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Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

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

#321

Post by Kaze404 »

grogenaut wrote: post #311
Kaze404 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but you can't really assume good faith from the snarky comment I responded to.

Reading the GP again, it doesn't seem snarky. They are just stating what they believe the definition is. It's very easy to read emotion into an emotionless format like text. Which means it's very easy to devolve the conversation to anger very quickly.

From that perspective, you also read emotion on my emotionless text. I was also just stating what I believe the definition is, with no more or less information than the comment I responded to.

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

#322

Post by aw1621107 »

666lumberjack wrote: post #227
ponker wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not allowed to say it, apparently, but there is/was evidence that it can be acquired: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/brown-university-cri...

The paper that article references was discredited for being bad science, not because of any kind of agenda. They collected their 'data' by surveying parents on online forums - most of them explicitly anti-trans / 'gender critical' - instead of from transgender youth or medical professionals.

To expand on this a bit, the paper can be found at [0] and a notice of republication can be found at [1].

The study's "Methods" section reads in part:

> For this descriptive, exploratory study, recruitment information with a link to a 90-question survey, consisting of multiple-choice, Likert-type and open-ended questions was placed on three websites where parents had reported sudden or rapid onsets of gender dysphoria occurring in their teen or young adult children. The study’s eligibility criteria included parental response that their child had a sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria and parental indication that their child’s gender dysphoria began during or after puberty. To maximize the chances of finding cases meeting eligibility criteria, the three websites (4thwavenow, transgender trend, and youthtranscriticalprofessionals) were selected for targeted recruitment. Website moderators and potential participants were encouraged to share the recruitment information and link to the survey with any individuals or communities that they thought might include eligible participants to expand the reach of the project through snowball sampling techniques.

The online forums surveyed were:

- 4thwavenow, which describes itself as "A community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth"

- transgender trend, whose opening paragraph states "This site is for everyone who is concerned about the social and medical ‘transition’ of children, the introduction of ‘gender identity’ teaching into schools and new policies and legislation based on subjective ideas of ‘gender’ rather than the biological reality of sex."

- youthtranscriticalprofessionals, whose site appears to be defunct at this time.

[0]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

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

#323

Post by transatlantic38 »

37r7rudjduj wrote: post #272
mkr-hn wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not that poster but I can elaborate. Basically your physician couldn't easily use "biological sex" as a blanket term to accurately asses the risk factors and health needs of a medically transitioned person. Our sex is "otherwise complicated."

The reason for this is that medical transition, primarily through the mechanism of hormone replacement therapy, actually changes some aspects of biological sex and the associated risk factors at a "nuts and bolts" level even though its not touching every single aspect of biological sex. It's not purely cosmetic, though that's a common misconception. Hormones ultimately control a lot about how human bodies express sex and the associated medical factors. In reality "biological sex" is composed of multiple sexually differentiated systems within the human biology that can theoretically operate somewhat independent of each other, and changing the dominate hormone in your body will flip or at least shove a lot of those systems towards the other end of the distribution. I guess a way to phrase this in developer terminology would be that "biological sex" is sometimes a leaky abstraction.

As a personal example: despite my birth sex, it would be a mistake for my doctor to ask that I routinely get regular breast cancer screenings in the same way it would be a mistake to ask a cis man to regularly screen himself for breast cancer. My risk of breast cancer is much lower than a cis woman's and comparable to a cis man's. But at the same time I have absolutely zero risk of prostate cancer, and it would also be a mistake to try and test for that based on any possible symptoms I'm having. An ideally perfect doctor would be able take my history and be cognizant of what risk factors of biological sex, exactly, which conditions were associated with, and then be able to map that onto my body to figure out what I'm at risk for. As you can probably imagine, this is very difficult to do. A lot of times what makes a condition linked to sex isn't actually understood in the first place.

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

#324

Post by dragonwriter »

implements wrote: post #317
dragonwriter wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should intersex conditions be considered normal human genetic variances (like eye colour), or genetic disorders (like Down Syndrome)? Doesn't really matter, for this purpose. > I’d argue that humans are indeed binary sexed, and immutably so. Unless you defining terms such that the variations are not merely disorders but actually nonhuman, you are clearly wrong; human alignments of sex characteristics are non-binary…

> human alignments of sex characteristics are non-binary though bimodal. You either produce sperm, or ova - or neither (which if caused genetically is an abnormal variant). “Producing the wrong gamete for one’s perceived gender doesn’t construct an additional sex, nor alter the definition of sex such that there are female sperm / male ova producers - this holds even if that perception has genetic as well as psycho-en…

> You either produce sperm, or ova - or neither (which if caused genetically is an abnormal variant).

Or both, at least in theory, though true hermaphroditism with both ovulation and spermatogenesis, while theoretically possible and observed on other mammals has not, AFAIK, been conclusively shown in humans.

But, sure, you can redefine “sex” to be restricted to any one of a number of axes of sexual variation that exist in human and result in either a simple quaternary, trinary (or, if you try a little harder than you have, binary) distinction, but what is the point?

