Autism and gender

[CrispsCoffee]

My daughter (9) has recently been diagnosed with ASD. I'm trying to find resources for both her and me to help us to understand the diagnosis and what it means to be autistic. But I'm finding there is a lot of emphasis on gender diversity, transgender issues, being "cis" or not etc.

I'm gender critical and I worry that gender activists are quite active in the autism/neurodivergent community because it might feel to a young ND person that being "trans" explains their differences and the challenges they face. I think this could make ND kids more susceptible to gender ideology.

All this to say, does anyone have any resources they could point me to which don't focus on gender issues and autism? Ideally for both me and my daughter.

I would be tempted to contact National Autistic Society and ask them. Kind of to make a point - see what they say.

I do appreciate that’s probably not necessarily the response you wanted though.

You could try reaching out to this group, if you are on X

https://x.com/gcautistic/status/1686262331318149120?s=46

It also looks like @neuropoppins has a blog and has posted on here before so she might see this thread.

You want to look at Transgender Trend, the charity Appeer (if you are near Surrey especially) and there is a poster here who has some very good stuff written into her daughter's ECHP about gender.

I think you keep it age appropriate. But ASD kids are more highly represented in groups identifying out of their sex.
As parent to a girl with ASD and who struggled a lot with gender based stuff, I'd say keep talking. Watch their internet consumption and social media from the start. Don't let them have access to things like ticktok and Instagram before they're properly ready for it. There's a lot of misinformation out there.
Autistic girls can be late to mature - DD found herself quite out of step with peers in early teenagehood and found boys quite repellent.
It's important to foster good self esteem and acceptance of their body - keep active and in touch with their physical self.
Ultimately though they are their own person and will form their own views. Help them by showing how to think critically and look for trustworthy information.

Not sure about the National Autistic Society @Leafstamp they are well and truly on the gender train or at least they were.

I went to an autism and gender conference a few years ago that they put on and it was horrifying.

It's a real shame OP but I agree there's not much available that isn't gender related.

My advice is check everything thoroughly before you share it with her because gender and identity issues are being shoe-horned in all over the place.

I've no idea about OP's daughter but my [hardly original] observation is that the rate of 'trans identification' amongst girls born much later than about say the mid 90s who are both: (a) autistic and (b) lesbian could easily be somewhere north of 50%, it's absolutely rife.

Yes I know - hence my comment about contacting them to make a point (that their stuff is unsuitable for those without gender identity beliefs. Make them aware and make them squirm. But clearly this is a separate exercise than actually getting what OP needs)

I agree. We went all through the Tavistock clinic desperately trying to get them to talk about the autism and how it might be impacting DD. They asked her whether her autism was a factor in her gender issues and she said no and that was that! No further discussion.

It's worse out there than you think. Autism support agencies and people are completely captured

this might be eye opening BTW, only slight related but about Gender as a sub culture that autistic people often gravitate to

As one autistic parent with an autistic gender confused kid, to another.

I would limit her social media interactions as much as possible as you move forward, presumably she doesn’t have it yet. My son is on the spectrum and much older than your daughter, but he came off all social media two years ago and his anxiety level dropped dramatically. Admittedly he wasn’t in any danger of becoming entrenched with the trans ideology, but he was just unable to deal with the unreality of social media interactions. In my experience keeping autistic children as much in touch with reality as possible is paramount. Good luck to you and your daughter.

Good luck OP. My DD has just been diagnosed with autism at 18, there's apparently a group she can join but I'm terrified it will be all GI. She's dabbled with this in the past and the last thing she needs is to go down that rabbit hole again

There are a couple of books you can buy via transgender trend that might help your daughter - one if for younger children but might also be worth looking at.

There's some excellent resources written by an autistic woman about why autism is common among those with autism, particularly from the female viewpoint

Sorry, you said NOT gender....!

That is quite tricky but there used to be some resources you could access on the NAS website that talked more about autism and girls when there was a push to raise more awareness of how autism can present in girls.

