To think that the majority of trans people are neurodivergent

[SlipperSliders]

...and I sort of think it's a form of neurodivergence in itself.

By the way I'm trans affirmative.

I don't think I've met a trans person who I thought was neurotypical.

A diagnosis of gender dysphoria is often cited as evidencing that a person is truly trans. But if you look up the criteria by which a diagnosis is made it is pretty much all about old-fashioned gender stereotypes: boys wanting to play with Barbies instead of trucks etc etc. Added to which there are innumerable online resources telling kids what to say to the medical professional in order to get a diagnosis. There are no empirical tests- none. And yet for liking the "wrong" toys or clothes or wanting a different hairstyle, we have been making people into lifelong medical patients.

With respect to the ND aspect, it is true that autistic kids are over represented amongst trans-identifying kids but I think it's because it offers them an opportunity to fit in. Kids who come out as trans are celebrated, there are lgbt groups in schools etc that welcome them in. I'm not inclined to think there is an innate or biological link between ND and trans identity.

How can 'becoming your true self' require such drastic medical changes? I really do believe we will look back on this era and wonder what the hell we were thinking.

One key problem has been to lump everyone who identifies as trans as all being the same and having the same needs (homogenous).

Yup. It shifts one's understanding very significantly to understand the various groups that are being lumped together under a 'trans' umbrella

Gender non conforming people
Confused teenagers
Genuine dysphorics
AGP men
Predatory men

Whose interests are we serving by grouping these very different cohorts together?

Please can you link that

I think youre adding 2 + 2 together and getting 6.

Many ND folks don't feel they fit in. They can also fixate and seek ways to fit in.

I personally think trans is a movement. Ive seen this before where straight people said they were gay when gay became a movement in the 90's.

There are people who are trans, obviously, but are they definitively trans? There is imo a high possibility they are just saying it to fit in or to be trendy.

Once we have societal acceptance of trans and it isnt a movement Tom, Dick and Harry jump on to feel they fit in, we'll see that trans isnt largely ND but more a general % across the whole population.

I personally cannot wait for societal acceptance of ND and trans.

Equity rules!

This argument about ND people transitioning to fit in..I find a bit ridiculous. Trans people are generally not welcomed. The stats on attacks on trans people are horrifying. I don't see how being trans would help anyone fit in socially.

Yeah I identified as trans for nearly a decade and am ND as were the vast majority of my network.

@southbiscay yes that's very interesting. I can't recall who posted about their work with ND kids - diagnosed Autistic ( less presenting as trans ) Vs suspicious of Autism yet not diagnosed ( more trans).

My son said some really different things regards identify and sexuality from a young age. Thinking he was gay ( that isn't odd, but the way he articulated it and his feelings were definitely different), confusion regards his feelings towards males, was it friendship was it not. It was evidently different and what led to me realising there is a difference.

Son is diagnosed now, we're very pro ND, shout it to the rooftops and tough if you don't like it. He's now very anti the trans agenda, very confidently heterosexual and no questions regarding his preference. This could have come about anyway but I do feel if we'd buried our heads in denial or just not realising for too long that causes some major issues for these young people.

I totally agree we can't lump everyone together and every trans person is different with different things at play.

I do agree with this more than the argument towards doing it to fit in. Many people would be aware that they are signing up for a truly horrible experience - more so than being openly Autistic.

Most people aged 50+ will tell you that it was used as a homophobic slur when we were growing up and therefore definitely to be avoided. Have you never come across this before?

In the very distant past it simply meant “strange” or “unusual” hence nervous giggles at school when we read sentences such as “I’m feeling rather queer today”, or “She came over rather queer” or “He had a queer expression on his face”.

If you’re going to use this word it’d be a good idea to understand why some people older than you don’t understand or are offended by the fact that it appears to be common parlance again, given its use and meaning a few decades ago.

This is patent nonsense. ‘Trans’ people are the safest group - by far - in every western society. When you talk about ‘horrifying’ attacks on ‘trans’ people you are referring to ‘misgendering’. Or ‘correctly sexing’.

‘Trans’ people have a platform, a power and an influence unprecedented in modern human history. They are venerated by politicians (including the US president and his VP), media, most large corporations, all big tech except Twitter, and big pharma.

Women and girls can only dream of such protection and support.

Thus the lie is proved.

I'm 48. I remember it being a slur. I said that I understood that it had been reclaimed, not that it had never been offensive.

This all day!

I've been on a long long journey with this.

It's littered with myths and untruths which 'transallies' repeat long after those who trained them backtrack.

It's awful.

Not only that one of the worst is the 'its just like being gay' narrative. Yet one of the most negatively impacted groups by trans ideology are gay people.

