
Elevated rates of autism in transgender and gender-diverse individuals - apsec112
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17794-1
======
dang
All: there's quite a bit that's interesting here, so please don't post
predictable things on any side of the discussion. If it's a political talking
point, it's a predictable thing, so please omit those. Instead, remember this
from the site guidelines: _Comments should get more thoughtful and
substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive._ Fortunately there are
many commenters in the thread exemplifying that spirit, so no one has far to
look for fine examples.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
echurilov

      The transgender and gender-diverse vs. cisgender effect sizes are equivalent to or larger than the autism vs. non-autism effect sizes and the cisgender male vs. cisgender female effect sizes in non-autistic individuals.
    

if i understand that right, whether you're trans is a better indicator of
whether you have autistic traits than a) your assigned sex or b) _whether you
are diagnosed with autism_

~~~
yodelshady
That doesn't necessarily surprise me, actually. I suspect a decent chunk of
people here a) consider themselves to have autistic behavioural traits, b)
don't see the value of a diagnosis.

The term "diagnosis", to me at least, implies a disorder. Deciding what is a
behavioural trait and what is a disorder is, at a guess, not robustly
decidable.

------
SubiculumCode
This is my 2020 paper in a similar vein.

We found attenuated sex differences in amygdala resting-state connectivity
between boys and girls with autism, but robust sex differences in amygdala
connectivity in typically developing boys and girls. This pattern was observed
using both univariate and multivariate analytical approaches, consistent with
gender incoherence hypothesis, which stands in contrast with extreme male
brain theory. [addendum: We are examining other networks now, and this pattern
is found in other prominent brain networks, but not all.]

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S24519...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2451902219302204)

~~~
alicemaz
oh interesting. I've had a pet theory for awhile now re: trans/autism
comorbidity that they're better thought of as symptoms (among others! op's
link notes higher incidence of _every_ surveyed mental disorder) of some
underlying brain abnormality, rather than being tangled up in some causal
relationship with each other. had not heard of gender incoherence theory
before

~~~
crooked-v
One thing I would respectfully suggest here is to use language like 'atypical'
rather than 'abnormal', as it avoids some of the unpleasant subtext of the
latter word. (At least so far - the euphemism treadmill makes for an unending
race, but it's still worth putting in the effort.)

~~~
odessacubbage
maybe it's an overly optimistic hill to die on but imo, the best thing we
could do for divergent people is to normalize abnormality rather than codify
softer language to avoid describing it as abnormal or creating 32 new
checkboxes of 'normal'

~~~
gowld
You mean eliminate "abnormality" and "divergence" as a concept? Yes. Better to
focus on needs difficulties and abilities, not irrelevant comparisons to
population averages. And better to treat differences as something to accept
appreciate, and not arbitrarily idealize the median.

"Normality" is a factor in estimating public health costs, not relevant to
individual care.

------
jmcgough
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.

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

~~~
jmcgough
Trans people in general were largely ignored by research until the 2010s, so
there's very little we do know at this point.

But as for unresearched hunches...

There's lots of jokes in the trans community about how your stereotypical
trans girl is on the autism spectrum, with rainbow-colored hair, and into
kink, anime, and programming.

I think there's more of a willingness to challenge societal expectations of us
in the neurodiverse community, and many of us feel uncomfortable with
expectations placed on us around gender roles and sexuality. So I'm curious
how much is a causal relationship, and how much of it is a willingness to
reject societal expectations that seem irrational. I value my freedom a lot,
and the expectations placed on me when I lived as a boy felt stifling and
exhausting.

I can only speak to my personal experiences, and I don't believe in policing
peoples' decisions to transition, but I have strong memories from as early as
five of wanting to be a girl. I was very sensitive as a child. Typical autism-
spectrum stuff like sensitivity to sounds, lights, and pain, but also an
intense emotional empathy - I was a huge crybaby until my teens, and never
felt like I fit in with guys my age or shared many interests with them. So
when I found out that transitioning was an option, I pushed hard for it. It's
possible that in today's age of greater gender freedoms I wouldn't have had as
much reason to transition. But I just don't identify with the male experience
at all, and have no desire to see my body masculinize more and more as I age.
Also, I can wear so much more colorful and expressive clothes now :)

I think some people transition because they identify very strongly as the
other gender, and others (particularly on the autism spectrum) identify
outside of the gender binary, so they transition to better express that
identity.

~~~
andreskytt
Interesting. What you describe about not fitting in etc. is very similar to my
experience. Only that I’m a straight male. Could it be that transitioning is
not so much about gender but about fitting in? If I could put a name to my
angst and the barriers with others, it might be “transgender”. Which could
give me a community of similar folks, a measure of acceptance, a handle, on
why I’m not like the others. The research describes correlation, but maybe the
causality is the other way around with “weird” people finding ways to cope
with their being in a particular fashion?

