Thank you Gina Rippon

[WarriorN]

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/2025.03.25-055109/www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14531793/shocking-experiences-autistic-young-women-real-reason-trans-non-binary-neuroscientist.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://archive.is/2025.03.25-055109/www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14531793/shocking-experiences-autistic-young-women-real-reason-trans-non-binary-neuroscientist.html

Archive link, from daily mail, but it’s paywalled

Thanks OP. Archived version here

Thank you!

does use sex assigned at birth but she’s working within her capacity as a neuroscientist. One of her main areas of research has always been autism and girls, so this is important.

Thanks OP.

I've had to read this article/excerpt a few times to get my head around it.

My first reaction was a giant "hooray" but I've had other thoughts since then too.

On the whole it's a really helpful way of prising open the conversation about autism and gender identity conflation. It's recognising that many autistic girls are feeling lost about what it means to "be" a girl, with societal pressures that define "conformity" (and difficulty navigating these) and sensory aspects of periods and breast development. It could easily have been written about my daughter, particularly when she was actively gender questioning -which was also at the time her periods were starting.

On closer inspection, it's very similar to the Cass Report in the way that it comes from a view that gender identity is a real thing. This is where my caution comes in. Just as the Cass Report centres gender identity as something that everyone has, which then paves the way for a clinical trial on medical intervention (when someone's apparent true gender differs from their sex and this causes distress), this article is also predicated on gender identity as fact. In addition to the use of "assigned female", here are some examples from the text that gave me pause for thought - bold is mine...

"emerging evidence has found that being both transgender and autistic is associated with higher rates of mental health problems. They need our care, help and sympathy."

(identifying as transgender and being autistic would have been better IMO)

"The higher levels of gender identity non-conformity among autistic females could well be a response to this. There are possible biological explanations, too."

This is getting very close to "girl brain" and "boy brain"... and the idea that is mooted by Simon Baron-Cohen that autistic girls have "boy brain" patterns... which then leads to the idea that it's possible to be trapped in the wrong body.

"Issues of identity have long been overlooked in autistic populations, but they clearly have enormous significance, particularly for females who have been overlooked by the current diagnostic process."

"For as well as being deprived of help and support, they may be deprived of an identity."

This last one is more subtle but the use of the term "an identity" here is a gateway into a whole world of conflation. Autism as "an identity" is very en vogue ATM in autism groups where people talk about support needing to be "neuro affirming". Funnily enough, these same groups talk about how important it is to "validate someone's identity" - and obviously this includes gender identity. Any pushback gets the double whammy of "that's ableist and transphobic".

We don't need to talk about "an identity" to recognise that we all need a sense of self, a sense of who we are and how we fit into the complex social world around us, and that someone who is autistic may struggle more with this. No, that's not ableist - it's exactly why EHCPs generally all include Speech and Language Therapy provision, to help with cognitive processing of language... and the obvious need here of unpicking the societal enforcement of stereotypes through expectations and limitations e.g. in some schools with girls being given netball lessons and boys being given football/rugby lessons in PE.

However, just as with the Cass Report, overall I think it's helpful that Gina Rippon is coming into this from an angle that supports the belief that we all have a soul that needs to be aligned with a gender. Hopefully, just as with Cass she is also recognising that medical interventions aren't necessarily the answer when thinking about how this "gendered soul" should be "aligned" with the physical body. It certainly seems that way from the excerpt. I'll definitely buy the book and will read with interest.

Thanks OP and for the archive.

Bit unsure about this. Like BonfireLady notes, it seems to be close to suggesting 'gender' is hardwired into the brain, at least on first read. Will reread later.

Having just read your post@BonfireLady, I wondered whether you might be interested in this short programme on Radio 4:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028zxs

(It's one of a series that's an adaptation of a book.)

Thanks op.

I did read it as saying boys and girls as populations have different neurological tendencies i.e. girls tend to be more self monitoring. But rather than suggesting autistic girls might have brains more like boys I actually got the sense she was saying that autism amplifies the self monitoring i.e. increases a trait more prevalent in females.

The book does sound interesting.

I suspect the author is not as versed in the strange twists of language that occur in genderland as those at the coal face (looking for an alternative to trenches or front line.) or in the thick of it. I think she just means identity to be formation of self based on reality rather than misattribution.

I would like to see the 2022 bath study expanded to include autistic females who don't have gender I'd issues as a control group as I believe that would cast the results in a whole new light

A very interesting article, thanks for the link OP, and a very interesting post by BonfireLady.

