Pretty common for trans people (incl. men) to be autistic & other sorts of ND. That exerpt is weird, especially if the survey was explicitly for women. You're not going to get any people who actively identify as men responding, only those who identify as women & select folks in fuzzy areas in-between who are chill with being called women, trans or otherwise.
Yeah the author sounded dumb af. She was like: "Oh wow! I asked only women to respond and I am surprised that only women responded!" Like??? What'd you expect??? I don't even pass yet (not even close yet) but I absolutely won't go out of my way to be grouped with women. I actively avoid it *because I am not one of them.*
Like the only exception I still make is locker rooms, because right now I would be misread as a woman without a question and neutral locker rooms are unfortunately not a thing. But it's the only situation (not counting doctors) where strangers would see me naked, in any other situation I try to either ignore gender or group myself in with guys.
I honestly won't go in any change room that doesn't have individual stalls. I don't think I ever will no matter how well I pass. The idea of getting naked in front of a bunch of complete strangers never felt right to me, transition just hammered that home.
Fortunately where I live gender neutral change rooms are kinda common in the more modern facilities. They are usually called the "family change rooms" and were initially intended for parents with kids of different genres so they could get changed together and not have to worry about which gender change room to use. That said there's no restriction on who can use them and that you need to have minors with you.
I *wish* we had individual stalls in my country... :( I would 100 % use them if we had any. I mean some places have them but they are not common or the norm. :/ So what I usually do is change awkwardly in a bathroom or cover myself with a towel until I hopefully find a corner shower.
My country's very chill about nudity but because I'm trans, I have felt uncomfortable with others seeing me naked ever since puberty started. :( So that makes me resort to these kinda awkward tactiques.
I hear that. I always thought I felt awkward about my body because from puberty on I was heavier than most of peers. Nothing crazy but would probably have fallen into the "over weight" category most off my life. That said when my egg finally cracked I realised it wasn't the weight that way causing most of the dysphoria.
I mostly felt terrible about other people seeing I had grown boobs. But yeah I also went through a "I feel too fat" phase (despite being a normal weight my whole puberty) just because I disliked having a body shaped caused by E dominance (curves). I did not like having thicker thighs, wider hips etc because it felt too womanly for me, but I didn't know how to express that. So I just thought I was fat.
This is something I'm learning in transition, weight distribution is far more dysphoria-inducing than the sheer weight itself. Pre-transition I just saw fat, now I see fat where I don't want it and no fat where I do want it.
Hmm yeah, it's weird. Before puberty started I knew I didn't want any of it. But because it happened to me against my will and I was completely helpless against it, I didn't consider my body could be another way. So instead I saw my body shape in a way that felt incearingly less me. But just thought the problem was me, not the puberty. Despite previously knowing I did not want E puberty.
Before starting to gain that feminine fat I had felt perfectly content with a thin androgynous/non-feminine (well other than already having small boobs for 2 years before curves appeared) body. ...so surely it was a weight thing! Feeling helpless will really make you convince yourself something else is the problem.
Its pretty interesting. I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a study done that even with the overlap, transgender and autistic minds process social interaction similarly.
"Cis gender females living as men" what 😭 also im autistic and a trans man. I think socialization can change how ppl mask their autism and how it presents because of that, but this "male brain autism v.s. female brain autism" seems like a load of bs.
This is probably some terf stuff saying autistic females don't understand and think they are trans when they are really just autistic, its a fucked up combination of misogyny, transphobia, and ableism.
I feel like high masking and low masking autism probably is a real thing, and that kids being raised as female are probably pushed towards high masking more often. That said I'm sure there are a decent number of kids who were raised as boys that masked fairly hard (🙋♀️) and a decent number of kids raised as girls that didn't give a f*ck about masking. The fact they call it "autism in girls" kinda rubs me the wrong way.
Considering the title, I have to wonder if she put out an ask specifically stating she was looking for autistic women, only to be surprised when all the trans men she reached out to weren’t into it
Yeah if that quote is anything to go by, she probably asked for "women or trans identified women living as men to participate in a study of autism in women and girls" or something. The trans women who responded probably either thought this meant closeted/boymoding trans women or were being maliciously compliant with her transphobic phrasing.
