7 ms·

It's well documented that autistic individuals are having difficulties resolving or tolerating emotionally conflicting situations. If a male non-autist has gir

It's well documented that autistic individuals are having difficulties resolving or tolerating emotionally conflicting situations. If a male non-autist has girlish interests, he might be proud of his uniqueness and thereby accept it as part of himself. For a male autist, the socially conflicting girlish interests will be much more painful, thereby driving a higher percentage of autists to resolve the conflict by adjusting their gender. That would also explain the data, but with causality reversed. And from personal experience: I received a lot of criticism as a kid because I was a guy but I liked purple shorts and playing dress-up with my sisters. It's just that since I never identified with the stereotypical guys from movies, I wasn't bothered that other people considered me unequal to them. But I've seen how much effort my math genius classmate put into proving his manliness, so I assume the gossip about us having girlish interests must have bothered him a lot more than me.

sascha_sl 6y ago
I see arguments like this a lot, and they usually miss the importance and impact of hormonal transition. I'm trans, and thus in trans circles a lot, and almost everyone I know had some high impact mental health issue resolve upon starting hormonal transition, even if those were present before they realized they were trans. These range from generic depression over behavior that gets people autism diagnoses that suddenly resolve to a depersonalization. [1] Even if you want to attribute those to placebo, the effect is so pronounced and long-lastingly positive, it wouldn't really matter if it was. Gender dysphoria is measurable[2], and gender dysphoria severe enough to lead someone to transition seems to be rooted more deeply than just the socially constructed assignments of what constitutes male and female behavior. Of course gender-non-conformance would still be expressed more strongly in such people. What is also positively correlated to transness are conditions that could be classified as intersex, even if we don't generally diagnose them as such because they have no easy to recognize physical impact. We know about some of those, pre-natal exposure to estrogens for instance. And I'm sure there's a lot of factors we're entirely missing. There are a few neurology studies that show deviations that are are usually associated with the other sex in transgender people, even before they can hormonally transition. [1]: https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria-8-signs-and-symptoms-of-indirect-gender-dysphoria/ https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria... [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30991464/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30991464/
- bsanr2 6y ago
  I wonder if studying gender affirmation among cis people wouldn't help to solidify the science behind transitioning and well-being. With presentation of gender being as much of a spectrum as gender itself, it would stand to reason that there are cis individuals who experience dysphoria by way of not physically presenting as as masculine or feminine as they feel themselves to be (waves). Non-clinical avenues are somewhat more open to them in a way that they aren't to trans folk (e.g., diet and exercise), but I wonder if hormonal supplementation for the express purposes of enhancing gender identification (rather than to correct a clinical deficiency or for birth control) could be beneficial. EDIT: The great thing about suggesting that cis people might experience gender dysphoria is that it pisses off the transphobes AND trans folk. Anyone looking for an edgy stand-up routine, have I got a subject for you.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    Since "gender dysphoria" hasn't been scientifically defined yet, you're free to make up a definition so that everyone has it ;)
    - bsanr2 6y ago
      https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphori...
      - fxtentacle 6y ago
        "Gender dysphoria - as a general descriptive term refers to an individual’s discontent with the assigned gender." That is a very weak definition, if you ask me.
        burgerboy 6y ago
        Didn't ask you
        6y ago
silentsanctuary 6y ago
As a trans non-autist who grew up embracing a uniquely girly personality (and was accepted by friends and family as just being uncommonly feminine) I can say that this did not reduce the impact of gender dysphoria. Especially after looking at the community at large, I believe these are entirely unrelated issues.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  I was trying to argue the other direction: Maybe some autists will mistake their acceptance issues as gender dysphoria, thereby leading to a higher trans percentage among autists (which was the main observation from the paper). As such, I disagree with you that trans and autism are unrelated issues, because the paper measured a correlation. It's just that nobody knows in which direction the effect goes.
  - lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
    I love how cis people, after reading (likely only the abstract) of one paper and now fashion themselves experts on the lived experience of trans people. Measuring a correlation says nothing about causation (either way; there's a lot of room for confounding factors). The implication that autistic people will "mistake" their dysphoria is incredibly patronizing and just frankly rude.
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
      Your post sounds like you strongly disagree with me, but it looks like we do agree on the facts. The paper measured a correlation but whether that implies causation is anyone's guess. The paper argued one direction, I argued the other direction, but both explanations fit the data which just shows that we don't know yet if there is causation.
UncleMeat 6y ago
It is surely fraught with peril to just say "well here is an explanation that makes sense to my gut", especially when applied to controversial topics.

