Gender identity in autistic teen girls

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Been thinking about this myself, and I'm almost 39 LOL.

I have female genitals, have always considered myself to be female, am sexually attracted to men (insofar as I am sexually attracted to anything-- which ain't much).

There were a lot of comments made about me being "butch," "a guy without a dick," "having a bigger dick than my boyfriend," "trying to compete with the guys." Both when I was younger, and still today.

Other than kids and canning and talking about feelings, I'm not into "woman things." Typical women bore the s**t out of me. "Man things" have always been much more interesting; other than romantically, men have always made much more sense to me than women.

Brain scans (fMRI I believe) have recently been done that demonstrate that the brains of autistic females function more similarly to the brains of NT males than to those of autistic males, NT females, or anything else they could come up with to compare them to.

So this is my conclusion. I'm not transgendered (or any of the 37,000,000 other 'gender identities' they've cooked up lately). I'm a perfectly normal autistic female.

I do think some people really do have an outside that doesn't match the inside, and another word for "transgender" is "person." It oughtn't to be a big deal. It's just something that happens sometimes. Why is that so hard??

I also think that our society has entirely too rigid an expectation for what it means to "be male" and "be female." If we could be just a little less rigid and deterministic, I think a lot of people's issues with gender identity (and my recurring anxiety that I'm not "woman enough" to remain attractive to my husband) would just melt away.

I, myself, don't really like "overly feminine" women.

I like women who are more "person" than "female," even though I'm delighted with femininity.

I remember thinking I would "turn into a boy" at some point when I was little. When I imagined myself as an adult, I was always male. And when I started to get genital hair, I imagined that maybe I was growing a penis. (Sort of funny to think about now.)

With that said, I don't think I would really qualify as being confused about my gender. I think what I experienced was still within the realm of being cis female.

I am less feminine than many females. And my husband is a LOT more feminine than most males. Often, he does the typical "wife/mom" stuff (especially anything to do with shopping!) and I do the typical "husband/dad" stuff (like not doing the dishes ). My husband buys 95% of my clothing (including bras and underwear) which he does research on and thinks about... I hate buying clothes, so it works wonderfully for me. My husband has over 100 pairs of shoes. I have 2.

I wonder if I had been transplanted into your daughter's life if I would have voiced some of the things she did. She seems like she is surrounded by people who very much embrace the LBTQ world. And while it is still a hostile world for transgender people, I could argue that acceptance is at an all-time high. So, perhaps you could be correct about your suspicions.

But then...what do you do with that? It seems that your actions might be the same regardless of wether you believe she's truly confused about gender or wether she's simply trying to fit in. Like you said, cutting her hair isn't that big of a deal. If she doesn't already have a therapist, it would be good for her to have a good one for either of those scenarios. (If she's actually transgender, she'll need one. If she's just trying to find her fit and has had a tumultuous time with peers--it'd be good, too.)

Yep. A GOOD therapist (if you can find one) never hurts. Can be the best thing that ever happened to an ASD teenagers.

My daughter who is 15 also behaves like a boy sometimes. She doesn't hang out with girls. She likes to play with boys and even dress up like them. She has a tomboy attitude. She says she wants to undergo a surgery and be a boy forever. First I thought it was her silly joke. But yesterday, I saw her researching about an FTM top surgery.
ftmtopsurgery.ca/ftm-procedures/double-incision-mastectomy/
I am worried about her. I have no idea about what to do. She is very adamant.

Be supportive. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. Do a lot of listening, and a little talking.

Tell her, gently, that there are other reasons why one might not feel like one is a woman, or want to be one. That conforming to gender norms is optional-- society might give you a heck of a miserable hard time for refusal to comply, but it's still optional. Everything in life has consequences.

Research FTM surgery yourself, so you know what you're talking about. Talk to her about the fact that this has consequences too. Don't try to talk her out of it-- she'll only get mad, clam up, and set her feet. Don't try to change her mind-- tell her you're worried, that she's still young and this is major, that you will support her if it ends up being what she needs to do, but there's no hurry since she's already gone through puberty and this is the kind of decision that a smart, responsible person takes YEARS to make.

I'm almost 39, married, four kids. I do a lot of woman-things. Wife-things. Mom-things.

It still comfuses and bugs people that I also want to do man-things, that I run with men and communicate somewhat like a man and am, in general (long hair notwithstanding and even in a skirt), somewhat mannish.

Folks (ones who know better) still tell me that I'm "trying to be a guy" and "trying to compete with the guys" and that this would stop if I learned to like my "real self."

It hurts, and makes me wish I'd been a guy sometimes, because this is my real self and all I'm trying to do is be my real self.

That said, I'm not going through all that surgery. I'm just going to stay a mannish woman, with a skillet in one hand and a wrench in the other and a kid following me around. Maybe when I stop feeling bad about that, I'll reward myself with a chainsaw class, because using a chainsaw safely is something I would really like to learn.

This is just general information, but it might help.

http://www.cnn.com/2013.08/22/health/br ... index.html

At least, the statistical information might help the girls know they are SERIOUSLY not alone. Sixteen percent of the populace is A LOT of people.

