Autism and gender identity

i can be meat popsicle ! that would explain so much about me 

I can kind of relate, I have accidentally misgendered non-binary people before! It takes a lot of conscious effort not to accidentally misgender them

The problem with this post is that whilst ASDs are not judgemental (be what you want to be is the motto we live by), we are literal, so gender identity is a social minefield and axiomatically not debatable by an autistic audience.
I don’t care if you want to be male, female or a meat popsicle, but I am a clinical and literal being so if I think you look like a man or a woman then that’s how I will address you. I’m autistic and even NTs have trouble with this particular psychological phenomenon.

Whilst you may be right that some people have agendas as is so common with the world (in fact, I can't think of someone who doesn't have an 'agenda', so to speak), I think everyone has an 'agenda' . Indeed, it may even be said that your agenda is to argue that autism does not have a causal link with gender identity, or even an agenda to pursue the truth/follow the evidence etc.

I'm a bit of a fence-sitter but I would probably commit myself to the line of argument that autism can be linked with gender identity in some cases and does not follow a simple linear causal relationship but instead could be 'activated' in certain situation in the presence of other causes (what these causes are is a job for social science).

As for the extreme male brain hypothesis, one of your statements (that having an extreme male brain is logically inconsistent with having gender issues i.e. feeling feminine) not only reduces issues of gender identity to a gender binary (some people feel as though they do not fit into either the genders male or female) but also presumes the truth of this hypothesis and thus the validity of your argument stands and falls with the truth of this premise. So far as I am aware, the theory is extremely controversial and far from universally accepted, throwing some doubt on your statement.

I can't help but interpret aggression in your replies - I like to discuss things and put my point across but hostility is not something I'm comfortable with.

We used to edit an alternative lifestyle magazine and a web presence.    I've lived.      I've met a lot of people.     I've recently stepped back because of my situation.

I think you're grossly underestimating the capabilities of autistic people.      Seriously, wherever you find specialists and experts, you find high-functioning ASD people.     And you'd be surprised at what goes on.

This is also where other ASD people are vulnerable because of their innocence - they can be convinced of things and can willingly be led into difficult positions.    

Males can get a bit desperate so not being able to easily interface to girls makes them question lots of ideas about themselves.       It's not a snap decision as you make out - it's over a longer period.

I feel you just make stuff up as you go along (an autistic male can't chat a girl up so he says to himself, oh I'll try a bloke instead. That's not even how homosexuality works mate) You must come from a parallel dimension where Autistic people are completely different to the ones we have here in this dimension.

Actually this is quite a sizeable study for its kind. And yes it certainly is the case that they’ve been looking at the prevalence of autism amongst ‘gender diverse’ persons. But that doesn’t invalidate the research. ‘Variant gender presentation’ is very rare, rarer than autism, so it’s far easier to recruit A cohort of ‘gender diverse‘ people and look at the previlence of autism than the other way around. The correlation is not a perfect argument but it is significant circumstantial evidence.

NAS71674 said:

The reality in my experience is that just like everyone else , LGBTQ people are just as likely to have autism as anyone else no more no less.

That's absolutely not my experience - I'm finding that a significant number of ASD people have difficulties imagining sex and relationships - especially with the other sex.      If they want to try relationships, they often don't have the confidence to interact with the opposite sex so they experiment with same-sex relationships or alternative lifestyles - poly, open, serial / parallel, asexual bdsm - basically, every permutation and combination.

I find girls are often asexual but like to get involved with the 'rush' of bdsm - usually as models, targets or maids to mistress / masters.     It 'suits' them to be sort-of on the outside of being in-deep.  (if that makes sense).    It's all in the mind.

As I said earlier, the lads opt for gay-for-play to get their kicks - especially if they have 'specialist interests'.      Unfortunately, these can be really risky - especially when drugs and alcohol get involved or out-of-control groups.

There's also an enormous number of tv/tx males that can be straight or gay, pan or bi depending on the circumstances.   Testosterone overcomes most blocks to fulfilment.  .

SpaceOctopus said:

So far as I understand (and experience) it, autism interacts with a variety of other conditions (to name just two it could be anxiety or a learning disability etc.)  to create a fundamentally new experience which cannot be reduced to either autism or anxiety, for instance.