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

#325

Post by pseudalopex »

empthought wrote: post #285
joshuamorton wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deconstruction of gender norms is relatively common among gender-progressive people. You seem to be confusing inspecting toys for conformity and inspecting systems that encourage (or require) conformity. And it's much easier to attack or be concerned about straw-positions than actual ones. It's not problematic for someone to play with toys, or do things, stereotypical to their gender. It's a problem when they are…

This is an actual position, not a straw position. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a43702/trans... The only way this person could resolve her discomfort at her child’s inclination to play with “girl things” was to start considering her a girl. Meanwhile where are the “gender-progressive” people sticking up for a two-year old’s right to play with whatever toys they want without sanction or punishment? C…

The child "was verbalizing that she was a girl at least six times a day" and praying for her boy self to die. The mother talked to professionals. She only began to change her mind after a transgender teenager's suicide note made her realize her own child might commit suicide. Even then she studied and prayed for months.

What makes you think the mother assumes her daughter will be straight?

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

#326

Post by fock »

jolux wrote: post #300
fock wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I got that after someone here talked about being nearly trans, because he had no stereotypical feelings? Shouldn't that be normal that your mood changes and you like different things on different days and in different stages of your life? I somehow find it very strange that now people are trying to box "normal" (as in that's how our system is supposed to work) behavior into "trans" - what's the purpose of that? I'…

It's not really about the traits, though. You're making a category error if you think this is about gender stereotypes at root. It's possible that some people transition mostly because of gender roles, but for a lot of us it's because our bodies feel wrong on a fundamental level. It's hard to explain exactly what this means but suffice it to say it's unpleasant enough that it makes transition worth it for a lot of tr…

Ok, if I'm making a category error, then, why do we have this transgender debate over the transsexuality-debate (which imo is different, because people there are actively using medicine to change facts about their body, which is not necessary true for any transgender?)? And what makes cis-gender then, except the fact that you are fine to be called he/she?

> to choose the gendered existence they most desire

so: what is gender then, if it's neither sex, nor stereotypes?

Thanks for answering all these questions and having this discussion, while I also (like a lot of people here) sometimes question the wisdom of artifical images which are projected as a role model, I don't grasp the idea of non-transsexual transgender (which, if I'm correct today is a thing in the discussion).

Also, while I actually sometimes talk to friends about their feelings, I've not encountered anyone expressing discomfort with their "gender", but I'm obviously not actively searching for that (which you probably do on the internet).

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

#327

Post by empthought »

pseudalopex wrote: post #325
empthought wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an actual position, not a straw position. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a43702/trans... The only way this person could resolve her discomfort at her child’s inclination to play with “girl things” was to start considering her a girl. Meanwhile where are the “gender-progressive” people sticking up for a two-year old’s right to play with whatever toys they want without sanction or punishment? C…

The child "was verbalizing that she was a girl at least six times a day" and praying for her boy self to die. The mother talked to professionals. She only began to change her mind after a transgender teenager's suicide note made her realize her own child might commit suicide. Even then she studied and prayed for months. What makes you think the mother assumes her daughter will be straight?

Because she already knows he is a homosexual male, which ends up a straight trans woman.

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

#328

Post by vmception »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #216
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…

> B) Acknowledging and accommodating gender dysphoria discomfort costs cisgender people nothing and unlocks the productiveness of an additional population in society. jesus that's a shocking thing to read. Nothing about how they feel or wish to be treated - the very basis of human decency - but how they should be tolerated for society's industrial needs. OMG that's so cold.

You chose to read it that way for the sole purpose of finding fault with it

There are other ways, try again

Here is a hint, read it under the presupposition that a marginalized population is the worst thing possible, and that “productive” doesnt mean industrial

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

#329

Post by fxtentacle »

sascha_sl wrote: post #302
fxtentacle wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Zinnia is in fact not a researcher. She just writes on her and other trans people's experience. It is an incredible show of bias on your side that you expect my response to an uncited comment to hold up to the standards of the original article, while you don't for the comment I initially responded to.

I took your response as your opinion and it was argued well, which is why I took the time to read your references.

But it did give me a weird feeling that your link 1 pretends to be science when it isn't and link 2 pretends to be solid science when it's just an opinion piece written by researchers.

My statement was clearly identifiable as my private unscientific opinion on the topic, so I consider it safe for outsiders to read.

But articles on medical topics that pretend to be science when they are not, that can cause a lot of pain if outsiders read it without being aware that it's only sudo science.

That's why I thought it would be useful to criticize your references.

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

#330

Post by fxtentacle »

sascha_sl wrote: post #301
fxtentacle wrote: post #268

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…

I think it is disingenuous to expect me to post rigorously cited studies and contrasting my response to the original article, when I was instead responding to some conjecture made in this thread. Mostly with a personal anecdote, with some sources mirroring and expanding on such. I also think a lot of your points are made in bad faith: * Taking a joke way too serious, in order to discredit the author. Based on what ex…

I don't expect you to provide references as part of our discussion. Just your well-argued opinion is enough to move the thread along.

But I find Zinnia problematic because her playing researcher has the potential to cause harm to others. Plus I wasn't referring to her joke, I was referring to the part where she attempted to shame cis guys into not excluding trans women, which is obviously useful for her, but also obviously manipulative and if she was successful, it might make other people unnecessarily unhappy. Since she gave interviews about it, I am also reasonably confident that it wasn't a joke.

I would say it is fair to judge a self-proclaimed activist by their actions, and hers were of the kind that I would not be able to support her statements in good conscience, even though I support the cause of treating everyone fairly in general.

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