11 ms·

Not sure I follow although interested. Is the hypothesis that ASD is only over represented in male to female transitioners and do so younger but when all those

Not sure I follow although interested. Is the hypothesis that ASD is only over represented in male to female transitioners and do so younger but when all those have transitioned are considered there is no over representation of ASD? It make be hard to pick apart since ASD male to female rates are so lopsided.

sverona 3y ago
The hypothesis is that ASD is severely underdiagnosed in those presenting female, and most often diagnosed in childhood or adolescence. Hence most late-transitioning women have a diagnosis from when their practitioner thought they were male.
- psychphysic 3y ago
  I think it's well established that there are more autistic men than autistic women. At least to the point that I wouldn't challenge it with ideology alone. There is an awkwardness here. If transwomen didnt choose to feel like women we must accept it as a neurodovergent condition, why would there not be coexistence with other meurodovergent conditions?
  - sverona 3y ago
    Indeed, why not? But overmedicalizing transness does nobody any good. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really think this is a problem that needs solving. I haven't heard of a single trans GM, unlike the situation in powerlifting, cycling, etc. FIDE is infamously corrupt and this reeks to me of politics. It's also not hard to notice that it's mostly run by Eastern Europeans, usually from former Soviet satellite states, which have as a rule a dim opinion of trans people.
DoreenMichele 3y ago
I raised two special-needs sons who likely qualify for a diagnosis of ASD but never got a formal diagnosis because I homeschooling them, so I didn't need an official diagnosis to accommodate their needs. Human children are raised for many years and a large part of social stuff is learned behavior. Some things can be explicitly taught to people whose brain wiring disinclined them to innately pick it up on their own. Girls are socialized differently from boys and it seems likely they are just expected to "get" social things even if they don't. They either get someone to explain it or they try harder than boys to cover up their deficits because it's more socially unacceptable. Not everything can be taught. Some social difficulties can be rooted in things like a lack of prosody or lack of ability to tone match can be extreme priblematic and cannot be fixed, at least not that I know of. But some things can be explained and to whatever degree it's learnable, if girls are simply more expected than boys to learn it, it's not unreasonable to suggest ASD is likely underdiagnosed in girls.
- psychphysic 3y ago
  If this were true we'd still need to explain why there's about 5:1 ratio of severely autistic men vs women. Bringing in milder autism we can dilute that down to about 4:1 maybe 3:1. But why? Why are we positing unproven theories to discount the data? That's not good science. Trying to explain data is. Simon Baron-Cohen the works foremost autism specialist (a clinical psychologist and cousin to Ali G Sacha Baron-Cohen). Put forwards the "extreme male" brain theory (now called emoaphising-systemising theory to avoid gendered language) theory of autism and it's pretty compelling.
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    I'm not suggesting it necessarily accounts for the entire difference. You said you were interested. I shared what I know. If you were not interested and just want to double down on you are right and anyone who has another view is wrong, then don't claim to be sincerely interested in the alternate view and then someone like me can skip bothering to share what they know with you as a pointless waste of time.

sverona 3y ago

The hypothesis is that ASD is severely underdiagnosed in those presenting female, and most often diagnosed in childhood or adolescence. Hence most late-transitioning women have a diagnosis from when their practitioner thought they were male.

psychphysic 3y ago
I think it's well established that there are more autistic men than autistic women. At least to the point that I wouldn't challenge it with ideology alone. There is an awkwardness here. If transwomen didnt choose to feel like women we must accept it as a neurodovergent condition, why would there not be coexistence with other meurodovergent conditions?
- sverona 3y ago
  Indeed, why not? But overmedicalizing transness does nobody any good. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really think this is a problem that needs solving. I haven't heard of a single trans GM, unlike the situation in powerlifting, cycling, etc. FIDE is infamously corrupt and this reeks to me of politics. It's also not hard to notice that it's mostly run by Eastern Europeans, usually from former Soviet satellite states, which have as a rule a dim opinion of trans people.

DoreenMichele 3y ago

I raised two special-needs sons who likely qualify for a diagnosis of ASD but never got a formal diagnosis because I homeschooling them, so I didn't need an official diagnosis to accommodate their needs. Human children are raised for many years and a large part of social stuff is learned behavior. Some things can be explicitly taught to people whose brain wiring disinclined them to innately pick it up on their own. Girls are socialized differently from boys and it seems likely they are just expected to "get" social things even if they don't. They either get someone to explain it or they try harder than boys to cover up their deficits because it's more socially unacceptable. Not everything can be taught. Some social difficulties can be rooted in things like a lack of prosody or lack of ability to tone match can be extreme priblematic and cannot be fixed, at least not that I know of. But some things can be explained and to whatever degree it's learnable, if girls are simply more expected than boys to learn it, it's not unreasonable to suggest ASD is likely underdiagnosed in girls.

psychphysic 3y ago
If this were true we'd still need to explain why there's about 5:1 ratio of severely autistic men vs women. Bringing in milder autism we can dilute that down to about 4:1 maybe 3:1. But why? Why are we positing unproven theories to discount the data? That's not good science. Trying to explain data is. Simon Baron-Cohen the works foremost autism specialist (a clinical psychologist and cousin to Ali G Sacha Baron-Cohen). Put forwards the "extreme male" brain theory (now called emoaphising-systemising theory to avoid gendered language) theory of autism and it's pretty compelling.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  I'm not suggesting it necessarily accounts for the entire difference. You said you were interested. I shared what I know. If you were not interested and just want to double down on you are right and anyone who has another view is wrong, then don't claim to be sincerely interested in the alternate view and then someone like me can skip bothering to share what they know with you as a pointless waste of time.