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Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

nature.com

271–280 of 358 posts

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

#271
post #265
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your links don't support your position My position is that it's stupid, and I was illustrating that there are forces that want to make it illegal. And they have succeeded in some places. The Canadian Bill C16 is one example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_to_amend_the_Canadian_H... >I don't think you actually know any TG people. And I think you have no basis for making that assumption. You are wrong.

Indeed. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to documenting instances of people being arrested because of the travesty of justice that is Bill C16: check out https://reddit.com/r/ArrestedCanadaBillC16

OMG this might or might not be worse than I could have imagined. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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

#272
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this might be rude but I'm not sure what the polite way to ask is, isn't your sex always your birth sex for the most part? Outside the effects of the medications and the cosmetic effects of the surgery isn't your body still mostly the same as far as the nuts, bolts, and genetic disorders, are concerned?

That depends on what you mean by "sex." And even then, it's not a neat binary thing by any definition. Most things that involve humans fall on a bimodal distribution. Cropping out the wide fields in that distribution is convenient for statistics, forms, and rhetoric, but it doesn't reflect the true range humans are capable of.

Can you elaborate on this more? I meant "sex" in the way that my physician would use the word. I'm aware of things like intersex conditions but, unless someone is actually intersex or otherwise complicated, your reply doesn't really answer my original question.

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

#275
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one means to understand your identity. Generally, if you'd say, "I am a ..." then you identify as that. You might say, for instance, I am a Catholic. Or I am a Muslim. I am a man. I am a woman. I am a chef. I am a zookeeper. I am a gun owner. I am a pacifist. I am a vegetarian. etc. etc. Whatever your "I am a ..." statements are, they are how you identify. You will find some of them you feel strongly about and…

This is a bit simplistic, isn’t it? Muslim, Christian, pacifist are pretty much opinions, so it doesn’t make sense to call them “identities” as they can change any time (you wouldn’t call “dressed in a suit” or “hungry” identities, would you?) Chef, gun owner, vegetarian - those are facts. You can say you’re a chef without ever having cooked a thing, or gun owner without owning a gun, or a vegetarian while eating ste…

Identity is about how you visualize yourself, and how strongly you feel those visualizations define that concept of you.

And yes, I know people for whom hungry is a part of their identity -- it's certainly common in media as well. Sleepy is another one I've seen. Clothing choices are sometimes part of someone's identity. There are people who wouldn't be caught dead in a suit, and people who wouldn't leave home without one.

Identity isn't some measure of objective reality, it's about who you believe you are and what you value about that. When your identity doesn't match reality, it can cause something called dysphoria -- the opposite of euphoria.

Take someone who identifies strongly as a chef but hasn't ever cooked. They might be miserable all the time, frustrated by their current job, day dreaming about the meals they hope to prepare. It might be really distracting and impactful to their lives. They might quit their job and go to culinary school. Or they might have to take a look at their identity and see how to adapt to the dysphoria.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider neither [1] nor [2] to be of any scientific merit. === [1] === I find your reference [1] to be incredibly intellectually dishonest: I agree with the initial paragraph that "gender dysphoria" as well as "dysphoria" in general are not well defined terms. Obviously, I was then expecting a definition by the author, but none was given. Instead, the author moves on to use the term as if it was a well-defin…

"After reading the article, I had a strong feeling that the author is probably selling related drugs and has a financial incentive to classify everything as trans symptoms." For the record, this is just totally false, Zinnia does not sell drugs (do you mean HRT? That would be illegal in the US without a medical or pharmacy license). "she's calling herself "adult demon anti-cis pro-trans activist" elsewhere" Pretty su…

I also did not find any evidence of Zinnia benefiting financially from drug sales.

But just reading her writing, I couldn't shake the feeling that Zinnia has a very strong interest in increasing the rate of "gender dysphoria" diagnosis. Plus it is very obvious that Zinnia is not a neutral researcher on this topic.

As for the journal, EJN has an impact factor of 2.9. As a student, I used to publish stuff for fun in an IF 4.3 journal. So I'd consider EJN in the "motivated hobbyists" category. For comparison, Nature (the article discussed here) has an IF of 24.3.

Edit for your edit: Requesting revisions is OK, but accepting a paper that was rejected in the first round and DID NOT fix the issue that caused it to be rejected ... that looks suspicious.

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

#277
Can someone answer my genuine question on this topic? At my high school in California I knew a trans girl (m to f used she/her) that was super chill and maybe a bit on the spectrum.

At the same time there were a couple dozen girls that called themselves trans and asked everyone to use they/them but acted and dressed all 100% within female stereotypes (not that trans is about stereotypes I’m just illustrating my point). I didn’t know any boys that did this.

Has the term trans grown beyond just (for lack of a better term) those with body dysmorphia? What is this second category of trans because I have yet to figure it out.

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

#278

One other correlation I have seen is "intelligence" trans person. It's very weird how many absurdly smart people happen to be trans. It plays into the idea that mental illness correlates with IQ.

I noticed the same thing, particularly with programmers.

More than once, I stumble upon some remarkable piece of software, to find that its author is a trans person.

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

#279
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sudden…

I wonder if studying gender affirmation among cis people wouldn't help to solidify the science behind transitioning and well-being. With presentation of gender being as much of a spectrum as gender itself, it would stand to reason that there are cis individuals who experience dysphoria by way of not physically presenting as as masculine or feminine as they feel themselves to be ( waves ). Non-clinical avenues are som…

Since "gender dysphoria" hasn't been scientifically defined yet, you're free to make up a definition so that everyone has it ;)

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

#280

Can someone answer my genuine question on this topic? At my high school in California I knew a trans girl (m to f used she/her) that was super chill and maybe a bit on the spectrum. At the same time there were a couple dozen girls that called themselves trans and asked everyone to use they/them but acted and dressed all 100% within female stereotypes (not that trans is about stereotypes I’m just illustrating my point…

briefly, expecting a trans person to have dysmorphia is called "transmedicalism." it's highly controversial in the trans community because on the one side you have people who suffer from gender dysmorphia who don't always like the idea that other people are transitioning because of a preference; on the other side you have people advocate that gender identity is a personal choice and should not be subject to a particular diagnosis by a professional.
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