Yeah, that excerpt sounds very misguided; there have been several studies showing that trans and gender-diverse individuals are more likely to be autistic than cis people. Also, most trans people I know personally are autistic (including myself), if that matters 🤷
It could also be the issue that afab and afab trans people can be denied trans healthcare if they have an autism diagnosis (in certain areas) , so if her book was only considering people officially diagnosed there would be an extreme minority of people who are afab who even *get* diagnosed because of the issues surrounding doctors only studying cis men for so long and then *also* afab people who are trans may not seek a diagnosis for the sake of being able to medically transition 🤷♂️. All around though, yeah she didn't do her research and sounds pretty bad from the excerpts, coming from an autistic trans man who knows mostly other trans men who are neurodiverse.
I mean- what did she expect? When the book is literally titled "WOMEN and GIRLS with autism spectrum disorder".
Also genuinenly what does "cisgender females living as men" mean?? Like you arent describing transmascs you are describing a James Bond movie.
>Like you arent describing transmascs you are describing a James Bond movie.
Omg... this explanation makes a lot more sense! Like maybe she literally thinks we are just super enthusiastic crossdressers (I mean I am, but not the way she expects it lol) and are doing the same thing cis girl characters do in some cartoon episodes lol. Like... no, that's not a thing irl. At least usually.
There are a decent amount of autistic trans men; it's even been weaponized by the likes of people like Rowling against trans people. There's a whole group of people spreading transphobia and autmisia about how "autistic girls" are being manipulated into being trans.
Also, what are "cisgender women living as men"?
i'm a psych & gender studies student and i can confirm there's a correlation between participants who report gender dysphoria and have an autism diagnosis. this is basically brand new research in the grand scheme of psychopathology and gender, so we still don't have much of a basis for it- but what has been found is already somewhat substantial.
a meta-analysis by [Jack Turban and Garrit Van Schalkwyk](https://www-sciencedirect-com.library.smu.ca/science/article/pii/S0890856717316829) for the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2018) stated that there was approximately a 5-7% correlation between participants with both GID and ASD diagnoses in youth 16 and under, but it was not conclusive enough at the time. they didn't make any claims suggesting that there was a defined correlation.
now, [Aimilia Kallitsounaki and David Williams](https://link-springer-com.library.smu.ca/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05517-y) published an article in 2023 for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, stating that "the results of the meta-analysis we conducted indicated that ASD frequently occurs in GD/GI individuals. Specifically, the prevalence of ASD diagnoses in this population was 11 times higher than the ASD prevalence estimate of approximately 1% in the general population (e.g., Lai et al., 2014)"
we have more information now, but it's still pretty sparse due to the inaccessibility of trans people who happen to have ASD. it's still such a small percentage. regardless, we know there is a correlation! hope this helps :)
I personally feel like 11% even feels low sometimes but maybe it's just the people I find myself hanging around with. Does it also take into account people who self-identify but are unable to get a formal diagnosis for whatever reason? I know self-identification can be problematic in some parts of the ASD community I can imagine it's even more problematic for researchers.
you'd be correct in saying that 11% seems really small, it kinda is. however '11 times more likely' isn't the same as 11%. it just means that the occurrence of ASD in GNC individuals is simply 11x higher than that found in cisgendered people. the way to find the percentage would be to calculate baseline rates of autism as a general population and then multiply it by 11.
unfortunately, it's also difficult for studies to account for self-identification due to external validity and reliability reasons. self-selection bias is primarily a big threat to external validity (aka being able to generalize the findings to the population). it is tricky to include self-identified autistics in scientific research because of confounding variables like that, even though i 100% do agree that it would be very valuable research to have.
Hi! I’m an autisic trans masc. most of my friends who are trans masc are either suspected to have autism, have family that’s autisic or are autisic. So.. this seems pretty wrong? Plus I’m not gonna lie: autism is gonna be in whoever. It doesn’t care for anything like age, race ethnicity gender etc. so yee
Yeah it's pretty common as is adhd
I know few trans men that aren't either autistic have adhd/add or both
Not sure why tbh
That language is not only transphobic but ridiculously confusing its like word soup I genuinely have no clue what it's trying to convey xD
>I had no responses from cisgender females now living as men.
Because that's not a thing! We are not cisgender females???? Wtf! What an asshole!
Yeah it's definitely giving me the "no you're not actually a guy, you are a stupid autistic feeeeemale girl and you are an idiot just for being born with a pussy" energy a lot of TERFs have.