Actually yes they can. Symptom => Cause. For things to exist they must have clear definitions or otherwise they don't exist. That's the point. If these conditions couldn't be defined by their presentation there would be no condition as there would be no definition. These aren't things that exist in an entangled quantum state that can't be separated they can and are. The difficult thing which is obvious from reading posts on this site is telling what causes what and hence knowing what is autism and what is not.

You sound like your trying to hijack Autism for the LGBTQ movement. There is no causal link otherwise we would all be in that. Thats how cause and affect works. The link you provided is just a blog by some person called Lydia.The reality in my experience is that just like everyone else , LGBTQ people are just as likely to have autism as anyone else no more no less.

Here's your approximate definition from this very site no less. 

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world.

Where does it talk about gender issues in this? Ah, no where. Its getting bolted on by idiots with their own agendas to try to hijack this for their own reasons. 

Yeah I do actually. Its previously been described as "the extreme male brain" so how the hell could a male with an extreme male brain have gender issues. There are alot of idiots trying to hijack Autism for their own agendas and spouting off tonnes of rubbish and nonsense about it. 

Haha no, I don't have an agenda. 

What exactly are you asserting and where is the evidence for it? Sounds to me like you have an agenda to try to link Autism to the LGBTQ movement for some reason that honestly makes no sense to me and you have 0 evidence for this. The reality is that there can be LGBTQ people who also happen to be Autistic at the same time but theres no causal link between them Autism => LGBTQ or else we'd all be LGBTQ which we aren't. There are also studies that say if we have head trauma as well were more likely to be mass murders and serial killers (research by experts). There is alot of bollocks talked about Autism.

It could be that autistic people are more likely to come out as LGTBTQ, as we already don't fit in and we don't give a ***. Whereas neurotypicals often stay in the closet due to fear of losing their precious job/status.

Haha I know what you mean. I am sapiosexual and kinky, I would not be happy with average vanilla sex and a normal boring guy. I've been abused many times by so-called 'Doms' who didn't respect my boundaries. It's a risk of the game unfortunately. But yeah we do need something extra to keep us going/keep us interested. I tried to date normal men because they're safe and just ended up getting bored of them.

I don't think it's fair to say that autism has nothing to do with gender identity - there are some statistical trends and while they cannot impute causality either way, as you mention, it is clear that in some cases there is an interaction between the two. Whether or not being autistic has a causal effect on the likelihood of someone having a specific gender identity (being transgender, for instance) is not at all clear or established and since autism is so complex and heterogeneous, I would argue that there isn't likely to be a simple, linear causal relationship.

Indeed, we have to remember that autism is not just one homogeneous experience - it is likely that autism results from an interaction between several genes and some environmental influences. So far as I understand (and experience) it, autism interacts with a variety of other conditions (to name just two it could be anxiety or a learning disability etc.)  to create a fundamentally new experience which cannot be reduced to either autism or anxiety, for instance.

On top of all of this, we have the largely socially constructed nature of gender identity and gender expression which undoubtedly has an effect.

There is a rich discussion to be had here, although I will leave it at this!

Given the relatively low number of transgender and gender-diverse individuals => can't make any conclusions about the population as the sample size is relatively low and that tends to give wild fluctuations in the outcomes, in the general population and would be even more so in the autistic population.

I dare say that there are not many transgender autistic people at all because there are so few autistic people.

I also know for a fact that clinicians are not in general very good at applying statistical analyses, often making mistakes and incorrect conclusions (both currently and historically) and don't have the proper expertise to interpret results. There can be statistical correlations between total unrelated things but that doesn't mean there is a causal connection i.e. one property causes another.

Even if there was anything to this , the implication isn't autistic => likely transgender, its transgender => statistically elevated rate of autism in this particular study containing relatively low numbers of people. Hardly cuts mustard.

A valid point. But we forget. I don't object to being politely reminded peoples pronouns of choice when I forget. I do object to being treated like I've committed a hate crime instead of just forgetting something.

No more pretentious than expecting someone to care what your name is...