What I found fascinating in the article is that they can actually see in brain imaging 'self-monitoring in females generally during tasks that activate our ‘social’ brain, which helps us navigate social interactions (our social satnav)'

The dogmatic male/female brain thing is invalid because our brains change over time.
The classic example is the London taxi-driver's brain which is changed by having to memorise so many routes, exercising part of the brain which then shows greater development than in the brain of a non-London taxi-drivers.
But at birth, both brains would be the same. One is not, as Simone de Beauvoir did not say, born a London taxi-driver..

So we may end up with 'male' brains or 'female' brains, but that is because of how we use our brains - the 'self-monitoring' that girls and women learn to do as part of the 'nice' 'kind' 'appropriate' 'modest' 'supportive' 'motherly' aspects of female stereotypes is an example of how a brain can be skewed in a 'female' direction.

It starts very early, with parental expectations, interactions, toys, clothes, media, so unfortunately stereotyping has had a right good go at a little girl's brain before she's old enough to start questioning her 'sense of self'.
The nice thing is that neuroplasticity isn't a one-off thing, we're not stuck in a rut, new pathways and connections are always possible

. I look forward to reading Gina Rippon's book, thanks again OP.

I think it's saying more that gender identity can be seen as an explanation for girls with autism who are looking for one. That evidence can be interpreted to suggest there's a connection between identity (characterised as "I fit in with people like me") and autism.

I’d be interested in some longitudinal work. With @MarieDeGournayI think brains change, depending on the ways they are used so a highly self-monitoring brain could simply mean trans people think about themselves a lot. Were they always like that (and so vulnerable to this particular contagion), would being less introspective help?

Great discussion- @neuropoppinsI hope you don’t mind the tag; do you have any thoughts?

I suppose if you are living your life in an identity that does not match the one you were expected to have, if you are a biological male who has decided that he is in fact a woman, there must be constant unconscious monitoring going on - your own behaviour, your appearance, other people's attitudes and perceptions, the words they use.

And I suppose there would have to be constant self-reassurance that biology was wrong and you are right.

That sort of brain activity has probably always gone on, it's just the subject that varies - in the past it could have been that it was sweet and fitting to die for your country, or that your value as a human being depends on how white your wash is, or that reptilian humanoids rule the world.

I think your observations, @BonfireLady are a reminder of how much work is going to be needed to unpick all of the ideological ideas that have embedded themselves as if they were fact.

It took me a good while on here and Twitter to see what I now see very clearly, that “trans” is should never be seen as a diagnosis.

It has become so deeply ingrained in our institutions that “trans” is a state that is real and integral that it’s hard to step back far enough to see that it needs to be separated out from any diagnosis (which should be gender dysphoria, if that exists).

You need to move even further back to see that perhaps “gender dysphoria” in itself, is a suspect diagnosis and that it is not proven that transitioning is a suitable treatment, even if “gender dysphoria” is a real state that is sufficiently well defined so as to require treatment of some sort.

Shifting perspectives will only occur very gradually, if at all, until negligence cases are brought and the whole thing implodes, assuming that does occur at some point. Even then, as with DID there will probably still be adherents and attempts to regroup and regrow the movement as so many have invested too much to back down.

So this question of, is gender identity real, and the possibility of biological explanations.

I am not convinced that there is a fundamental problem with talking about a person's emerging sense of themselves as male or female, and what it means to be male or female. It's part of a larger sense f who we are in the world and developing the adult sense of self is a big part of adolescence.

I don't see this as really controversial, tbh, and I think our sense of self as male or female involves coming to terms with a changing body, adult sexuality including being attractive to others, being perceived as adults, including sexually, by others, and probably other things as well.

Where gender ideology goes wrong is in thinking this is some kind of fixed thing from birth that is revealed full formed, and in thinking that our sense of self can be separate from our actual body apart from significant psychological issues (although adolescents do, in many cases, struggle with their bodies significantly and it's normal for that period, just like small children are still developing their understanding of and relation to their body.)

This may relate to her comment about biological causes in autistic girls. If anyone has watched the video with Dr Hakeem, he mentions that there seem to be an unusual number of truly asexual people among the autistic men he treated. The simply do not have any real sexual attraction as such, though they may choose to have sex.

I think that could easily impact a young persons' ability to form their sense of self as male or female, especially if they didn't easily recognize how their own experience was different from the usual. I think a similar thing can happen for adolescents who are same sex attracted - it can be just a bit more complicated to work out the social element where you relate to the people you have an interest in - I have wondered if this doesn't account to some extent for feminine gay men who favour feminine clothing or mannerisms, for example. It has an element of being adopting socially conventional attractive accouterments to the sex you are attracted to.

One issue is that the term identity, which is used in child development theories, (development of self within the world) has become more politicised and commercialised.

