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aspergers and gender dysmorphia

markjulips

Hi - I have a 31year old son whom I think may have a mild form Aspergers but has never been diagnosed as it never entered our heads before my neice started having "problems" with her young son and he was diagnosed with autism (which made us do a lot of reading and research with her).  My son has an extremely high IQ and always been good at mathematics and computer programming and has always had obsessions in the past which have always fizzled out when he finds another.  He finds it extremely difficult to make friends, keep a job and has always had relationships with girls but when they end he gets depressed and suicidal.

Last year he revealed he has gender dysmorphia since having counselling sessions after when a psychologist suggested his failed relationships could be because he feels uncomfortable in his male role and I am concerned that this may be yet another obsession which will be irreversible if he does become a woman.  He has now been gioven the go-ahead to take hormones after 4 hours of specialist couselling and 1 seesion with a specialist psychiatrist.

Have any other parents been through this sort of thing or do they think I am just clutching at straws and just watch him go ahead?

Parents

  • I've been reading this thread with great interest, and would very much like to help people in this situation.  I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at a late age - although I had it ever since I was about 3.  It was my autism and high intelligence that enabled me to survive all that time, but the long wait has damaged me.  I was diagnosed with 'female-type Asperger's syndrome' about two years after the GD diagnosis.

    Over the past five years, I've read up voraciously on autism (especially my type) and its fascinating relationships with gender dysphoria, atypical sexual orientation, anorexia and intellectual giftedness.  I've met many women and girls with various combinations of these, and feel we're getting a raw deal in many ways.  Misdiagnoses of autism are rife, especially among females, and professional awareness develops at snail's pace within the NHS. I know people diagnosed with personality disorders when really all they have is autism and its attendent difficulties, one of which is gender dysphoria.  I read with increasing dismay the posts here, your talk of starting a group, your need to contact one another and your inability to do so.  How frustrating!

    If the information we need isn't out there (for whatever reason) then contact between others with similar concerns is doubly important.  If the groups don't exist then we need to create them ourselves, share our experiences and pool our knowledge. Locally, there's a crying need for an autism self-help group, especially now that funds are being cut, and a few of us are planning to set one up.  I sought my autism diagnosis, because I seriously needed support and was suicidal.  Instead, like so many others, I got nothing.  It makes a mockery of the Autism Act.

Reply

  • I've been reading this thread with great interest, and would very much like to help people in this situation.  I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at a late age - although I had it ever since I was about 3.  It was my autism and high intelligence that enabled me to survive all that time, but the long wait has damaged me.  I was diagnosed with 'female-type Asperger's syndrome' about two years after the GD diagnosis.

    Over the past five years, I've read up voraciously on autism (especially my type) and its fascinating relationships with gender dysphoria, atypical sexual orientation, anorexia and intellectual giftedness.  I've met many women and girls with various combinations of these, and feel we're getting a raw deal in many ways.  Misdiagnoses of autism are rife, especially among females, and professional awareness develops at snail's pace within the NHS. I know people diagnosed with personality disorders when really all they have is autism and its attendent difficulties, one of which is gender dysphoria.  I read with increasing dismay the posts here, your talk of starting a group, your need to contact one another and your inability to do so.  How frustrating!

    If the information we need isn't out there (for whatever reason) then contact between others with similar concerns is doubly important.  If the groups don't exist then we need to create them ourselves, share our experiences and pool our knowledge. Locally, there's a crying need for an autism self-help group, especially now that funds are being cut, and a few of us are planning to set one up.  I sought my autism diagnosis, because I seriously needed support and was suicidal.  Instead, like so many others, I got nothing.  It makes a mockery of the Autism Act.

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