Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 358 posts

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#191

Post by timwaagh »

trans-stealth wrote: post #54
timwaagh wrote: post #45

trans people, might reasonably be described as people "whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful". Since that phrase got ripped straight off the dsm diagnostic criteria for autism on https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5 , it should not be any surprise whatsoever that these are correlated (same as with any other category of significantly 'odd' people).

>trans people, might reasonably be described as people "whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful". Is this a quote from the article? I can't seem to find it. That is very much not the case in my opinion. Many trans people are social and have both cis (non-trans) and trans friends.

The quoted line is from the site I mentioned (ie its a diagnostic criterion for autism). Being social has nothing to do with it. Many trans people don't completely pass as their gender of choice. This lands them in somewhat of an uncanny valley and makes it more difficult for them to make friends compared to the average person.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#192

Post by chownie »

engineeringwoke wrote: post #188
coolreader18 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post-transition transgender people have lower suicide rates and better mental health overall than those that are pre-transition[0]. [0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24344788/

n = 57. You can't be serious, right?

How large should the sample be before it's substantive?

The British polling institute advises a sample of 1000 for a total UK population of around 60,000,000. Trans people make up 1% so roughly 600,000, with that in mind 57 doesn't seem that low?

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#193

Post by PeterisP »

neonate wrote: post #22
jmcgough wrote: post #20

My mother's family is all autistic engineers. I and two of my cousins transitioned as teenagers, so I've had my own theories about this for years.

I'd love to hear your theories if you'd be willing to share them.

One hypothesis is that disbalance of 'gender-related' hormones during fetal development is a factor that can cause not only gender dysphoria but also autism / Asperger's spectrum related issues.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#194

Post by acd »

I think it would be good for people with autism to investigate probiotic food supplements. Digestive tummy issues is more common in people with autism. This is likely due to differences in tummy food metabolism in people with autism. There is a link between brain / autism and metabolism in the tummy bacteria system.

I would recommend looking into and reading up on Biogaia l.reuteri dsm 17938 and l.reuteri atc pta 6475. Brand name “Biogaia Gastrus”. There is a sub community which blends these food supplements with Yoghurt. Some people report better functionality of autism eating Biogaia Blue. Do Internet search for these Probiotic strands and Autism. Hope this can help.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#195

Post by DanBC »

timwaagh wrote: post #189
renaicirc wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trans people, might reasonably be described as people "whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful". This is a thoroughly bizarre assertion. Why can trans people be described thus?

They usually don't quite look like their gender of choice landing them in somewhat of an uncanny valley. Me or you will have an instinctive negative reaction to them which will then have to be overcome. Of course that doesn't mean they never make any friends. But that is not what is being said. What is being said is they will have more unsuccessful attempts than the average person.

> They usually don't quite look like their gender of choice

This is confirmation bias. You notice people who don't look like you think they should look. You then think those people are trans, and when you check a few it turns out they are trans. You've confirmed your bias, and now you think it's true.

What you haven't taken into account is all the people who don't fit this pattern: athletic black women who were born female and identify as female but who are assumed to be transwomen (see all the conspiracy theories around Michelle Obama or the Williams sisters), or the people who do pass well that you're just not aware of.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#196

Post by fock »

valenciarose wrote: post #146
fock wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so could you produce some numbers about transitions? because frankly this discussion (just as the more street-oriented fraction of BLM...) seems driven by a very vocal but ultimately minuscule number of people. And if now in some avantgarde-circles (which never were related to the majority of people and also today generally have their very own orthodoxy... ) trans is en vogue, I doubt that this is the mass phenomenon…

It’s not a mass phenomenon. Neither is Autism. Fewer people are trans than are gay, but nobody really knows. At the bottom end it’s 0.3%-0.6% of the population, but that’s only people who are out. If you survey people in their low 20s, it’s higher. We’re a little less common than redheads in all likelihood. Gay people in the early 80s knew there were a lot more gay people than straight people saw, but they had no ide…

how are people who still live their cis-lives, happy and don't really plan anything medical trans? Or is trans today just a catch-all phrase for everything a little androgynous?

> but many trans people use language to describe themselves that other trans people would be offended by.

this seems very much like some orthodoxy trying to prescribe their opinion. What's the problem with that language as long as (I assume) people are happy with it?

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#197

Post by chownie »

mvn9 wrote: post #167
neonate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear your theories if you'd be willing to share them.

Not OP, but I fancy this rough theory: According to armchair psychologists and a joke, the answer to every psychological question is 'your mother'. If you look at ways to deal with conflicts [1], it could be that being transgender is a form of dealing with inner conflicts. Being autistic means that there is some distortion (no judgement intended) in the relationship to other people. The distortion most likely origina…

I'd pursue a different avenue honestly. Autism as I understand it is a difference in brain development, it is not something you can cause by wanting.

Your same logic has previously been tried on gay men too varying levels of insistence, it hasn't stuck yet.

Autistic people somewhat commonly experience Alexithymia, which is an inability to understand their own feelings. The common example is an autistic person chronically dehydrated because they cannot identify their own sensation of thirst. Emotions are also physical sensations.

I think a much more promising angle is to look at incidence of Alexithymia and gender dysphoria.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#198

Post by tchaffee »

clusterfish wrote: post #162
davmar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not op, but i think that western gender roles are a scam. i'm not suggesting that there aren't differences between biological sexes, but gender != sex and the false idea that there are only two ways to express your gender is quite limiting.

And eastern gender roles aren't? Is there something I don't know?

Making a claim about the culture one is familiar with does not exclude that the same might be true in other cultures.

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#199

Post by andai »

acd wrote: post #194

I think it would be good for people with autism to investigate probiotic food supplements. Digestive tummy issues is more common in people with autism. This is likely due to differences in tummy food metabolism in people with autism. There is a link between brain / autism and metabolism in the tummy bacteria system. I would recommend looking into and reading up on Biogaia l.reuteri dsm 17938 and l.reuteri atc pta 647…

Microbiota transfer improves autism symptoms

https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...

Re: Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

#200

Post by DanBC »

hh3k0 wrote: post #18
vmception wrote: post #11

Some detractors often say transgender people have mental health issues. But they mean it in the sense that they should be in an asylum or should not be catered to. A reality is that: A) Gender dysphoria is an imbalance of neural state. Therefore that would by definition be a mental health issue but not like the detractors say. B) Acknowledging and accommodating gender dysphoria discomfort costs cisgender people nothi…

> But they mean it in the sense that they should be in an asylum or should not be catered to. I have often heard it in a sense of "should not be catered to but rather given medical help". A fellow student once told me that he considers the current way of treating gender dysphoria irresponsible and that, if we'd treat schizophrenia the way we treat gender dysphoria, we'd all have to aknowledge the voices they hear and…

> I didn't know how to respond to that.

Ask him why WHO and the UN are working on depathologization of transgender, trying to remove it from diagnostic manuals.

Ask him what breakout symptoms in schizophrenia are, and why we think it's better that people continue to hear voices (so long as they're not distressing) than be medicated so heavily all voices disappear.

Post reply on HN