Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

>I just don't identify with the male experience at all

this is a big part of it imo, your stereotypical effeminate depressed autist has virtually no connection to traditional cultural overtures of masculinity except in the body they inhabit and it's very easy to reach a point where it feels like that body is working against you.

First off: yes, trans tends to be an umbrella term these days.

>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?

If I understand correctly, you're misinterpreting this graf:

>When I go to (back when travel was a thing) places that are less friendly than the coasts and people see the trans flag pin on my bag, I frequently have people come out to me and talk about how they can never transition.

The trans people GP is talking about here are absolutely trans, but they don't feel safe transitioning because their local environment is more hostile to trans people overall than the west coast or northeast of the US. I know a lot of trans people like that and "living their cis-lives," "happy," and "don't plan on anything medical" don't even begin to describe their existence. I worry a lot about most of them. Being in the closet as a trans person is not inherently safer and in particular rates of suicide are much higher.

>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?

It's a question of respectability and what it means to reclaim something. Some trans people like to use traditionally offensive words to describe themselves, others don't. In general I think it's best that we don't describe others with offensive terms unless they ask for it, even as they become more frequently reclaimed, but I have no problem with whatever labels someone chooses for themselves, and different communities have different norms around these things.

I see arguments like this a lot, and they usually miss the importance and impact of hormonal transition.

I'm trans, and thus in trans circles a lot, and almost everyone I know had some high impact mental health issue resolve upon starting hormonal transition, even if those were present before they realized they were trans. These range from generic depression over behavior that gets people autism diagnoses that suddenly resolve to a depersonalization. [1] Even if you want to attribute those to placebo, the effect is so pronounced and long-lastingly positive, it wouldn't really matter if it was.

Gender dysphoria is measurable[2], and gender dysphoria severe enough to lead someone to transition seems to be rooted more deeply than just the socially constructed assignments of what constitutes male and female behavior. Of course gender-non-conformance would still be expressed more strongly in such people.

What is also positively correlated to transness are conditions that could be classified as intersex, even if we don't generally diagnose them as such because they have no easy to recognize physical impact. We know about some of those, pre-natal exposure to estrogens for instance. And I'm sure there's a lot of factors we're entirely missing. There are a few neurology studies that show deviations that are are usually associated with the other sex in transgender people, even before they can hormonally transition.

[1]: https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-dysphoria...

[2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30991464/

You could try this response: treating every every mental health issue as a hallucination is similar to treating every medical issue as a heart attack. As an example, treating depression as if it were the same as hearing voices would hurt the person and be medically irresponsible. And since you wouldn't offer to do heart surgery on a friend, you should also stop trying to be people's psychologist until you are trained and qualified.

> Identity is irrelevant to reproductive role, and sex is about reproduction, and gender is about sex.

Every part of this is wrong.

First, let's look at sex. You've said sex is tied to reproduction (as an aside, this feels a bit cruel to all the infertile people out there) but that's wrong.

https://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html

> Humans are born with 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. The X and Y chromosomes determine a person’s sex. Most women are 46XX and most men are 46XY. Research suggests, however, that in a few births per thousand some individuals will be born with a single sex chromosome (45X or 45Y) (sex monosomies) and some with three or more sex chromosomes (47XXX, 47XYY or 47XXY, etc.) (sex polysomies). In addition, some males are born 46XX due to the translocation of a tiny section of the sex determining region of the Y chromosome. Similarly some females are also born 46XY due to mutations in the Y chromosome. Clearly, there are not only females who are XX and males who are XY, but rather, there is a range of chromosome complements, hormone balances, and phenotypic variations that determine sex.

You've then said that gender is tied to sex, but that's only true in some countries at this point in history, and it mostly stems from Christian colonialists imposing their view (often using violence to do so) across the world.

https://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html

> Gender, typically described in terms of masculinity and femininity, is a social construction that varies across different cultures and over time. (6) There are a number of cultures, for example, in which greater gender diversity exists and sex and gender are not always neatly divided along binary lines such as male and female or homosexual and heterosexual. The Berdache in North America, the fa’afafine (Samoan for “the way of a woman”) in the Pacific, and the kathoey in Thailand are all examples of different gender categories that differ from the traditional Western division of people into males and females. Further, among certain North American native communities, gender is seen more in terms of a continuum than categories, with special acknowledgement of “two-spirited” people who encompass both masculine and feminine qualities and characteristics. It is apparent, then, that different cultures have taken different approaches to creating gender distinctions, with more or less recognition of fluidity and complexity of gender.

https://gal-dem.com/black-trans-lives-matter-we-cant-let-the...

> There is a particular, deep-rooted racist violence in the UK iteration of transphobia. The invention and export of the concept of a rigid and oppressive gender binary was used as a device of subjugation throughout the British empire during colonialism. This included the attempted eradication of ancient and deeply spiritual understandings and lived realities of gender fluidity, including among two-spirit people in indigenous North American cultures; fa’afafine people in Samoa; nat kadaws in Burma, and hijras in India, who were criminalised during British colonial rule by Section 377 – a law used after a rebellion to “reassert colonial authority”.

You've said that identity is irrelevant to reproductive role. That's wrong, which is why there are trans-fathers who give birth.

https://mana.org/healthcare-policy/use-of-inclusive-language

> The signatures below indicate affirmation and respect for people of all genders; full agreement regarding the use of gender inclusive language in the MANA Core Competencies and in all documents regarding the profession of midwifery and provision of midwifery care; and the welcoming of transgender, genderqueer and intersex people into safe, culturally sensitive, shame-free reproductive health care. We do not refute the “life-giving power in female biology.” Rather, we support a larger vision that includes the provision of midwifery care to all pregnant and birthing people.

You may want to read this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07238-8