'gender incoherence' and Austism

A friend is reading Hendrickx's Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder (2015) and highlighted the following section. I have put it in this discussion board because I wonder what people's responses are.

Hendrickx writes "testosterone levels in women with autism were higher than control samples and that these women displayed more masculinised characteristics. It also found that men with autism presented more feminised characteristics, indicating that rather than women with autism being more masculinised per se, both genders may be more androgynous and represent a 'gender defiant disorder'. They go on o suggest that, 'gender incoherence in individuals with ASD is to be expected and should be regarded as one reflection of the wide autism phenotype.""

The frequently cited reference for this passage, omitted for readability, is Bejerot et al, ' The extreme male brain revisited: gender coherence in adults with autism spectrum disorder' (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../)

Parents
  • yet another 'research' conducted without autistic input

    It cannot be genuine, it's probably yet another attempt to stigmatise us,

    I thought gender studies would have to be looked upon taking in account the whole population and not just select group, and especially that it's not a complete group, because so many of us is unidentified

    what's the point of it anyway? wouldn't money be spent wiser elsewhere?

Reply
  • yet another 'research' conducted without autistic input

    It cannot be genuine, it's probably yet another attempt to stigmatise us,

    I thought gender studies would have to be looked upon taking in account the whole population and not just select group, and especially that it's not a complete group, because so many of us is unidentified

    what's the point of it anyway? wouldn't money be spent wiser elsewhere?

Children