Gender dysphoria and autism

[Cocha]

Please I am interested to know if anyone knows the reason why there are a disproportionate number of autistic girls who are trans or non-binary. Perhaps someone who has some knowledge in this area might be able to explain?

When people say they’re non-binary, what they often mean is that they don’t conform with male or female stereotypes. Back in my day we’d have called it “being a tomboy” if you were a girl. But nowadays you’re not allowed to be non-gender-conforming, you must be trans.

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Autism, Puberty, and Gender Dysphoria
4w.pub/autism-puberty-gender-dysphoria-view-from-an-autistic-desisted-woman

• Tend to have a very concertized view of certain social norms, so a "masculine" girl is percieved as being somehow not really a girl.

*Discomfort with social norms they see as required.

• General feeling that they are "wrong" and don't fit in.

*Around puberty, discomfort with changes in the body and becoming sexually interesting to the opposite sex, the physicality of menstruation, etc.

*Related to the above, it's not uncommon for autistic teens to be late bloomers in terms of maturity and compared to their peers, which can make navigating all of this more difficult.

• A tendency to be rather linear in their thinking and not always realize when someone is taking advantage.

Some of the young autistic people that I work with have this dichotomy of feeling anxious at not fitting in on the one hand, yet also feeling ‘special’ on the other. Some are angry at not having the attention and recognition that their specialness deserves.

Being non-binary provides an instant and very vocal community of equally special and often morally righteous people. That must feel quite satisfying.

These traits may well just be the young adults that I see, but they are very consistent traits.

Stereotypes are often recognised as out-dated and sex-neutral clothes are widely accepted, so it's a shame there is so much pressure on all young people to think about this new ideology gender.

Can you focus more on what your DD likes to do and less on identity?

I say this as a feminist who does not at all relate to feminine stereotypes and doesn't plan to ID as anything, I am who I am.

she says she is a woman but that her gender is non binary

What does she mean by this? Does she just mean that her sex is female but that she doesn’t conform to a female (or indeed male) gender stereotype? If so, she sounds like a feminist…

It sounds like she's been told that being a woman is about certain types of feminine presentation or interests, presumably men have masculine presentation or interests. Non-binary is something in between whether she sees it as a female person with a more masculine presentation or a mixed set of interests and presentation.

A lot of kids that hear this stuff just believe it, it makes sense to them on the surface and they don't really have the abstract thinking and the historical understanding and experiences to see that it's actually pretty incoherent once you scratch the surface.

My question to her would be, what does it mean to her to be a woman or a man? If being non-binary means wearing less feminine clothing, my question would be why she is seeing the masculine as somehow neutral? I'd also be inclined to ask why she wants to put such strict boxes around what it means to be a woman or a man, and point out that actually, most of the stuff she is doing as a non-binary person women have been doing for a long time. Saying that women can't be that way is pretty sexist.

As an autistic woman who was an autistic girl fifty years ago, I'd say autistic girls express themselves as 'non-binary' as we don't feel male or female, we just feel like people. Thereafter we learn our sex from our bodies and our gender from societal expectations.

At the moment, expectations and stereotypes are given precedence, so if you like pink and sparkly you are a girl, and if you like tough and rugged you are a boy, no matter what your body says. It's feeble and it leaves children open to abuse.

@StopStartStop

As an autistic woman who was an autistic girl fifty years ago, I'd say autistic girls express themselves as 'non-binary' as we don't feel male or female, we just feel like people. Thereafter we learn our sex from our bodies and our gender from societal expectations.

At the moment, expectations and stereotypes are given precedence, so if you like pink and sparkly you are a girl, and if you like tough and rugged you are a boy, no matter what your body says. It's feeble and it leaves children open to abuse.

Great explanation. This is exactly how it is.

As a woman only just understanding the affect of autism on my life I think a trans identity would have appealed if I was a teen now. I didn’t understand the social expectations of girls nor did I understand the social rules of girls. As a result I was often ostracised and a trans identity would have given me an automatic group of friends and made me interesting rather than odd. Later I always gravitated to boys for friendships as they were easier to understand and I shared more of their interests. I’m still “non-binary”, I just understand myself better now.