Time and again you then get 'LGBT allies' telling someone they don't know is gay, that they shouldn't have a problem and it's like section 28.

It's like gay people can't advocate for themselves and are told, that because of their sexuality they must have certain politics. By people who claim to be supportive.

We still haven't tackled a legal definition of trans or a legal definition of woman. They can't be a fuzzy feeling because this isn't legally coherent. These are important because the equality act rests on the understanding of sex. If we can't legally define we can't defend rights. It's particularly true for homosexuals - if sex is replaced by gender they lose their protected status of being same sex attracted. It potentially criminalises them for refusing to even consider an opposed sex partner and leaves them at the mercy of having to work this out (potentially with implications to their safety).

Again this isn't transphobic. This is a practicality issue. One that possibly because it's about beliefs - can't be legislated for as anything but a belief. If it's a belief then in a free society, by default there is a right not to share that belief or have that belief imposed on you.

I argue that it hasn't been reclaimed because so many still use it offensively and so many find it still offensive.

What does enby/NB mean exactly? I mean, I'm a biological woman, I was born female. But I don't have any feelings of identity as a woman or a man. Does that mean I'm NB?

The word queer was used in the voice over of one of the nye London displays, can't remember if it was 2024 or 2023.
Surprised me but assumed its a sign the usage has changed.

I think a big issue is that for such a long time, autism was assumed to be a mostly male phenomenon. As late as 2004, I remember reading a psychology textbook that claimed there was a male:female ratio of 20:1 for Asperger's Syndrome. We're playing catch-up, and that means that teaching about autism and puberty has focused on boys. Female-specific aspects of how autism manifests are missed and misattributed to gender dysphoria.

For example, there seems to be very limited awareness that struggling with the sensory experience of menstruation is usual for autistic girls, because they are autistic. It's known that disordered sensory processing may mean that the sensation of a runny nose from a cold is an overwhelming constant source of distress for an autistic child of either sex, but no-one puts this together and realises that periods can trigger the same type of distress. So many times I have been told that girls can know they're "born in the wrong body" because they can't stand the constant sensation of blood leaking out of them onto a sanitary towel or the anxiety about it leaking through their clothes. That's the sensory processing disorder! I solved this for myself through tampons, by the way. Internal sanitarywear means I can't feel the blood leaving my body until the tampon is saturated.

If hating the sensation of blood leaking from you means you're in the wrong body, then I must have been born with the wrong body and the wrong type of face then. I used to rub my nose raw when I was little and had a cold, just trying to stop my nose running.

Yanbu. They are sterilising autistic and gay kids in plain sight.

@Choochoo21

I totally agree. I much preferred playing sport and being one of the lads. I never went as far as shaving my hair or binding however I would dress like a male. As an adult I've had a bilateral mastectomy without reconstruction due to breast cancer. I've also had to have some women reproduction parts removed as a cancer prevention as I carry a genetic mutation. I am in theory a lot more masculine in body than most women now in regards to feminine body parts. However I 100% identify as a woman, I am not especially 'girly' but I would never deem myself as wanting to be or to transition to male. It scares me to what I may have done as a teen had transitioning been more mainstream as at present. I am not ND but I still think I could have easily been swayed as I never fitted in amongst the girls.

Edit: I also was very confused as a teen because I couldn't work out if I were gay as a result of being more of one of the boys. When I finally discovered I was attracted to boys at around 17 life made a little more sense.

Late development of sexual attraction or lack of sexual attraction is known as being common in autistic kids.

Yet kids are being taught they should have sexual feelings at an earlier and earlier age. It's something that's really unhelpful as part of this.

And that is how "gay" was used when I was a teen. Giggles when it was used in old literature, used as a nasty slur by nasty teens. different words, different generations. I don't think queer was even in our consciousness really. So it is hardly surprising if generations younger than mine have coopted it in a very different way

There's no sense of what is a normal range for identity formation and sexual attraction and whether this differs in autistic kids. There should be.

Who gets to decide that something 'has been reclaimed'?

Because not one single gay person I know agrees with that.

You said earlier that you were surprised to hear it being described as a slur.

I’m a teacher and I agree with you, the kids I know who are trans are autistic or I would say are undiagnosed. I work at a girls school and I’m not joking when I say that it also seems to run in friendship groups and seems to start with one member then increase. One class I taught last year there were five children who were trans. I have no issue with this but considering the national percentages it does seem disportionate at my school and I wonder if some teenagers who are neuro divergent who aren’t happy with themselves anyway because they find it hard to fit into society have latched onto this concept of being trans as a way for them to try to work out why they feel they don’t feel like they “ fit in”