Autism & Gender Dysphoria: No proven link

[pennydrew]

Well since the discussion that was part of another thread got removed, for some odd reason, I thought I would start a conversation on this. To clarify, when people say there is a link, they are not referring to any data or study involving diagnosed autistic people. I have checked. I have seen language like, ' autistic traits' and ' autism spectrum related issues' but nothing credible. I am very careful not to assume a genuine link exists simply because people say so. It seems to be trendy to 'identify as autistic', but that is incredibly insulting and appropriation of a poorly understood condition. My daughter gets very upset at the casual way people discuss this link as if it is real, as a way to use autism to get acceptance for something entirely different and an ideology she finds personally threatening to her own rights- both as a woman and autistic person.

Just learn to ask the risk right questions

I was addressing the OP mostly, Red, your points are excellent.

lady, look at what I wrote originally. Read it. I made this thread because it is something I see a lot. I was not having a go at anyone in this thread as I started the conversation from another one that has since been deleted. You're pissing me off because you continually have a go at me about things I HAVE NOT SAID. You rudely accused me of talking over autistic people, despite me actually word for word expressing what two autistic people told me, and you told me I was not interested in the opinions of autistic people. I am. It is you who is not able to listen to others opinions without insulting them.

No Red, its me she is constantly having a go at.

penny I'm not having a go, I just don't agree with some of your points.

Another thing worth considering is that even when cause and effect is as proven as proven can be, a cause doesn't necessarily have a 100% effect rate

deepwatersolo yeah I agree, you would think they would not reinforce the link, but from what I see and what was constantly angrily put to me before I left social media, was more like... tagging themselves on to that cause mens they will get less resistance to the trans ideology. Because autism is a legitimate, accepted, and appreciated condition, then we cannot possibly have an issue with trans people because they're 'mostly autistic'. I actually felt targeted by them because I tweeted and talked elsewhere so much about autism. I got a lot of, what a terrible mother you are and what will you do when your child identifies as trans etc etc

Lady, oh no, your comments are quite clearly having a go, some are somewhat passive aggressive ( no your comments are good the OP is the problem ) and this It's quite clear that OP doesn't want autistic voices heard on this thread and it's just another thread where autistic people are talked about rather than listened to. Same old same old was quite clearly having a go. You can't use autism as a stick to beat me with ok, just because I disagree with your take on something does not mean I am 'speaking over autistic people', particularly when you are not the autism rep ok. You are one person. MY CHILD tells me something different to you. You know, the person who is a teen right now, in the age group we are all concerned about, who has a large group of autistic female friends all GC. Maybe, I don't know, we might want to listen to them as well.

So is your point "we don't have anything proven yet" rather than "there is no link"?

pennydrew mumsnet not working well for me so this relates back a bit now.
I was trying to add, and not being able to, this:
I don't really agree that the Tavistock isn't in a position to recognise autism in this cohort. They have stated that they see clinically diagnosable traits in 51% of girls (IIRC), a proportion of whom will already be diagnosed of course. What I agree isn't clear is whether the Tavi is (in undiagnosed youngsters where they see clinically significant traits) actually making that diagnosis as well as the GD, or referring back to home autism teams, or just shrugging and ignoring (unlikely)

I don't agree that they have no experience of autism and are not qualified to recognise it. We don't know the background , history, interests or qualification of everyone on that team. And frankly autism in girls is often NOT recognised, so if this team is recognising it in a large proportion of their referred girls, they obviously have a fair understanding of how it manifests in teen girls. Otherwise they wouldn't be spotting it at all (as many schools don't - no criticism, it's poorly understood and many girls are masters as masking).

"As in, in the increase of girls being referred we are seeing possible cases of ASD. We need more research. It is not possible to say more than that at the moment."

It's true we need more research.

But you are only looking at one end of this lens whereas I am looking at the other. In my experience, in our diagnosed autistic youngsters there is a big increase in those reporting gender identity issues. Compared with youngsters in the city reporting gender identity issues who aren't autistic, and compared with our autistic cohort 8 or 9 years ago.

OP - My first post was not aggressive or whatever at all, and you responded quite rudely, which annoyed me, and now this is just getting silly. It felt like this was another thread about autistic people where non-autistic people were dominating the narrative. I am sure you can understand why that might be upsetting and annoying for autistic mumsnetters.

You do genuinely sound like you're using your relatives with autism as a way of sounding expert though.
I raised a point earlier about the way you've talked about female presentations of autism that was over-egged.
It really is distressing to hear somebody without lived experience of a way of being using second-hand experiences like this.

Why is it so important to you that there isn't a link between asd and gender non-conformity?

I personally think there might be. My solution to gender is to be a feminist. That's the tribe i found. I worry that impressionable autistic children will be sold transactivism as a solution.

I'm concerned about all age groups. There are women in their thirties who transition because of this kind of pressure. It's not just young teens. But I have young teens with autism myself. I talked with them about it and they came up with the same either-conformist-or-non-conformist stuff as in the theory above, so there's probably a lot of truth in it.

I don't just draw on my own experience - I research this stuff widely and work out how it resonates with my own experiences.

You just seem to really be overstating how important it is that your relative has an opinion out of step with most autistic women on here. In my view.