~~~
proverbialbunny
I can't speak for anyone else, but I transitioned before I had met another tg
person. When I transitioned I was already apart of a social group. I didn't
need to fit in or find my place. When I was a kid I got along with both boys
and girls making friends with both.

People do seek out others like themselves, but transgender communities are
rare, because transgender people are rare. There are not many of them. When
there are hundreds of people gossiping about transgendered people for every
transgendered person it's easy for faulty information to be spread. There is a
lot of misunderstandings about transgender people.

~~~
Eiskugel
Interestingly enough in computer nerd communities, tg are more common then
females.

------
seba_dos1
I've already seen people suggesting that this link exists, but I've always
read it the other way around - that there are elevated rates of transgenderism
along autistic people, which kinda makes sense to me. People on the spectrum
ask themselves more questions about their own bodies and feelings and don't
get easily satisfied by adhering to social norms as neurotypicals do.

~~~
skohan
Some form of interrelationship would make sense right? It seems that a lot of
gender is tied up in social signaling, which is less relevant to people on the
spectrum. For instance, social signaling might regulate gender-non-conformance
in a way which is felt less strongly to people on the spectrum.

------
contravariant
I'm gonna be honest, using kernel density estimates on discrete data is almost
bad enough to make me discount the result outright. Almost.

~~~
SubiculumCode
"In all five datasets, we investigated if rates of autism diagnosis
significantly differed by gender by first conducting χ2 tests (Model 1,
unadjusted), and then by conducting logistic regressions adjusted for age and
educational attainment as covariates (Model 2, adjusted)."

It appears the kernel density estimates is being used as a display of the
data, not the actual method of statistical analysis, or perhaps I missed
something.

~~~
contravariant
Using a technique that's entirely inappropriate for the kind of data you're
dealing with doesn't exactly inspire confidence. That it doesn't affect the
actual result is lucky, I guess.

------
wozzeck
Adding another 2020 study that observes the autism / transgender overlap:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175094671...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946719301540)

Interestingly enough, the correlation is observed to a greater extent with
trans men (though not in all studies).

~~~
jauer
> observed to a greater extent with trans men

I wonder if that's a result of autism being under-diagnosed in women (and that
under-diagnosis carrying over to trans women).

~~~
wozzeck
I would be surprised if that carried over to trans women, i.e. people assigned
male at birth, especially if most are diagnosed as children (and thus prior to
transitioning, in most cases).

~~~
ladberg
I'd bet that jauer meant to say trans men (the terminology can be confusing at
first) because autism is typically diagnosed earlier in life than a gender
transition, so if it's under-diagnosed in women then it would also be under-
diagnosed in trans men.

~~~
jauer
Transitioned a while back, didn't get it backwards :)

To elaborate: I was wondering if trans men (AFAB) acquire the male-gendered
autistic traits and trans women (AMAB) acquire the female-gendered traits (and
underdiagnoses from diagnostic criteria being focused on male norms).

Why I'm curious: I was diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult (no access to MH
care as a child because raised in a cult), transitioned, and after 3 years of
HRT got a new psych who laughed at the idea that I could have AS and removed
it from my chart. His reasoning was that my interpersonal skills were not
impaired in a way that is typical of autistic people. This is a common reason
why women with autism are under-diagnosed.

I had terrible interpersonal skills pre-transition. HRT gave me access to a
wider range of emotions, which might have something to do with it. E.g. I can
actually understand the emotional currents in movies, which is nice. But, now
I'm curious if autistic symptoms are another one of those things that change
with hormones.

~~~
wozzeck
Oh, thanks for the clarification! I'm also wondering if I've become "more
autistic" since transitioning (to male), but it's not clear to me how much of
it would be due to hormonal changes and how much would be due to no longer
needing to perform certain kinds of social/emotional upkeep.

------
fxtentacle
It's well documented that autistic individuals are having difficulties
resolving or tolerating emotionally conflicting situations.

If a male non-autist has girlish interests, he might be proud of his
uniqueness and thereby accept it as part of himself.

For a male autist, the socially conflicting girlish interests will be much
more painful, thereby driving a higher percentage of autists to resolve the
conflict by adjusting their gender.

That would also explain the data, but with causality reversed.

And from personal experience: I received a lot of criticism as a kid because I
was a guy but I liked purple shorts and playing dress-up with my sisters. It's
just that since I never identified with the stereotypical guys from movies, I
wasn't bothered that other people considered me unequal to them.

But I've seen how much effort my math genius classmate put into proving his
manliness, so I assume the gossip about us having girlish interests must have
bothered him a lot more than me.