I found this an interesting read; women with autism describe their experiences.

You can see over and over again where they didn't fit in, found the way men spoke easier, don't like makeup, were accepted by "queer communities."

wellcomecollection.org/articles/Yd8L-hAAAIAWFxqa

Deep pressure is an anti anxiety relief; OTs use something called bear hugs with some children in school for short periods.

They're very similar to binders. But it's max 20 mins iirc.

We let many children with autism down but particularly girls. I need to add that I've know some boys with autism who fit the "new stereotype" for girls with autism too. Its better to ditch the link to gender/ sex and really educate people that there's a particular set of "traits" (hate that word) that are linked to autism and these young people need help. A key factor is masking. More common in girls but not exclusive.

There is a really good advocate for autism at the moment making these points (but unfortunately trots out that twaw.)

Unfortunately too that article includes "queer" a lot when it's clear that a couple mean lesbian. Others I suspect mean non binary. But there are other women who are clear they're women but find male stereotypes make more sense.

If you read about Temple Grandin's life, she's very clear that the "frippery of being" a girl made no sense to her.

She is extremely gender non conforming.

But never been seen as male or seen herself as male. Perhaps as she has spent a life time studying cattle.

@ofwarren

I'm an autistic woman and I'd hazard a guess it's because a huge number of us don't really "get" femininity. Lots of us also have sensory issues which can make us dislike make up or form fitting clothing or long hair. We also struggle to fit in so badly. I was crying out for a peer group as a child and could never fit in anywhere. I can imagine of I'd grown up under the gender cult, I would have also thought I was a boy or non binary.

I think I could easily have identified as non-binary for all of these reasons and plus a tendency to over do it with the screen time if not monitored (which I wasn’t) but in the 70s that just meant far too much tv, now it’s the internet which obviously is a toxic place for a vulnerable youth.

Warrior that is a very interesting article, thank you

Masking: theautisticadvocate.com/autistic-masking/

"To break that down, what this means is that an Autistic child quickly learns that who they are is not who other people want us to be.

From very early on we are stigmatised, pathologised and (wittingly and unwittingly) punished for how we think, feel, communicate, move, behave, interpret sensory information, develop, play, even down to how and what we eat.

Every aspect of being Autistic is invalidated by the world around us and often directly to our faces.

So we learn that in order to not be excluded, marginalised, invalidated and ill-treated that we have to be 'acceptable' and project a personality that gives others comfort, so that we aren't treated that way

. Often that comfort comes in the form of showing other people what they expect to see, even if sometimes that means appearing 'more Autistic' (that can differ depending on the other person's thoughts on what Autism looks like - usually behaviourally based)."

Kieran makes so much sense.

Despite making v good points about damaging stereotypes and gender stereotypes within autism elsewhere, he doesn't however, see the issues with gender ideology.

I have a autistic 10yo DD and this worries me so much. She's not very gender conforming - likes her hair long, but that's the only stereotypical "feminine" thing about her. Not interested at all in how she looks or what she wears, as long as she's comfortable. Only wears trousers - preferably trackie bottoms - and boots. Doesn't really fit in with anyone, girls or boys. She's a loner, and genuinely enjoys her own company, but has admitted she "would like a friend to talk to."

She's in early puberty and is clearly uncomfortable with how her body is changing - has gone from being completely unbothered by her body to deeply self-conscious of it in a matter of months. I can see it could appeal to her if she was told there was a way to stop all these changes happening.

So far she's been largely protected from trans propaganda by her somewhat old-fashioned (sensible?) primary school, but I worry about what will happen when she attends secondary, as there doesn't seem to be a "non-woke" secondary in the area.

We've talked about these issues, I've explained that the only things that make you a girl or a boy are your genes and genitalia, and that other that you can dress, act and do whatever you like, but it doesn't change your sex. She knows about sexual stereotypes, and that they're a bad thing - to the extent that she gave a boy in her class a real telling off recently for saying that women are kinder and gentler than men - because "that's sexist!"

