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

[NellieEllie]

This is profoundly disturbing. mobile.twitter.com/networkautism/status/1129320893208047616

Regarding Greta - I imagine she will agree with the Deep Green Resistance who are gender critical.

Is ‘not being attracted to someone until you know them well’ considered so special it now needs an entire orientation to itself?

It's crazy isn't it. I met a woman a few years ago who told me she was demi-sexual and that that meant although she might find people attractive, she only felt comfortable sleeping with people she'd formed an emotional connection to. She said it like this was a rare and unique thing to feel. I just thought wtf, that's almost everyone I know. That's just normal?!

Does this mean everyone not ‘demisexual’ is expected to drop their knickers the moment they meet?

That's what pisses me off most about this Tumblr science, is it demands as it's foil the notion that everyone else is this 2 dimensional emotionally vacuous walking stereotype. In order for them to be super duper special everyone has to be "cis-het" which in women seems to mean "princess barbie who sleeps with anyone" and in men seems to be "GI Joe hunter gatherer". And we're told that the vast majority are like this, with only a small marginalised group being cool enough to have a range of personality traits.

I honestly think it's driven (from the bottom anyway) by kids spending too much time online, esp on Tumblr, and not enough time engaging with a variety of real people in the real world. I read a story on r/detrans a while back from a former transwoman who said his dysphoria had been driven by seeing beautiful actresses and fashion models and wanting to be like them. He said it went away after he spent more time around regular women and realised that they come in all shapes and sizes and don't all think or act the same. It was really sad that he'd reached adulthood without realising that. We're still not seen as fully human by most people I think.

Thanks thingy I will go look.

I think if they are vulnerable they should never have been put in a position where they are presenting and giving facts "as an expert". It's almost universal to question and discuss after a presentation, both in person and on Twitter.

I think NAS really need to have words with the network.

I agree Kat.

Woo nonsense. Shocking really that so many charities and such are falling for this nonsense. Thousands spent getting training sessions by pressure groups. Then spounting unscientific nonsense as if its fact.

“The person who did that presentation is autistic and they became distressed when questioned about their content.

I think the person who questioned the content is also autistic.”

So - an autistic person can’t call out the sexism and homophobia of another autistic person lest they get in trouble for disablist hate speech. Am I right?

Reminds me of the time someone tried to take Miranda Yardley to court for transphobia.

The NHS pages on Gender Dysphoria are shameful. Linking specific hormonal abnormalities to GD by putting information on the same page when there is NO evidence of a link between them is outrageous.

I despair of the NAS. Autistic people deserve to be supported in how they perceive themselves. But being surgically and chemically "corrected" leads to sterilisation and unknown long term health consequences. Surely every effort should be directed at finding ways of supporting autistic people who are "gender diverse" that avoids this?

I know this whole thing really isn't funny, but I am chuckling at the 'demi sexual' thing. I mean, really?!

Jesus, I've just googled 'demi sexual' and fallen down a rabbit hole. It even has its own flag! So if you were 'demi sexual', you would be part of LGBT? Am I just old, or is it just all batshit? What is with this obsession with putting everyone in boxes? It's just normal human behaviour they are describing. Totally normal.

I agree with the previous poster who says that this is just normal teenage angst around identity and the need to belong to something, but it seems to be spilling out everywhere.

I fell down that rabbit hole a few months back and realised I have been half a dozen different 'identities during my life when I always thought I was plain old boring.

Even now in my old age as a happy asexual, I still have a flag!

What is with this obsession with putting everyone in boxes?

Maybe that is one of the reasons the autistic community find the identity rubbish so appealing?

I know some autistic people like this: they think by virtue of being autistic their views represent those of all autistic people, and that is enough for them to feel confident in presenting themselves as experts. There is no arguing with them. If you try then, as they consider their view to represent all autistic people, you must be criticising them all ergo being disabilist. I presumed it was their autism which made them think this way.

Most autistic people I know are aware that there are a range of views, experiences and understandings amongst people with autism.

We're still not seen as fully human by most people I think

Yup

Going back to some comments a few hours back, how does anyone know if a fetus has been subjected to high/low or whatever levels of testosterone in utero?

It's not routinely measured - why would it be? If it were measured, I can only think that would involve a needle being passed into the uterus to draw off amniotic fluid for analysis and this would carry a risk of miscarriage. So why would you do that? And if the hormone content of amniotic fluid is measured as a result of some problem or abnormality, then the higher levels may be a result of the problem and wouldn't exist otherwise so couldn't be extrapolated to a wider population group.