~~~
sascha_sl
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...](https://the-orbit.net/zinniajones/2013/09/that-was-
dysphoria-8-signs-and-symptoms-of-indirect-gender-dysphoria/)

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

~~~
bsanr2
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 somewhat more open to them in a way that they aren't
to trans folk (e.g., diet and exercise), but I wonder if hormonal
supplementation for the express purposes of enhancing gender identification
(rather than to correct a clinical deficiency or for birth control) could be
beneficial.

EDIT: The great thing about suggesting that cis people might experience gender
dysphoria is that it pisses off the transphobes AND trans folk. Anyone looking
for an edgy stand-up routine, have I got a subject for you.

~~~
sascha_sl
While a lot of trans people would like it to be the case, quantity doesn't
really matter past receptor saturation. Most badly adjusted doses are badly
adjusted because they're not consistent instead (estradiol has a very short
half life). If you have gonads producing your hormones you don't usually have
this issue.

We do however have cases of gender dysphoria when treating cis people with
antiandrogens for prostate cancer, so it seems to be a phenomenon not limited
to trans people.

~~~
bsanr2
This assumes that gender dysphoria is exclusively physiological, an
impossibility given that gender itself is partially socially- and
psychologically-constructed. As mentioned, perhaps hormone treatment could
still benefit people who don't have a clinically-indicated deficiency solely
because (even in men and women with functional gonads) their application
enhances the secondary sexual characteristics (behavioral, psychological, and
physical) that a dysphoric individual might find lacking.

My personal take is that a good deal of dysphoria is misdiagnosed as
dysmorphia. Because those people are left to self-medicate, unfortunately you
end up with the kind of abuse that makes people question the legitimacy of
such treatment. I think, though, it's dangerous to lump in people who could
benefit from hormonal support for their exercise and antidepression goals
(which, for some cis men, would be a gender affirmative strategy), with people
who inject synthol or silicone without any medically-viable rationale and in
so doing radically damage their bodies (which is what happens now).

In the end, what I'm hoping to see someday is an understanding of a
fundamental similarity between the cis and trans experiences, because it would
mean both buy-in from and benefits for both groups.

~~~
sascha_sl
There are definitely social, psychological and neurological factors involved,
and none should be discounted. It's just that the social factor is much harder
to control when our society is so hostile to gender-nonconformity. And that
explicitly includes internalized transphobia. I would not be surprised in the
slightest if social rejection accounts for most of the remaining difference to
cis controls for transgender suicidality.

------
alicemaz
I presume this is a consequence of the datasets they had to work off but it is
really frustrating that they have one catchall "transgender and gender-
diverse" category, segmenting by birth sex or particular gender identified
with would be interesting/valuable

~~~
37r7rudjduj
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?

~~~
mkr-hn
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.

~~~
37r7rudjduj
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.

~~~
transatlantic38
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.

~~~
37r7rudjduj
I wanted to say thanks for giving such a detailed reply. I still have some
things that I'm unsure about as far as the framing of everything but having
concrete examples like your point about your lowered risk of breast cancer is
immensely helpful in understanding where I'm making social judgements vs. just
being ignorant about the topic as a whole. It's often hard to get clear
answers like yours because just phrasing these kinds of questions often feels
like a minefield. So your patience in answering what I'm sure is an at least
somewhat demeaning line of questioning is very appreciated and helps a lot in
wrapping my head around this.

~~~
transatlantic38
I appreciate this, thanks. Answering these kinds of questions can feel like
unwrapping bandages in front of strangers. So it's good to hear that it helped
somebody out. Thank you for your empathy.

------
jjcothrow
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.

~~~
chordalkeyboard
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.

~~~
sascha_sl
Two big factors go into not liking transmedicalism

* it usually relies on very narrow definitions of gender dysphoria. The relation between gender dysphoria and gender euphoria for instance is often discarded. Gender dysphoria itself is poorly defined and often does not specifically manifest as gender-related until the idea is confronted. Lots of trans people suppressed for years or sometimes decades because they thought their pain was not specific enough to not be rejected by gatekeeping.

* it does not account for people that feel more comfortable outside the gender binary, no matter if they want to medically transition (some do). Transmeds and "truscum" often require strict adherence to binary gender norms, in alignment to historical guidelines where doing anything not absolutely in alignment with your binary gender would set you back significantly.