Erickson describes identity as a stage (12-18) that is important to work through, to move to the next stage. A More secure sense of self at this stage helps later in life Obviously these theories can be highly manipulated by the trans agenda.

I think it's perfectly fine for people to believe they have a gender identity just as it's fine to believe there is a god. I am also happy for them to try and prove it using scientific methods. And unless they can do that, I am not happy for them to make laws insisting that everybody act as if it is true.

I suppose the problem is that a lot of psychiatry is also not provable so then we're back to looking at the painstaking clinical evidence of what works and what doesn't work and theorising the best we can. I don't quite understand how gender identity became somehow elevated in this field so quickly. I suppose it is because of the history of same sex attraction and how this has been treated legally and in mental health fields. I think this is how my friends in mental health professions see it. They can see the horrors of the past and don't want to repeat them.

And yet, gender dysphoria (for want of a better umbrella term) might be seen more like disordered eating in that it can have many causes which are biological, psychological and social. The autism connection is particularly interesting because it affects every single one of these. Purely from a sensory perspective it adds in layers of difficulty around puberty as others have pointed out. And on the social side, there is potential for categorisation errors and concrete thinking about following the rules of a particular group.

And also the cultural aspects. Although it seems that some of these feelings exist cross culturally over time and space, why is it that in this particular time and place the phenomenon amongst adolescent girls has mushroomed? There is so clearly a culture bound side to this. Which I why I feel that it fits better with disordered eating or body dysmorphia than same sex attraction. Anorexia can create subpersonalities just like gender dysphoria can. I think these are more likely in autistic girls who are very bright and creative as well.

It's just not right to dismiss all of this and say it's a sacred cow and any questions or attempt to look at the various underlying causes are cruel and invalidating.

Yeah, I think there has been a kind of concretization of the idea of gender identity, and maybe identity in general. I have seen some odd discussions in recent years that seem to think people are almost totally pre-formed, and their happiness depends on accepting whatever is revealed as children grow up. Even quite specific things like playing a certain sport.

Brilliant discussion. And thank you for the audio link nauticant

The capture of the word "identity" or more specifically "an identity" seems to be the root of this. It's so subtle that it sounds like a conspiracy theory unless you've followed the twists and turns that it has been through.

I agree that the author seems to be coming from a neutral place. That's why it took a few read throughs before I could satisfy why I felt it was a brilliant piece of writing overall but I couldn't quite shake my unease.

Hopefully she'll start some conversations within autism circles. It would be great if it was at least OK to challenge the idea that the only way to support someone who is experiencing distress about their "gender" is to start from a foundation of validating their sense of self as objective reality.

I used to firmly believe I had a gender identity. That I knew I was female at my very core because I felt female, even though I couldn't articulate what that meant. To me it was simply a certainty, regardless of my inability to articulate it, and I fully accepted that someone else might not have this certainty. I still accept that many people feel uncertain about their sense of self. Now that I've unpicked my thoughts, I've come to a conclusion that my sense of self is built on layers of experience from 1) a foundation of reality: my body is female and does things that male bodies can't do e.g. menstruate, birth children etc... (obviously not every female can or does do these things, but no male can) and 2) the societal expectations and limitations that I've navigated throughout my life because I'm female, where I pushed back or embraced a stereotypical behaviour that I've experienced e.g. did I want to wear the dresses I was given (my brother wasn't given dresses, so never had to make that choice), how did I feel that my Guide group spent every week singing songs and making stuff, while my brother's scout group played wide games out in the dark and went on really cool camping trips (mightily pissed off is the answer - I left Guides and joined Scouts, as it was just at the point when this option became a "thing")?

Where someone with autism may have cognitive processing needs and may not experience feelings of sexual attraction (or other the emotional changes that happen in adolescence) at the same time as their peers, this creates the perfect storm environment for the quest for "an identity" to embrace the idea that there is a "gendered" box for all of us, and we just need to figure out which one we belong in.

Paradoxically, just to add more confusion, the "male" and "female" boxes are apparently part of a spectrum, so it's not binary at all. Even though apparently some things are male things and some things are female things.... and round we go. Leaving vulnerable children and young adults with autism in a space where they are told that anyone like me, who is advocating for a better understanding of the conflation of autism with the belief that we all have a gender identity, is a threat to their "identity" and harmful to their very existence.

Edited to add...

The capture of the word "identity" or more specifically "an identity" seems to be the root of this.

Obviously the root root cause is the activism led by those at the heart of the whole genderist movement. The ones flying in from Málaga Airport who curiously seem to find themselves in positions of influence. But I'm talking here about the layer where autism and gender identity are conflated, not about how we've all been on a societal journey where we've collectively (critical mass level) learned to accept the idea that we've all got a gender identity as factually true.