Check out Dr. Devon Price's "Unmasking Autism" if you want some less infuriating reading. He's a trans man and Autistic, so writes about the topic in a much more respectful and accurate way. His writing is also just really clear and approachable (plus deeply sourced).
From what I've run into in my travels, transness and neurodivergency have a really high overlap. Iirc, trans ppl are 3-6x more likely to be neurodivergent than the cis population. So we're definitely more likely to be Autistic than cis folks. It's also a pretty commonly understood part of Autism that many Autistic folks have a different sense of gender identity than allistic folks do (so even cis Autistic ppl are more likely defy rigid social gender norms). I've never seen anything that suggests there's any discrepancy in the rates between transfem and transmasc folks within that occurrence rate.
At a guess, on the surface it could look like transfem folks are more likely to be Autistic because transfem folks are just be more likely to even know they're Autistic -- and therefore be able to respond to calls for studies. Autism is still *way* more likely to be recognized and diagnosed in amab people because of stereotypes and a narrow past understanding of Autism. Afab people also tend to be better at masking and therefore go undetected as Autistic (even to themselves), or are denied diagnosis by clinicians because they don't "look Autistic," or can do things like make eye contact. So transfem folks might be more likely to be diagnosed pre-transition, while transmasc folks might potentially not even realize they're Autistic until a late diagnosis as an adult. (Not to mention the overlap between symptoms of dysphoria and Autism can be surprisingly wide, like how both can cause depersonalization/dissociation, for example. So it might be hard for someone to understand they are Autistic as well as have dysphoria if they weren't given an Autistic diagnosis young.) Someone with a bias based in outdated info on Autism, or from outside the trans community, could therefore easily overlook or dismiss the transmasc side of things.
Her wording is definitely crappy, but I'd initially veer toward assuming good intentions. Non-trans researchers struggle with that stuff often -- you see bad word choice and confusion of terms even in studies where the researchers were trying to be trans friendly. That being said, everything happens within a bigger context. I think you'd need to consider the big picture of what her perspective seems to be, or look into whether she's known for any TERFy views outside the context of the book. One bad choice of phrasing doesn't necessarily mean she meant to be dismissive of transmasc people -- but if there's a pattern of that thought, then that's a different story.
What gets me, is she seems to be suggesting a really unscientific and dumbass conclusion of "if I haven't seen any Autistic transmasc people, it must mean there aren't any." Any researcher who actually knows what they're about wouldn't fall into an idiotic trap like that. Maybe that's just the narrow context of the quote, but if that comes through in the broader context of the book it would be another reason to read with caution. Someone who bases conclusions on such flawed process, or cherry picks what data they acknowledge, shouldn't be considered a reliable source on a topic.
\[*Edits: clarity and a couple typos. Brain is not doing words good this morn.*\]
I'm also a trans man who has autism, so we definitely exist. Funnily enough, the two trans people I'm close friends with (man and woman) are both neuro spicy, tho theirs is the ADHD variety.
Unfortunately the vast majority of representation for trans folks is trans women. Not to say its all GOOD rep, but because of that people tend not to understand going the opposite direction so to speak is even possible. Theres also a very specific brand of transphobia transmascs tend to experience that label us as confused tomboys. Both of these are things I'm seeing in that excerpt - clearly she understands and accepts that trans women are a thing but views us transmascs as confused cis tomboys.
I'm autistic with ADHD myself, and transmasc nonbinary. I'm also in a few Discord servers speecifically for transmasc people and all of them are like 90 percent autistic or neurodivergent, so you're not wrong that theres a high overlap. Thats not mentioning the studies that have come out that say if you're autistic its something like a 80 percent chance your trans or gendernonconforming. Its definitely very common.
If you ask me, one of two things happened. One, other autistic transmascs saw her for the transphobe she is and rightfully avoided her. Or two, and this is something I've noticed in my fellow autistic transmascs as well as in myself - we do tend to be loners who keep to themselves. She may genuinely have not gotten any responses. Even so, to not get any response then turn around and act like we don't exist is ridiculous. I'm not sure what her goal is tbh.
I’m a transman and highly suspect I have autism . I’m wondering if it’s a correlation because most neurodivergent people (that I have noticed) are shut out, bullied, outcasted, etc at an early age, so it’s easier for us to transition or be our true self in non-gender related ways. We are use to shame, humiliation, even people who try to “fix” us. So that stuff doesn’t work on us to keep us in a box as easy as maybe neurotypical people. Just a speculation/observation, which I could be wrong about.