------
moultano
Are there leading candidate hypotheses for the cause of autism? Do we know
things like heritability, correlation with environmental pollutants, anything?

~~~
proverbialbunny
In psychology how we define a thing is constructed from a series of observable
characteristics.

The problem is, there are multiple situations that can cause the same series
of characteristics. "Are there leading candidate hypotheses for the cause of
autism?" is like asking, "Are there leading candidate hypotheses for the cause
of a headache?" There is no single cause.

What we do know is most people with autism do not process facial expressions
as much as the average person. This causes a lack of paying attention to body
language, which then ripples into most of the characteristics that define
autism. Studies have shown eye training on infants can completely remove
symptoms of autism.

But a root cause is more complex when there are multiple. Some people get
overloaded when they look at people's faces. Some just didn't pick up the
proper habits of looking at others when interacting with them. The root cause
can vary from person to person.

~~~
taneq
> Studies have shown eye training on infants can completely remove symptoms of
> autism.

Do you have any links for these studies? I’ve never heard any credible claims
of a treatment for (or prevention of) autism.

------
social_quotient
Off topic: I appreciate the HN community for being able to tackle the
discussion and a topic like this in a substantive way.

------
trans-stealth
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.

~~~
turing_complete
Do you have any source on that? It sounds like it might be just anecdotal due
to the fact that trans people tend to be more noticeable.

~~~
alicemaz
previous poster's claim is a common piece of folk wisdom that ultimately stems
from this paper:
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16298429/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16298429/)
2005, n=187. the authors are blanchardites so the language they use is
needlessly confusing, but they find 107.3 mean iq among the male-attracted
trans women, 121.7 among the female-attracted

interestingly while pulling this up I also found this one from 1967(!)
[https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2...](https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2164-0947.1967.tb02279.x)
n=34, which found half in the 110-119 range and eight over 140

~~~
turing_complete
Interesting, thanks!

------
im3w1l
Autists are disproportionally online. This matters for two reasons.

The first is that on the internet you can easily assume any identity.

The second is that the trans lobby has much stronger control over online than
offline spaces. The pattern is clearly visible in this thread. Views that you
might hear from "the man on the street" are flagged or downvoted.

~~~
spicywatermelon
If "the man on the street" shared their views when evaluating a transgender
person's job / grant application that would invite discrimination lawsuits in
many jurisdictions. That's an IRL flagging.

~~~
im3w1l
Oh certainly. But this doesn't change my point. That autists and neurotypicals
come across different perspectives due to the differences in how they
socialize.

------
jpxw
Not just “higher”, the paper is talking about 3,4,5 or even more times higher.

------
Pfhreak
Hanging out in trans circles (as a non-binary person myself), this seems
commonly known within the community. Interesting to see research done here,
but I'd be careful about over generalizing (e.g. "All trans people are
neurodiverse").

Edit: Also, happy to answer questions about being non-binary (specifically,
gender fluid) if folks have good faith questions.

~~~
lemonberry
Have you heard of Abigail Shrier's book "The Transgender Craze Seducing Our
Daughters"? She was on Joe Rogan's podcast recently though I have yet to
listen to it. A quick search turned up, not surprisingly, some negative
critiques and others that are more positive.

If you have heard of it, or read it, I'd love to hear what you think of her
position.

I appreciate the offer to be part of a dialogue. I think it's important to
improve understanding for people. As a white, middle aged (45) cismale I know
I'm viewing a lot of this stuff through a very specific lens.

~~~
valenciarose
It’s not sound and ultimately it’s based in the grief of people who believe
they have somehow lost their child (or spouse, or sibling) because they
transitioned. I don’t want to minimize the pain of people who have this
mindset, no matter how destructive it is. Their sense of loss is genuine and
it drives them to the same level of commitment that you see from parents who
lose a child to a drunk driver. But, while the pain is real, the loss is
either not real or is self-inflicted. Trans people leave the lives of people
who won’t let them be themselves, but we don’t stop loving our family because
we’re trans.

More people are transitioning, at all ages. More of the people who do so are
visible, because of modest reductions in stigma and because there’s no longer
a requirement that we disappear and cut all ties (the medical establishment
used to require this). Your typical 40-50 year old parent has no idea how many
of the people they went to High School and College with are trans, because
they were hidden. In much the same way people had no idea how many people were
gay. So this looks like an explosive change. I do expect we will see much less
late transition (later than early adulthood), because more of those trans
people will transition earlier.

So, why are more people transitioning? Because it’s possible and they
understand it to be possible, not because there are more people who are trans.
This is why it’s happening across all ages. I am a late transitioner. I
started to transition as soon as I understood three things: that being trans
and transitioning was a real thing, that I would not destroy my life by doing
so, and that trans people can live happy fulfilled lives.

What about desistance? Some small percentage of people who transition decide
that it wasn’t right for them. Most of them because of oppression, but some
because it doesn’t work for them. This is much smaller than the set of people
who regret that they didn’t transition, or that they waited so long to do so.
It’s lower than the rate of regret for any elective surgery. There _is_ some
risk that non-binary kids who emphatically reject their assigned sex at birth
are getting social pressure to conform to the other end of the binary. The
pressure to be not trans at all is still very high. High enough that I don’t
worry about cis kids being pressured into transition.

And there are many trans people who don’t need or want to transition, who find
sufficient expression or acknowledgement in other ways. They aren’t less
trans, you just don’t know they are.