sascha_sl 6y ago

I see arguments like this a lot, and they usually miss the importance and impact of hormonal transition. I'm trans, and thus in trans circles a lot, and almost everyone I know had some high impact mental health issue resolve upon starting hormonal transition, even if those were present before they realized they were trans. These range from generic depression over behavior that gets people autism diagnoses that suddenly resolve to a depersonalization. [1] Even if you want to attribute those to placebo, the effect is so pronounced and long-lastingly positive, it wouldn't really matter if it was. Gender dysphoria is measurable[2], and gender dysphoria severe enough to lead someone to transition seems to be rooted more deeply than just the socially constructed assignments of what constitutes male and female behavior. Of course gender-non-conformance would still be expressed more strongly in such people. What is also positively correlated to transness are conditions that could be classified as intersex, even if we don't generally diagnose them as such because they have no easy to recognize physical impact. We know about some of those, pre-natal exposure to estrogens for instance. And I'm sure there's a lot of factors we're entirely missing. There are a few neurology studies that show deviations that are are usually associated with the other sex in transgender people, even before they can hormonally transition. [1]: https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria-8-signs-and-symptoms-of-indirect-gender-dysphoria/ https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria... [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30991464/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30991464/

bsanr2 6y ago
I wonder if studying gender affirmation among cis people wouldn't help to solidify the science behind transitioning and well-being. With presentation of gender being as much of a spectrum as gender itself, it would stand to reason that there are cis individuals who experience dysphoria by way of not physically presenting as as masculine or feminine as they feel themselves to be (waves). Non-clinical avenues are somewhat more open to them in a way that they aren't to trans folk (e.g., diet and exercise), but I wonder if hormonal supplementation for the express purposes of enhancing gender identification (rather than to correct a clinical deficiency or for birth control) could be beneficial. EDIT: The great thing about suggesting that cis people might experience gender dysphoria is that it pisses off the transphobes AND trans folk. Anyone looking for an edgy stand-up routine, have I got a subject for you.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  Since "gender dysphoria" hasn't been scientifically defined yet, you're free to make up a definition so that everyone has it ;)
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphori...
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
      "Gender dysphoria - as a general descriptive term refers to an individual’s discontent with the assigned gender." That is a very weak definition, if you ask me.
      - burgerboy 6y ago
        Didn't ask you
      - 6y ago

silentsanctuary 6y ago

As a trans non-autist who grew up embracing a uniquely girly personality (and was accepted by friends and family as just being uncommonly feminine) I can say that this did not reduce the impact of gender dysphoria. Especially after looking at the community at large, I believe these are entirely unrelated issues.

fxtentacle 6y ago
I was trying to argue the other direction: Maybe some autists will mistake their acceptance issues as gender dysphoria, thereby leading to a higher trans percentage among autists (which was the main observation from the paper). As such, I disagree with you that trans and autism are unrelated issues, because the paper measured a correlation. It's just that nobody knows in which direction the effect goes.
- lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
  I love how cis people, after reading (likely only the abstract) of one paper and now fashion themselves experts on the lived experience of trans people. Measuring a correlation says nothing about causation (either way; there's a lot of room for confounding factors). The implication that autistic people will "mistake" their dysphoria is incredibly patronizing and just frankly rude.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    Your post sounds like you strongly disagree with me, but it looks like we do agree on the facts. The paper measured a correlation but whether that implies causation is anyone's guess. The paper argued one direction, I argued the other direction, but both explanations fit the data which just shows that we don't know yet if there is causation.

UncleMeat 6y ago

It is surely fraught with peril to just say "well here is an explanation that makes sense to my gut", especially when applied to controversial topics.