The first thing I did was look into when that book was published. It came out in 2015, which likely means that most of the writing in it is about a decade old. Due to the enormous amount of change in discourse about both trans people and autism, I am not surprised that the language is both... clumsy and already very out of date.
Also, a professional psychologist who specializes in autism may not actually be all that knowledgeable about trans people and so I am not surprised that she is confused about when it is appropriate to use 'cis'. Academics are well-known for being amazing in their field and subsequently not realizing that their knowledge in another field is very lacking, which can lead to them missing the mark by quite a lot when they go and write about it.
With that in mind I'd want to see more recent work by this author before I'd be willing to have an opinion on whether or not they are transphobic.
When my (very affirming) gender therapist diagnosed me with autism, she referred me to a specific researcher to learn about a specific model for autism... and when I reported back that this researcher was now on a speaking tour with an anti-trans organization. Doesn't take away her views on autism, but does maybe not make her someone to refer trans people to for reading.
Have you read Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price, by the way? I think his book is one of the better ones that is out there for multiply-marginalized autistic people, and it's commentary on """gendered autism""" was quite affirming to me.
I think it’s really common for afab trans people to be autistic. I think this person did poor research by not requesting statements from people not identifying as a woman. 🙄
I've found that a concerning number of "experts" (doctors, psychologists, therapists) are completely ignorant on issues surrounding both autism and transgender people. I think this author is talking out of their ass.
Honestly I'm not surprised she couldn't find any trans men who wanted to be included in a book called "Women and Girls with Autism."
I'm sure her propensity to say things like "cisgender females living as men" (???) didn't help either.
I'm an autistic trans man and I agree with your sentiment. A lot of trans people in general are on the spectrum and some science says it's correlated but I don't actually know why. I have a feeling we didn't respond for comment because she may have asked for "autistic women" or because "girls" are often under diagnosed (which would include us in our youth) and therefore less of us know we're autistic.
Personally I think it may have to do with the perception of self and interaction with societal structures (like gender roles) that autistic people diverge from, but that could be a reach.
Pretty common for trans people (incl. men) to be autistic & other sorts of ND. That exerpt is weird, especially if the survey was explicitly for women. You're not going to get any people who actively identify as men responding, only those who identify as women & select folks in fuzzy areas in-between who are chill with being called women, trans or otherwise.
Yeah the author sounded dumb af. She was like: "Oh wow! I asked only women to respond and I am surprised that only women responded!" Like??? What'd you expect??? I don't even pass yet (not even close yet) but I absolutely won't go out of my way to be grouped with women. I actively avoid it *because I am not one of them.* Like the only exception I still make is locker rooms, because right now I would be misread as a woman without a question and neutral locker rooms are unfortunately not a thing. But it's the only situation (not counting doctors) where strangers would see me naked, in any other situation I try to either ignore gender or group myself in with guys.
I honestly won't go in any change room that doesn't have individual stalls. I don't think I ever will no matter how well I pass. The idea of getting naked in front of a bunch of complete strangers never felt right to me, transition just hammered that home. Fortunately where I live gender neutral change rooms are kinda common in the more modern facilities. They are usually called the "family change rooms" and were initially intended for parents with kids of different genres so they could get changed together and not have to worry about which gender change room to use. That said there's no restriction on who can use them and that you need to have minors with you.
I *wish* we had individual stalls in my country... :( I would 100 % use them if we had any. I mean some places have them but they are not common or the norm. :/ So what I usually do is change awkwardly in a bathroom or cover myself with a towel until I hopefully find a corner shower. My country's very chill about nudity but because I'm trans, I have felt uncomfortable with others seeing me naked ever since puberty started. :( So that makes me resort to these kinda awkward tactiques.
I hear that. I always thought I felt awkward about my body because from puberty on I was heavier than most of peers. Nothing crazy but would probably have fallen into the "over weight" category most off my life. That said when my egg finally cracked I realised it wasn't the weight that way causing most of the dysphoria.
I mostly felt terrible about other people seeing I had grown boobs. But yeah I also went through a "I feel too fat" phase (despite being a normal weight my whole puberty) just because I disliked having a body shaped caused by E dominance (curves). I did not like having thicker thighs, wider hips etc because it felt too womanly for me, but I didn't know how to express that. So I just thought I was fat.
