Michael Craig at Tavi: Are autism and gender dysphoria linked?

I’d say it’s extremely common because I have had countless experiences of people telling me their child has done this. Of course in that population some of the children will be autistic and some homosexual. I’m not sure what you mean by “credibility”. If you’re suggesting I’m lying about it can I ask politely why I would do that?

Yes

My eyes are shut at the moment

Apologies @GreenAndSpringy Ive answered several questions with one answer which is unnecessarily confusing.

I’m Autistic.

Can you be specific?
Yes
What is extremely common?
As I said “It’s extremely common for children to express the wish to be married to their parent (of either sex).”
I’ve agreed that a male presenting child wanting to marry their mother is common and a female presenting child wanting to marry their father is common.

Or are you saying that your experience is of girls wanting to marry their mothers and boys wanting to marry their fathers (all children with conventionally paired parents) being extremely common?
Yes that is my experience.

Never met anyone else who did this, so you’ll need to expound on this for me to give this statement any credibility.

How do you define “extremely common”?

I myself define “outlier” behaviour as something no more than 5% of the population would typically do

I wanted to be Justine Frischmann or Louise Wener. Except they didn't look as good with guitars as men. Unfortunately I was also short and not flat chested so the fashion didn't suit my shape. I dressed massively awkwardly trying to be that ultra cool. I missed and I knew I was missing. I wore a lot of second hand seventies and eighties top and oversized shirts. I didn't fancy the blokes in bands I just liked the music but felt treated like a total groupie.

I wanted to be a bloke and I remember expressing that explicitly to a friend on a number of occasions.

It was a sort of frustration at not being able to fit the box I wanted and trying to do something but not quite getting it right.

Ironically in hindsight, I think I probably was a lot cooler and hit the mark more than I thought. It's just that I had a perfectionism and an idealised concept in my head. I was also starving myself and making a point of eating once every two days at most and then only a tiny amount. It was 100% about control. The attention I got was about my boobs and not me as a person and I hated that. In the crowd in a gig I could disappear and be part of something and going and seeing the same bands multiple times you did become part of a scene and the bands did start to notice. It was a special thing but not a sexualised thing which I don't really think it acknowledged because we have these preconceived ideas about groupism. Quite frankly backstage was almost without exception dull and was only interesting because I got to hang out with mates (I didn't particularly like hanging out with bands although I did get that type of access).

Fast forward to now and the K-pop look is the rage for these kids which isn't that dissimilar and I can definitely see massive parallels.

One of the big culture shifts is that the music scene doesn't exist as it did and the trendy thing is now politics which I think helps precisely no one.

I do know exactly what I'd be doing and where I'd be socially if I was 17/18 now and it's scary.

@GreenAndSpringy yes

I've no idea whether it's common or not, but toddlers say all sorts of odd things and my general rule was not to take any of it literally.

I’m Autistic.

Can you be specific?

What is extremely common?

I’ve agreed that a male presenting child wanting to marry their mother is common and a female presenting child wanting to marry their father is common.

Or are you saying that your experience is of girls wanting to marry their mothers and boys wanting to marry their fathers (all children with conventionally paired parents) being extremely common?

@Stigglet I recognised your post about growing up all too well.

Yours is exactly the kind of voice that should be heard and included as we go forward with our understanding of the lived Neurodiverse experience and the inevitable cognitive/emotional/social dissonance that we are forced to try and navigate within frameworks imposed on us by communities and policies that lessen us for not being able to conform to them.

I ended up in a smallish boarding unit in a larger singe sex day school where one to one interactions made friendly relationships eventually possible, being around each other 24/7 forced a degree of understanding.
I’m not sure I would have survived the full standard secondary school experience. You’re amazing!

@GreenAndSpringy that’s not my experience. In fact I would say it’s extremely common. Perhaps it’s less common for it to be linked in any way with gender or homosexuality.

I still present as “male”. Short hair, trousers, no makeup, computer programmer. But I’m a middle aged woman with kids so nobody is trying to tell me I’m trans. Also now I’m older (and no longer sexually attractive) I’m finding that men who share my interests are more willing to be friends with me.

It is.

But being Autistic means being an outlier.
And little girls with conventionally paired parents with no exposure to same sex parented families who decide they will make their own family with their mother are very much an outlier minority.

