Earlier this month, I shared an article about the results from THIS STUDY that suggest that transgender and gender-diverse individuals had higher rates of autism diagnosis than cisgender individuals.
Transcript
NeuroRebel here and this week, a lot of you have been asking about the recent study that came out, talking about how transgender people are six times more likely to also be autistic. So this week I’m going to talk about that study a little bit and share some of my own thoughts and perspective.
[00:00:57] So of course, turning to a recent study at Cambridge’s Autism Research Center, transgender and gender diverse individuals are three to six times more likely than cis-gender adults to also be diagnosed autistic.
[00:01:17] Can I just say I’m not even remotely surprised by this fact before we go any further? I think a lot of you out there may not be surprised by this either.
[00:01:34] So, what do I think? Well, as a nonbinary, genderfluid, pansexual, autistic person… yeah, at least in my case, I would say that this theory, this hypothesis, this data, this study is holding up, seems to be accurate. I can’t argue against it.
[00:02:02] What role does autism play in all of this gender, sexuality? All of it.
[00:02:10] What does it play? You know, it’s really hard to say. There’s definitely a link. Science is linking this together. It’s not deniable anymore. Uh, for me, I would feel like my gender expression and my gender and my sexuality have always been where they are. Being autistic has at least for me made it so that I am more likely, I think, than other people to be very open and honest with who I care about, who I love my gender, all of this stuff.
[00:02:48] I don’t feel it’s necessarily anyone’s right to have an opinion on these things because they are personal things to me. And I tend to care a little bit less about what other people think. And I think that probably is tied to being autistic person, in my opinion, at least in my case and my personal experience, that that is the impact that autism has on my gender issues and my sexuality.
[00:03:18] Uh, anyway guys, those are just some thoughts. If you found this video helpful. Be sure to subscribe and share and like, and do all the things I will talk to you guys next week. Bye.
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My idea about this, since a while, is it could be possible that autistic folks watch themselves and others much more closely than neurotypicals in order to find out what makes them different and how they have to change to fit in.
So, in my opinion, it is much more likely they find that they not only do not fit into the neurotypical society, but also in the gender (role) they have been assigned at birth.
Neurotypicals take their neurological status as granted, so they might take their assigned gender as granted, too.
Also just a few thoughts by a selfDX autist from Germany 😉
This study is so interesting and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
I’ve always had this vague theory that, if you take as given that most people would be pan/bi and more gender-fluid absent social expectations (gender roles, heteronormativity, etc.), and given that a lot of autistics are less interested in upholding social roles they don’t personally believe in, that it may just be that autistics are more likely to be more accepting of our sexual and gender fluidity than neurotypical folks are? Or that, for whatever reason, a much larger percentage of queer autistics are “out” and self-accepting/ exploring than you’d find in a similar number of neurotypical people.
I don’t know if I’m explaining that well, but the whole idea is very interesting! I’m excited to see more work on this.