Tania Marshall is autistic, a therapist and very GC and tweet a lot about the issues

She's written a couple of books that might be helpful

taniamarshallconsulting.com/

I am Aspiengirl: The Unique Characteristics, Traits and Gifts of Females on the Autism Spectrum

And a version about women

It's so strange because my 25 year old son is autistic, he was diagnosed at 6, NOBODY mentioned gender identity, including the NAS

My best friend is a teacher in a private college for autistic teens now, more than half defint themselves as trans

Funny, that .

Keep her offline and protect her at all costs.

My DS is an autistic teen but was diagnosed ten years ago. There was no gender stuff mentioned then either. But there has been more changes than just Gender since then. There has been the rise of autism activism - especially online - as well as large numbers of older adults getting diagnosed or self IDing as autistic. The diagnostic profile has changed and frequent ‘comorbidities’, like learning disability, are dismissed as nothing to do with autism. Language relating to autism is very heavily policed by this activist group in much the same way as genderist language is. There is the same lack of understanding of child development with any therapy or teaching considered to be undermining a child’s pure autistic self. And researchers being wary of carrying out any research for fear of condemnation or cancelling.

Your local authority may offer a social group for autistic girls - it will probably be commissioned by them but delivered by a third party. But you can bet that is fully signed up to the LGBT+ agenda, with rainbow flags and woke support workers. My daughter used to bring activity sheets home and I found a few when I was clearing out her room recently - all trans related (word search, colouring in the rainbow flag, crosswords etc). She has a learning disability as well as autism and is not remotely interested - she can't get her head round gender. She didn't like all the LGBT+ stuff. But it is pushed heavily. I'm not sure how you can avoid it and still use services tbh.

NAS is completely captured.

Be very very very careful about joining any groups for autistic girls on social media - all of them are actively encouraging transing and shutting down questions.
The whole of the neurodiversity community seems to be embracing gender ideology like it's a given.

You are the only thing that stands in between the groomers and your child. I hate to put it so harshly.

And the reason I'm putting it so harshly is because every single parent of an autistic girl I knew that grew up with my autistic daughter...now insist they have trans sons.

Keep her away from social media and do not buy her a phone that can access the internet at this age. Make sure she knows without a doubt that people cannot change sex. The mind grooming happens in a flash - all it takes is one non binary or trans friend.

Have you looked at the Autistic Girls Network?

Hillary Cass stated - and I was delighted as it is my view but it was the first time I had ever seen it stated - that there was an event of craving a tribe in the rush to identify out of their sex. Essentially you have very low social status as an autistic kid, but say you’re trans and the school provides you with support and a network.

It's a real minefield out there - especially to find resources that begin to support her in understanding her identity as an autistic girl but that don't head down the road of trans-alphabet-soup gender identity stuff.

At the moment we seem to be doing OK with my two girls (both autistic, so am I) - the eldest will read books that explore gender identity etc, but with a "can't change yer chromosomes" healthy dose of cynicism (dunno where she gets the cynicism from at ALLLLLL), and the younger one just takes the "I'm autistic, what's for tea" lack of giving a shit to it all.

I've explained it to them from the outset that we're all born with instructions inside us that tell our bodies how to build a human and that it's like Lego models - you can't take your Lego Hogwarts instructions and make it into a fully accurate Lego Death Star. Some people might try to turn themselves into the Lego Death Star but they're still having to work with the bits out of the Lego Hogwarts set - don't be an arsehole to them, but just remember you're working with the Lego kit you were given. It's a random as fuck analogy but it kind of made the point and significance of any decisions regarding gender reassignment to them.

I'm going to recommend riding as a healthy offline activity as I'm an RDA coach and we have lots of riders with autism; being around horses can be extremely beneficial for them. Volunteers are largely no-nonsense middle aged/retired women who don't have time for gender-woo. Your daughter can then join the long-established tribe of pony-mad kids (sorry, it's not a cheap hobby...).