From what I can see, there’s too many comments to check, there are 2 or 3 autistic women on the replies. I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s in any way supposed to be representative of autistic females, certainly no more than my teen and her many friends. I’m talking about a group of autistic female teenagers. I’m allowed to have faith in their opinions and disagree with other autistic people. I too read a lot about it, from autistic people, I regularly watch Aspergers Girl on YouTube. I’m not coming from a place of total ignorance. But I’ve not once indicated I’m an expert on autism. What I’ve repeatedly said, and wished I hadn’t bothered, is we should be careful of using or accepting language that talks about it as a ‘proven link’ rather than what we actually can say with some certainty, that there may be a vulnerability in that group. I’ve actually not once said that they may not be vulnerable to unhealthy gender ideology. But I do feel that there are some ‘genuinely’ transgendered people and in that group I don’t think we can say with certainty that there is ‘a proven link’. At the moment I believe we are all concerned with the spike in female referrals to the gender clinic, I’m afraid I believe that most of them are not transgender. I’ve probably broken a rule saying that. So therefore, this correlation has to be thoroughly and objectively investigated, as well as the spike of referrals itself.

The reason I’m so pedantic about having well designed scientific studies, plural, is because I’ve an interest in nutrition and get so frustrated at how long it takes to dispel myths. Myths based on poorly designed studies or reports of correlations, with well-designed research taking decades to materialise and then the facts even longer to be accepted.... I think it’s crucial to research things thoroughly from the beginning and be careful in our conversations in the interim. It can be just as dangerous to assume the reasons for things as to wait longer before acting. A measured response to these observations is all I’m really saying.

"I believe we are all concerned with the spike in female referrals to the gender clinic, I’m afraid I believe that most of them are not transgender."

I absolutely agree with you on this. I believe it is very easy for autism to 'look like' many other things, for a load of different reasons. We don't know enough about any of this and it's very worrying.

So, can you see my point? If most of them are not transgender, is there really a correlation between ASD & GID? ( in females )
Also earlier someone added a link which said autistic people were either non-conformist or conformist, at similar rates to NT’s but were more consistently either one.

Oldbirdy sorry it’s late for me and I’m struggling to keep up, I believe you work in diagnosis. You might not be able to expand, but as the transgender umbrella is quite broad now, were there more ‘non-binary’? My husband just said, because he doesn’t care what others think at all ( not always a good thing! ) he thinks maybe autistic men are more likely to not care about conforming to gender stereotypes. But apparently according to the study posted earlier, not more non conforming than NT’s? See, we need more research!

My suspicion is that there is a correlation between autism and diagnosed gender dysphoria, but that the GD is probably not actually GD and is in fact fairly typical autistic 'failure to conform' alongside all the usual social contagion stuff.

There's a phrase we use on autism forums that I think is useful to remember:

If you know one autistic, you know ONE autistic.

I quoted that phrase earlier Aspie.

I was on the other thread, went out and it had been deleted. Typical.

I'm inclined to agree with LadyBrain that diagnostic errors are a significant proportion of any correlation that shows up. I was late diagnosed (mid 20s) and I can very easily see how I could have landed up under the trans umbrella in the quest to fit in if I'd been a teen now. Being told that I was trying to fit in with the wrong group, rather than feeling that I didn't fit, would have been seductive to me at various points.

Ah I think we are talking at cross purposes because I don't think there's a clear enough definition of a genuinely Transgender person.
Under the stonewall definition I am one.

I believe the term 'there is /is not a link' is misleading.

Say, 5 % (invented number) of people with ASD have also GID. That is 10 times (!) more than the standard population (0.6 %, reported number), and still, 95 % of people with ASD would not have GID.

Now if you say, those 5% go to Travistock and make up 50% of transitioners there, with the other 50% being GID via a different route (Blanchard talks about e.g. effeminate gays subconsciously choosing transition as the easier path). That would be 50% ASD in youth. But then you dump on that a high number of late transitioning autogynephiles (say, 4 times as many as those youth), and you end up with only 10% ASD in the transgender population.

So, you might have a scenario, where 95% of ASD do not have GID and 90% of transpeople do not have ASD and you could still see a statistical correlation/link between ASD and GID, even though most transpeople are (in this scenario, I do not have the data) late transitioning autogynephiles without ASD (80%).

Super I was just about to post exactly that!
But delayed in a moment of indecision over the rules about quoting "genuinely transgendered" .

I think Jenny is objecting to something that isn't happening. The stats can only refer to those identifying as trans.

But I do feel that there are some ‘genuinely’ transgendered people and in that group I don’t think we can say with certainty that there is ‘a proven link’.

I don't believe there are any genuinely transgendered people.
There are people who genuinely believe they are the opposite sex to their actual sex. And for want of a better word they are labelled transgender.
But much as the existence of people who truly believe the earth is flat does not mean that the earth actually IS FLAT for those ardent believers, nor does the existence of people who truly believe people can be the opposite sex to what they actually are, mean that there really do exist people who are the opposite sex inside.

False beliefs exist.
We're pretty good at affirming false beliefs in our society.
And some people are more suggestible to false beliefs than others.

If I'm right, then all transgenderism really is, is a label we stick on people who have a false belief.

And anyone who is vulnerable or susceptible to beliefs like this will be overrepresented in that group.

If the incidence of transgender people diagnosed with autism is higher than the incidence in the general population then we need to search for explanations of why this might be.