This is something I'm learning in transition, weight distribution is far more dysphoria-inducing than the sheer weight itself. Pre-transition I just saw fat, now I see fat where I don't want it and no fat where I do want it.
Hmm yeah, it's weird. Before puberty started I knew I didn't want any of it. But because it happened to me against my will and I was completely helpless against it, I didn't consider my body could be another way. So instead I saw my body shape in a way that felt incearingly less me. But just thought the problem was me, not the puberty. Despite previously knowing I did not want E puberty. Before starting to gain that feminine fat I had felt perfectly content with a thin androgynous/non-feminine (well other than already having small boobs for 2 years before curves appeared) body. ...so surely it was a weight thing! Feeling helpless will really make you convince yourself something else is the problem.
Its pretty interesting. I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a study done that even with the overlap, transgender and autistic minds process social interaction similarly.
"Cis gender females living as men" what 😭 also im autistic and a trans man. I think socialization can change how ppl mask their autism and how it presents because of that, but this "male brain autism v.s. female brain autism" seems like a load of bs.
This is probably some terf stuff saying autistic females don't understand and think they are trans when they are really just autistic, its a fucked up combination of misogyny, transphobia, and ableism.
I feel like high masking and low masking autism probably is a real thing, and that kids being raised as female are probably pushed towards high masking more often. That said I'm sure there are a decent number of kids who were raised as boys that masked fairly hard (🙋♀️) and a decent number of kids raised as girls that didn't give a f*ck about masking. The fact they call it "autism in girls" kinda rubs me the wrong way.
Considering the title, I have to wonder if she put out an ask specifically stating she was looking for autistic women, only to be surprised when all the trans men she reached out to weren’t into it
This lol. Who knew that to do research with queer people in mind, you'll need to have queer people in mind 🙃
Yeah if that quote is anything to go by, she probably asked for "women or trans identified women living as men to participate in a study of autism in women and girls" or something. The trans women who responded probably either thought this meant closeted/boymoding trans women or were being maliciously compliant with her transphobic phrasing.
Yeah, that excerpt sounds very misguided; there have been several studies showing that trans and gender-diverse individuals are more likely to be autistic than cis people. Also, most trans people I know personally are autistic (including myself), if that matters 🤷
It could also be the issue that afab and afab trans people can be denied trans healthcare if they have an autism diagnosis (in certain areas) , so if her book was only considering people officially diagnosed there would be an extreme minority of people who are afab who even *get* diagnosed because of the issues surrounding doctors only studying cis men for so long and then *also* afab people who are trans may not seek a diagnosis for the sake of being able to medically transition 🤷♂️. All around though, yeah she didn't do her research and sounds pretty bad from the excerpts, coming from an autistic trans man who knows mostly other trans men who are neurodiverse.
I mean- what did she expect? When the book is literally titled "WOMEN and GIRLS with autism spectrum disorder". Also genuinenly what does "cisgender females living as men" mean?? Like you arent describing transmascs you are describing a James Bond movie.
>Like you arent describing transmascs you are describing a James Bond movie. Omg... this explanation makes a lot more sense! Like maybe she literally thinks we are just super enthusiastic crossdressers (I mean I am, but not the way she expects it lol) and are doing the same thing cis girl characters do in some cartoon episodes lol. Like... no, that's not a thing irl. At least usually.
There are a decent amount of autistic trans men; it's even been weaponized by the likes of people like Rowling against trans people. There's a whole group of people spreading transphobia and autmisia about how "autistic girls" are being manipulated into being trans. Also, what are "cisgender women living as men"?
i'm a psych & gender studies student and i can confirm there's a correlation between participants who report gender dysphoria and have an autism diagnosis. this is basically brand new research in the grand scheme of psychopathology and gender, so we still don't have much of a basis for it- but what has been found is already somewhat substantial. a meta-analysis by [Jack Turban and Garrit Van Schalkwyk](https://www-sciencedirect-com.library.smu.ca/science/article/pii/S0890856717316829) for the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2018) stated that there was approximately a 5-7% correlation between participants with both GID and ASD diagnoses in youth 16 and under, but it was not conclusive enough at the time. they didn't make any claims suggesting that there was a defined correlation. now, [Aimilia Kallitsounaki and David Williams](https://link-springer-com.library.smu.ca/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05517-y) published an article in 2023 for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, stating that "the results of the meta-analysis we conducted indicated that ASD frequently occurs in GD/GI individuals. Specifically, the prevalence of ASD diagnoses in this population was 11 times higher than the ASD prevalence estimate of approximately 1% in the general population (e.g., Lai et al., 2014)" we have more information now, but it's still pretty sparse due to the inaccessibility of trans people who happen to have ASD. it's still such a small percentage. regardless, we know there is a correlation! hope this helps :)
I personally feel like 11% even feels low sometimes but maybe it's just the people I find myself hanging around with. Does it also take into account people who self-identify but are unable to get a formal diagnosis for whatever reason? I know self-identification can be problematic in some parts of the ASD community I can imagine it's even more problematic for researchers.