Autism is a neurological difference that results in being bullied and socially excluded. But instead of being diagnosed with autism, people are being diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

I tend to think that GD is an “easier” thing to diagnose people with than ASD.

Firstly the diagnosis is easier - do you present as the opposite gender, end of diagnosis. It’s not complicated by masking and other issues.

Secondly there’s medical treatment for GD and there isn’t any treatment for autism (other than expensive talking therapies that the NHS doesn’t want to provide).

Thirdly there is still a general assumption that you can’t have autism if you don’t have learning difficulties (even though it’s 30 years since the medical establishment agreed this isn’t the case).

That doesn't mean that people are really suffering with ocd/ body dysphoria about their sex.

Is there a missing 'not' here, @WarriorN ?

It’s extremely common for children to express the wish to be married to their parent (of either sex). It’s nothing to do with being autistic or gender or sexual preferences.

You would say the opposite to “nothing about us without us” ?

You seem to think the opinion you have somehow linked to what I said is a fact.

Thankfully, I’ve never shared your certainty, and if I had it would have made me very uncomfortable when my toddling daughter expressed her certainty that she and I (her mother - in a loving relationship with her father) would eventually get married.

@BonfireLady, your daughter might be interested in Jasmin Paris, who is an astounding British ultramarathon runner and also a vet, an academic and the mother of two young children. The reaction of the running community to Jasmin's recent achievement of being the first woman ever to finish the insanely difficult 100+ mile Barkley Marathons was incredibly heartening. https://www.instagram.com/p/C45tCzHLxUR Write up from one of the other four finishers, who were all male.

https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/ultra/a25930252/who-is-jasmin-paris/

I think it is very clear to anyone who has been following this for the last few years to see a very clear link between autism and trans.

I think the problem has come from being trans being part of the LGBT community. If an autistic child told a professional that they were gay then it wouldn’t be a problem, just who they are. But with being trans being seen as being part of the same ‘group’ professionals feel they can’t question someone saying they are trans as it’s ’the same’ as being gay.

Absolutely. A shockingly low percentage of people on the autistic spectrum manage to hold down a job or career. Terrible waste of talent for society as a whole and not a good outcome for the individuals concerned, given the knock-on effects on their mental and physical health.

I would also say the opposite @GreenAndSpringy

Gender dysphoria/ transgender is a socially constructed condition. That doesn't mean that people are really suffering with ocd/ body dysphoria about their sex. But its links to social ideas of male and female are inextricable. Babies are not born with GD.

Autism is a neurological difference that is innate. And extremely diverse.

I hope things are better for you now.

The BMX Freestyle Olympic qualifiers happen next month so the athletes aren’t confirmed yet, but Charlotte Worthington of the UK is heavily tipped @BonfireLady - she was Olympic champion in Tokyo. A very good model of a strong, confident female.

I would say this is the polar opposite of my thoughts.

This just adds legitimacy to what is obvious to Autistic people:
”Nothing about us without us”

No one Autistic voice is going to provide the answers. An Autistic minority is not enough either.

What is very, very definitely clear here is that too many professionals who understand Autism academically have set the framework. It’s a framework where Autism and Gender Dysphoria have been split into separate sections.
If more people affected had been included it would have been understood from the start that these cannot be segmented.

I agree, but what is interesting is that I think even just a few weeks ago people would have regarded a discussion of this as transphobic and ableist. It’s an article that probably couldn’t even have been published until now because of the toxicity surrounding this issue.

And I think there seriously needs to be research, support and a pretty much wholesale review in how we support autistic individuals and their families - especially girls but also those regarded as ‘high functioning’ because they don’t have SEN needs, as such. There is a narrative that if a kid is able to get good GCSEs then their ASD is somehow less acute, when this attitude has it’s roots in the days when ‘autism’ was only recognised in non-verbal, pre-pubescent boys. This fails to acknowledge what autism actually is and focuses on a small number of associated co-morbidities/symptoms. As the definition - and thus the spectrum umbrella - has broadened over the last 20 years, DoE and the NHS should have adapted.

Successive govts have failed in this, the current one (even allowing for the necessary prioritising of Covid management) has failed to step up.