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'gender incoherence' and Austism

James

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/.../)

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  • Interesting. As cis-het male, I do nevertheless feel sometimes that I have a slightly female brain - qualities-wise. A tendency to think more deeply, be more reflective, hurt for a long time, and lacking that competitive drive that's more classically masculine even in non-Alphas. But that's just an anecdotal drop in the ocean, and over-generalising is always a risk with these studies/conclusions. As is stereotyping genders too much even in the NT landscape. Be interesrting to hear others' thoughts on this.

    I think I've heard the above study or a similar one criticisised on Aucademy or somewhere. The thinking being that because early Autistic studies sidelined the female experience so much, the catch-up to include women has too often tried to project masculinity onto how their brains work. Which does indeed sound problematic.

  • in reply to Shardovan

    You and I sound very, very similar - I'm also a cis-het male.

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