Yes AncientLights most o the studies I've been reading are based on intersex people, especially women with C-CAH. The research goes "blah blah blah high testosterone blah blah blah liked playing with trucks blah blah blah raised as a girl so can't be about socialisation" then right at the end it goes "of course many of these girls had masculinised genitalia, so that may be a confounding factor re: socialisation". Like, yeh you don't say!

Relevant is this sad comment in the Lancet

"much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.
Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness"

Oh good grief, it's the hormone washes all over again. Thank you ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving for that Lancet quote.
What can we do IRL to counter this?

I think taking the NHS website content writers to task on that GID page would be a good start. I want to know who wrote it and what source data are they using. Most of it doesn't even meet basic grammatical standards ffs. There was one paragraph that was almost unreadable. The content guidelines say that all content must be checked and signed off on, but also that it must have a link and the bottom to flag errors and that it must make it clear when it's presenting an unproven hypothesis or controversial theory, which it doesn't. It also uses the phrase "sex assigned at birth" and forgets to define "gender" but does define "genderqueer" which makes me think it's been written with input by lobbyists rather than doctors. I'm going to try and write to them this week.

Great stuff, Grabthars! Sometimes I feel as if the tides and sands of time were sweeping round and burying me. And sometimes I feel the need to stick up the middle finger of anomaly.

Thanks Grabthars - science has taken a turn towards darkness indeed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the GID page was written by trans activists, as anyone & everyone in this field seems to be handing over all their power to this shower of fools.

Going back to some comments a few hours back, how does anyone know if a fetus has been subjected to high/low or whatever levels of testosterone in utero?

There are some studies on the effects of prenatal testosterone involving mixed sex twins, but results have been inconclusive. They have investigated e.g. are girls more likely to have autistic traits if they have a male twin?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4719693/

The thing is we already know that some girls have traits that could be regarded as ‘masculine’. It still doesn’t change their sex and it’s still not clear why it would be useful to regard them as male, any more than it would be useful to regard women over 6’ as male.

You also then have to ask whether, if it’s all to do with prenatal hormones, people who haven’t been subjected to elevated hormones are really trans. The more you try to pin down gender as a biological phenomenon, the less it becomes a matter of ‘self ID’.

I think taking the NHS website content writers to task on that GID page would be a good start.

I'm going to try and write to them this week.

I'll try and do the same. Perhaps a mass complaint about that page would be a good idea. The NHS page is where many parents will look first when their teenage daughters suddenly decide they're boys.

What I find astonishing in all this is how the same autistic activists who for ages have railed against Baron-Cohen's extreme male brain/gendered brain/testosterone-washing hypotheses as an explanation for autism are so happy to accept the same premise as an explanation for transgenderism. It makes no sense to me at all.

I know very little about autism advocacy and activism, so read these threads with great interest but generally keep my ill-informed opinions to myself. But this is the elephant in the room that has struck even me here!

Ok, so apologies for crediting slide to NAS. However Network Autism is provided by NAS, and stuff in their own website references Wenn. Their twitter symbol is identical to NAS.
On the NAS website, they also have a clinical psychologist called Sally Powis. One of the videos linked seems sensible re GD and autism - ie having to tease out whether if it only appears later, it’s to do with adolescent confusion, fetish or special interest, but even here there is a reference to GD being “biological”.
But look at this video. Same rubbish lumping of all those with autism together as more likely to reject social pressures and be true to themselves and therefore the HUGE rise in those with ASD presenting as having gender dysphoria representing genuine cases. This is OUTRAGEOUS. I can see many other reasons for the increase. Social isolation, the feeling of “not fitting in”, real anxiety, even horror over bodily changes that cannot be controlled and being viewed as a sexualised being (for girls). Just let gnoring other possibilities is so dangerous.
In addition, the way some schools are presenting GD is that you have almost to decide what “gender identity” you have. That it is a choice that is to be made. Where do I fit on the gender spectrum? Many children with autism have a social naivety, may be behind peers in the social adolescent stuff - dating, for girls, some of the stereotypes behaviour like using make up, flirting. Some can be very anxious, as can ALL children about overtures from the opposite sex. All these things can feed into the GD myth,

Anyways, have a look at this. vimeo.com/163281959

Just working through all the stuff in the NAS website. Loads of signposting to Mermaids, Stonewall, also the Brighton & Hove school toolkit from Allsorts.
Think it’s clear.

That Demisexual nonsense is just another way to skew 'normal' sexuality to suit the purposes of porn sick men: If you're not permanently up for it with anyone then you're abnormal.