We tell her every day that we love her and are proud of her just for being exactly who she is, and on the whole she seems very confident and secure in herself. I can only hope that's enough.

I've asked why can't she still be a woman, just a different woman because there are all sorts of women, she says she is a woman but that her gender is non binary.

I could be wrong, but I'm getting the impression that some people who consider themselves non-binary simply regard it as meaning that they reject/don't embody stereotypes belonging to either gender (rather than actually believing that they are neither a man nor a woman).

While I applaud the idea of getting rid of gender stereotypes, I don't really see why doing so requires someone to identify as a different category of human (as if 'non-binary' were a separate sex). Arguably everybody is non-binary, in the sense that none of us embodies absolutely all of the stereotypes associated with our sex all of the time. But as a young person questioning one's identity, it must be very tempting to be drawn into a 'tribe'.

I imagine that a lot of autistic people find the changes associated with puberty much harder to deal with than most NT people. And the accompanying sexualisation and social/beauty expectations for women must make it even harder for autistic girls.

There’s also the issue that for a long time, and still to a lot of I’ll informed medical professionals and the general public, autism was considered to be “extreme male brain” behaviour. That just lends itself beautifully to gender and non binary thoughts as it’s still considered a more masculine neuro divergence. Autism in women and girls is so little researched and understood that it’s not surprising that if an autistic women doesn’t conform to standard femininity because of interests or sensory issues with feminine clothing, make up etc. It’s easy to feel you don’t fit in and have this “extreme male brain” problem and so I can see how it would be easy to slip over to “maybe I’m a boy or non binary or…”

My autistic teen’s clinician told us that around 80% of all trans/non binary people are also autistic. She explained that it wasn’t because they were confused/didn’t know their own minds/were trying to fit expectations, but in fact the opposite. She said that autistic people are less likely to be swayed by societal ‘norms’ and are therefore more definite about their inherent gender identity.
I am aware that not everyone acknowledges gender identity as being separate to the sex you were born, so this answer will not work for everyone, but thought It was relevant to the question.

She said that autistic people are less likely to be swayed by societal ‘norms’ and are therefore more definite about their inherent gender identity.

I am aware that not everyone acknowledges gender identity as being separate to the sex you were born, so this answer will not work for everyone, but thought It was relevant to the question.

If you mean that autistic people are more likely to act and present themselves however feels natural to them, without being swayed by gendered social expectations, then I don't think that's at all incompatible with a gender critical view of things. Quite the opposite. It just suggests that how we choose to dress and behave shouldn't be tied to sex or gender in the first place. There is no need to think 'I like x hobby/clothes/interests and therefore I must be x gender'. There is no reason why those things should be anything to do with sex or gender.

My autistic teen’s clinician told us that around 80% of all trans/non binary people are also autistic. She explained that it wasn’t because they were confused/didn’t know their own minds/were trying to fit expectations, but in fact the opposite. She said that autistic people are less likely to be swayed by societal ‘norms’ and are therefore more definite about their inherent gender identity.

That's a bit shocking. I was convinced I knew my own mind when I was 15. I didn't anticipate how much my sense of self would change throughout my life.

My son is autistic. He's 7. He has super long hair and likes to wear dresses sometimes because he finds them comfortable and he doesn't care at all about other peoples opinions so he doesn't get embarrassed about looking different or not fitting in.

When he was 5/6 he went through a stage of saying he wanted to be a girl or he was genderless but after we explained to him that was ok but also boys can wear dresses if they want to and still be boys and having long hair and wearing a dress isn't what makes you a girl he soon stopped and now is just a 7 year old boy who's comfortable with who he is.

I think autistic people can sometimes see in the extreme so if they are told that girls have to be a certain way or boys have to wear certain things then when they like the "wrong" things they feel like maybe they must be the opposite gender then. That's why it's so important to let them know clothes are just clothes and toys are just toys and they don't define your gender.

She said that autistic people are less likely to be swayed by societal ‘norms’ and are therefore more definite about their inherent gender identity.

This is what my daughter says.