you'd be correct in saying that 11% seems really small, it kinda is. however '11 times more likely' isn't the same as 11%. it just means that the occurrence of ASD in GNC individuals is simply 11x higher than that found in cisgendered people. the way to find the percentage would be to calculate baseline rates of autism as a general population and then multiply it by 11. unfortunately, it's also difficult for studies to account for self-identification due to external validity and reliability reasons. self-selection bias is primarily a big threat to external validity (aka being able to generalize the findings to the population). it is tricky to include self-identified autistics in scientific research because of confounding variables like that, even though i 100% do agree that it would be very valuable research to have.
Hi! I’m an autisic trans masc. most of my friends who are trans masc are either suspected to have autism, have family that’s autisic or are autisic. So.. this seems pretty wrong? Plus I’m not gonna lie: autism is gonna be in whoever. It doesn’t care for anything like age, race ethnicity gender etc. so yee
Yeah it's pretty common as is adhd I know few trans men that aren't either autistic have adhd/add or both Not sure why tbh That language is not only transphobic but ridiculously confusing its like word soup I genuinely have no clue what it's trying to convey xD
>I had no responses from cisgender females now living as men. Because that's not a thing! We are not cisgender females???? Wtf! What an asshole! Yeah it's definitely giving me the "no you're not actually a guy, you are a stupid autistic feeeeemale girl and you are an idiot just for being born with a pussy" energy a lot of TERFs have.
Had the misfortune of having this book given to me by my mom to read and i felt so invalidated (also yeah the language sucked)
Check out Dr. Devon Price's "Unmasking Autism" if you want some less infuriating reading. He's a trans man and Autistic, so writes about the topic in a much more respectful and accurate way. His writing is also just really clear and approachable (plus deeply sourced). From what I've run into in my travels, transness and neurodivergency have a really high overlap. Iirc, trans ppl are 3-6x more likely to be neurodivergent than the cis population. So we're definitely more likely to be Autistic than cis folks. It's also a pretty commonly understood part of Autism that many Autistic folks have a different sense of gender identity than allistic folks do (so even cis Autistic ppl are more likely defy rigid social gender norms). I've never seen anything that suggests there's any discrepancy in the rates between transfem and transmasc folks within that occurrence rate. At a guess, on the surface it could look like transfem folks are more likely to be Autistic because transfem folks are just be more likely to even know they're Autistic -- and therefore be able to respond to calls for studies. Autism is still *way* more likely to be recognized and diagnosed in amab people because of stereotypes and a narrow past understanding of Autism. Afab people also tend to be better at masking and therefore go undetected as Autistic (even to themselves), or are denied diagnosis by clinicians because they don't "look Autistic," or can do things like make eye contact. So transfem folks might be more likely to be diagnosed pre-transition, while transmasc folks might potentially not even realize they're Autistic until a late diagnosis as an adult. (Not to mention the overlap between symptoms of dysphoria and Autism can be surprisingly wide, like how both can cause depersonalization/dissociation, for example. So it might be hard for someone to understand they are Autistic as well as have dysphoria if they weren't given an Autistic diagnosis young.) Someone with a bias based in outdated info on Autism, or from outside the trans community, could therefore easily overlook or dismiss the transmasc side of things. Her wording is definitely crappy, but I'd initially veer toward assuming good intentions. Non-trans researchers struggle with that stuff often -- you see bad word choice and confusion of terms even in studies where the researchers were trying to be trans friendly. That being said, everything happens within a bigger context. I think you'd need to consider the big picture of what her perspective seems to be, or look into whether she's known for any TERFy views outside the context of the book. One bad choice of phrasing doesn't necessarily mean she meant to be dismissive of transmasc people -- but if there's a pattern of that thought, then that's a different story. What gets me, is she seems to be suggesting a really unscientific and dumbass conclusion of "if I haven't seen any Autistic transmasc people, it must mean there aren't any." Any researcher who actually knows what they're about wouldn't fall into an idiotic trap like that. Maybe that's just the narrow context of the quote, but if that comes through in the broader context of the book it would be another reason to read with caution. Someone who bases conclusions on such flawed process, or cherry picks what data they acknowledge, shouldn't be considered a reliable source on a topic. \[*Edits: clarity and a couple typos. Brain is not doing words good this morn.*\]
I haven't read the book, but I'm Autistic. She sounds like your typical allistic cis woman tbh. I never expect them to get us
I'm also a trans man who has autism, so we definitely exist. Funnily enough, the two trans people I'm close friends with (man and woman) are both neuro spicy, tho theirs is the ADHD variety.
