New clinical guidelines address gender dysphoria in autism

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Spectrum News

Neat. I'm glad that people are finally looking into this. The hormone talk kinda makes me nervous though... but I am likely bias as I have med paranoia in general. That sort of thing just makes me a bit nervous. Really though, it's about time. Thanks for posting this.

I feel ambivalent about this. In my view, autistic people tend not to adhere to gender norms because gender norms are social constructs. We don't need hormones to "fix" us and make us fit neatly into boxes. We need society to understand that masculine and feminine behavior is a result of conditioning and is not innate. Autistic people are just better at retaining their authentic selves, and that's not an illness.

I agree. For myself anyhow. I don't have any dysphoria though, so maybe it's easier for me due to that. There's a guy I know on the spectrum who was born in a female body though... he takes hormones now (has for a few years) and for the first time in his life he feels right. I never know about this kinda thing. I can say yeah, it's unnecessary because I am all kinds of comfortable in my skin even though I don't feel female or male for that matter, but others would disagree and say hormones are what they do need.

I stress adverse side effects from getting kids started on such hard hitting things like hormones. And yeah, the study says that they are reversible, but you never know for sure what the long term impact could be from being so young, still developing, and taking such altering drugs. Is it worth it to possibly wreck yourself in the long run to be more comfy in your skin? I dunno. It certainly is not for me.

Gender is only in-part a social construct, some of it is biological also which means some of it is innate. A large percentage of us are trans, myself included, and we do need hormones to feel right.

I stress adverse side effects from getting kids started on such hard hitting things like hormones. And yeah, the study says that they are reversible, but you never know for sure what the long term impact could be from being so young, still developing, and taking such altering drugs. Is it worth it to possibly wreck yourself in the long run to be more comfy in your skin? I dunno. It certainly is not for me.[/quote]

I find some reassurance as I research on the practices with Hormones. The most usual approach tends to be hormone blockers which are known to be low risk and reversible. They have proved useful in obtaining thinking and reflecting time for young trans people without the stresses puberty sets of. If the patient concludes the right way for them is as assigned at birth then removing the blockers allows them puberty but just a little later and with a good chance of it being lower stress. If they reach s conclusion that Transition is the right way forward, and they have passed the applicable age for medical consent or have the consent from parents, the the blocker can be combined with the cross sex hormone which gives them puberty in the right gender and at least some of the appropriated physical characteristics

This approach my actually prove lower risk as it foes not have to involve reversing the effects of puberty in the birth sex

I don't mean to sound rude and/or ignorant, but in my opinion you're confusing transgender people and non-transgender people who like to dress/act/whatever in a way which is traditionally thought of as for the opposite sex. So the former group might want hormones or surgery to make themselves feel better in their bodies, whereas the latter group would, as you say, need society to understand that people don't have to behave in masculine, if they're male, or feminine, if they're female, ways. Different groups. Also, I don't think anyone is saying that being trans is an illness, just that there are ways to make life easier for trans people. Again, I don't mean to sound rude

To me, there seems to be a lot of disagreement even within the transgender community as to what transgenderism is. Every time I engage in a discussion on the topic, there is disagreement.