~~~
lemonberry
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I have no agenda here. I have one trans
friend (that I know of). After seeing the topic on Rogan's podcast I did some
quick searching online and it opened up a few lines of thought I hadn't
considered or wasn't aware of.

Edit: added "(that I know of)" to acknowledge my limited knowledge of my
friend's gender or sexuality.

~~~
UncleMeat
Rogan has been, at best, insensitive to trans people. Given the volume of
people who hold agendas against trans people and trans rights and Rogan's
willingness to host people without holding a critical eye to their opinions,
I'd be very careful about using his podcast as a jumping off point to the
topic. I'd really recommend reading the stories of trans people directly and
engaging with the scientific community.

------
vmception
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 nothing and unlocks the productiveness of an additional population in
society.

~~~
hh3k0
> 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 pretend we hear them too.

I didn't know how to respond to that. I still don't, actually. My knowledge
about anything mental health is quite limited.

~~~
XorNot
People making claims like that generally no nothing of the procedure by which
mental health issues _are_ diagnosed - which is to say, mental health
treatment is about addressing issues which are negatively affecting someone's
quality of life, until they are not. This is the same reason you can't just go
through the DSM V and ascribe mental health conditions to people on TV or in
the media or whatnot - it doesn't work that way.

People who hear voices don't have a problem because they hear voices, they
have a problem because in general schizophrenia presents those voices as
hostile and aggressive towards the person. People who hear voices that are
positive or helpful (which is not uncommon, though it seems to be less common
in Western culture socialized people) _don 't_ have a problem, probably don't
even need treatment if they do not cause any distress.

That trans-people live happier lives after transitioning means that the
treatment they receive (hormones,gender reassignment surgery, remembering that
all of those are quite optional) is completely adequate.

~~~
eanzenberg
Don’t they have much higher suicide rates? How happy can that be?

~~~
ceejayoz
Abused children also have high suicide rates, but that's presumably not
because of some inherent _internal_ tendency to suicide, right?

~~~
bobthechef
Not a question of inherent tendency but cause of. Those who have elected to
adapt to their convictions through surgery, hormones, etc. still have very
high suicide rates. The studies (I don’t have them handy) undermine the notion
that the increased risk and incidence of suicide of “pre-transition”
individuals with gender dysphoria are suicidal because they’re “forced” to
live in a way that seems to then to be at odds with how they feel. But we find
that “post-transition” we still see high rates. Some claim that this is
because of the environment, but I believe that was also addressed and found
unconvincing.

On the other hand, I have heard therapy for gender dysphoria (GD), such as
that which addresses GD in children, can be highly effective in resolving
whatever issues that are causing the confusion in the first place.

~~~
joshuamorton
> But we find that “post-transition” we still see high rates

But _lower_ than pre-transition.

> but I believe that was also addressed and found unconvincing.

I can't say I understand how a paper would account for systemic
discrimination, but even if they did so successfully, treatments for most
things don't have 100% rates of success.

> On the other hand, I have heard therapy for gender dysphoria (GD)

Yes, and this is normally part of treatment for GD for anyone. It just very
often doesn't work.

~~~
odessacubbage
41% meme aside, we really do not have good data for this yet imo, the life
experience of someone who transitions at 25+ with little to no support and
someone who never even went through the puberty of their birth gender and had
a supporting family/school etc is so dramatically different

------
sullyj3
Seems possible it arises from a greater willingness to accept things about
themselves and do things like transitioning that are socially stigmatized.

------
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.

~~~
andai
Microbiota transfer improves autism symptoms

[https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...](https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-016-0225-7)