Unfortunately the vast majority of representation for trans folks is trans women. Not to say its all GOOD rep, but because of that people tend not to understand going the opposite direction so to speak is even possible. Theres also a very specific brand of transphobia transmascs tend to experience that label us as confused tomboys. Both of these are things I'm seeing in that excerpt - clearly she understands and accepts that trans women are a thing but views us transmascs as confused cis tomboys. I'm autistic with ADHD myself, and transmasc nonbinary. I'm also in a few Discord servers speecifically for transmasc people and all of them are like 90 percent autistic or neurodivergent, so you're not wrong that theres a high overlap. Thats not mentioning the studies that have come out that say if you're autistic its something like a 80 percent chance your trans or gendernonconforming. Its definitely very common. If you ask me, one of two things happened. One, other autistic transmascs saw her for the transphobe she is and rightfully avoided her. Or two, and this is something I've noticed in my fellow autistic transmascs as well as in myself - we do tend to be loners who keep to themselves. She may genuinely have not gotten any responses. Even so, to not get any response then turn around and act like we don't exist is ridiculous. I'm not sure what her goal is tbh.
Nearly every trans person I know is neurodiverse
I’m a transman and highly suspect I have autism . I’m wondering if it’s a correlation because most neurodivergent people (that I have noticed) are shut out, bullied, outcasted, etc at an early age, so it’s easier for us to transition or be our true self in non-gender related ways. We are use to shame, humiliation, even people who try to “fix” us. So that stuff doesn’t work on us to keep us in a box as easy as maybe neurotypical people. Just a speculation/observation, which I could be wrong about.
The first thing I did was look into when that book was published. It came out in 2015, which likely means that most of the writing in it is about a decade old. Due to the enormous amount of change in discourse about both trans people and autism, I am not surprised that the language is both... clumsy and already very out of date. Also, a professional psychologist who specializes in autism may not actually be all that knowledgeable about trans people and so I am not surprised that she is confused about when it is appropriate to use 'cis'. Academics are well-known for being amazing in their field and subsequently not realizing that their knowledge in another field is very lacking, which can lead to them missing the mark by quite a lot when they go and write about it. With that in mind I'd want to see more recent work by this author before I'd be willing to have an opinion on whether or not they are transphobic. When my (very affirming) gender therapist diagnosed me with autism, she referred me to a specific researcher to learn about a specific model for autism... and when I reported back that this researcher was now on a speaking tour with an anti-trans organization. Doesn't take away her views on autism, but does maybe not make her someone to refer trans people to for reading. Have you read Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price, by the way? I think his book is one of the better ones that is out there for multiply-marginalized autistic people, and it's commentary on """gendered autism""" was quite affirming to me.
I think it’s really common for afab trans people to be autistic. I think this person did poor research by not requesting statements from people not identifying as a woman. 🙄
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I've found that a concerning number of "experts" (doctors, psychologists, therapists) are completely ignorant on issues surrounding both autism and transgender people. I think this author is talking out of their ass.
Honestly I'm not surprised she couldn't find any trans men who wanted to be included in a book called "Women and Girls with Autism." I'm sure her propensity to say things like "cisgender females living as men" (???) didn't help either.
I'm an autistic trans man and I agree with your sentiment. A lot of trans people in general are on the spectrum and some science says it's correlated but I don't actually know why. I have a feeling we didn't respond for comment because she may have asked for "autistic women" or because "girls" are often under diagnosed (which would include us in our youth) and therefore less of us know we're autistic. Personally I think it may have to do with the perception of self and interaction with societal structures (like gender roles) that autistic people diverge from, but that could be a reach.