What evidence is there for a baby in vitro having gender identity?

Absolutely none. But we don’t need science or facts. We just need feelings.

What evidence is there for a baby in vitro having gender identity?

The evidence is that an expert, who is both autistic and trans, said it is the case.

Disagreeing with such a person is hateful, bigoted, transphobic, disabilist etc and needs reporting to the police as a hate crime (according to SM)

The world i going mad. 😢 The kids i work with everyday will be subject to this drivel. I work bloody hard to try to ensure my kids question the motives of people and companies, have an understanding of fact and fiction, but this, dressed up as fact, presented as reality undermines that work. A charity that supports people with autism thinks this is ok, is appropriate?
The non verbal statement is crap as well, you can be autistic and non verbal but very capable of sharing all your ideas and opinions, also being fully able to self determine.
I don't know whether to cry and shiut in anger these days. Perhaps bith 🤯🤯

What evidence is there for a baby in vitro having gender identity?

“It may be hard to assess people who are non verbal (for gender dysphoria) but it is possible Dr James Barrett #AutismGender”

WHAT THE FUCK??

If that's a real quote I hope there's a record.