Something which has been emerging in recent years - many of us on the spectrum can be a little more, perhaps non standard around gender. University of Leyden found statistically very significant greater rates of Gender Disphgoria on patients where Autism was also persent.

In regard to the "Standard" views around gender Disphoria / transgender, we don't always folow the accpeted narrative. Many of us find we can feel at home presenting in either gender, or a combination, or in presentations which are as far as we can manage not tied to exclusively masculine of feminine. You may find a few of us describe ourselves with terms such as Genderqueer or genderfluid.

Dialogue still continues. It seems to one of those areas which is much less rigid in the autistic mind compared to the typical one.

It's not just girls...I have a teenaged son. From my perspective, he is definitely male. Always has been. The problem is, he does not perceive himself to be like his (sex-crazed) male counterparts, and he does not know what to make of it. At one point he said he wondered if he was gender neutral because he is not that interested in girls, and he is not interested in boys either. He's just not really interested at this point in time.

My advice to him was not to worry about it. He's not like "normal" kids and never has been, so he is "on course" in this regard. Once I told him that he didn't need to worry about what his sexual preference was, he relaxed about it and recognized himself as male. I'm not inferring that this would be true for any kid in his shoes. Just sharing it because in his case, he was feeling pressured to make a distinction that, IMO, is unnecessary to make. He doesn't need to label anything. He just needs to be.

It's tough when you are at a time in your life where "fitting in" is important, and you don't fit in. I have no issues with people who are transgendered and I am certain that transgendered people exist, but I sometimes wonder if people who don't feel like they fit in attach themselves to this idea in hopes that it will "fix" their feelings of lack of fit. It has gained popular attention and may seem like an answer to someone who is searching for something to make them feel like they fit. I think this can be particularly salient for kids on the spectrum since, as mentioned previously, they have a hard time with social norms to begin with. I remember as a kid knowing deep inside of me that I was not like "everybody else." That somehow I was fundamentally different. I didn't know why, but I knew it. I also remember that I did not want this to be so. I wanted to be like "everybody else", so I tried desperately to find a way to fit. I, personally, never questioned my gender, but I can imagine that if it is presented as a "solution" that other people proclaim has made them finally feel like they "fit," somebody may attach to it in hopes of finding a path to fitting in. When I was in college, 2 transgendered women came to speak in one of my classes. One felt like she was finally who she was meant to be. The other hated being a woman even more than she hated being a man. You don't see much coverage on people who have transitioned and realized it didn't fix things, and that they are still unhappy. For me, it is a cautionary tale that these things are very complex and sometimes people think they have found the answer when they haven't.

To the OP, you sound like a great mom. Stick with your daughter through this and she will be OK.

Having an autistic child really helps delineate what is a social construct and what is biology. Although I have always been of the opinion that a lot of it is socially constructed, it has been an eye-opener for me.

My son is (by all evidence thus far) cis-male, but there are an amazing amount of gender-related things he does not care about--and they all seem to be socially-related. Social influences have almost zero effect on him on anything, so it makes for an interesting study.

He doesn't like traditional girl toys, but it clear that it is b/c most of them are socially-oriented. he does not like traditional boy toys that are social, either; so it is very apparent that the determinating factor is how soicla the thing is not gender.

He always did better in the group that required the least of him socially. You would think that would be usually boys but it isn't because while girls have grueling standards for each other, they usually knew to have low social expectations for my son. I think mixed gendered groups are generally better for autistic people b/c the gender specific standards get somewhat suspended. I always did better in groups with boys in it, too.

He never went through the "girls are icky" stage-- because there is no non-social logic for it. Unfortunately, for convenience, when he was in school they would separate the boys and girls and have boy vs girls teams (B/c it would divide about evenly) but it did not seem to have too much of a bad effect on him, accept when one teacher would not allow boys and girls to play together at recess b/c she thought the boys were too rough. He would be happy when the boy teams beat the girl teams or whatever, but I think that was just mainly b/c he was on the boy teams.

I remember wishing I was born male as a child. It was always assumed it was because I had three older brothers and aside from my mother, I had no female role models. It wasn't until we started going to church on Sunday that my mom started enforcing the type of clothes society had determined as gender appropriate. That's when I started to wish I was a boy because I saw the boys there wearing regular blue jeans and Lion King T-Shirts (Lion King was my major special interest around that time) and I was forced to dress up like an antique porcelain doll. I saw other girls there dressed the same as the boys, but that wasn't enough to convince my mother. I ALWAYS felt like I was born the wrong species and that felt deeper than the few times I questioned my gender.

We only went to that church a few times and we didn't start going again until I was in my late teens/early 20's and my mother had no control over how I dressed. It was a Catholic church this time and although my mom seemed to have thought women had to dress like it's a historical play, and she and a few other women and girls did...not everyone did. My parents used to tell me that some Catholic churches were so hardcore that they would kick you out if you came in dressed a way that wasn't what they considered appropriate. That's not how church is supposed to work. What if a person couldn't afford nice church clothes? Wasn't Jesus Himself poor? That sounded more like some kind of club for rich snubs than a church. I've had too many bad experiences at church to ever step foot into one ever again anyway. I've noticed that most people who go there go there for the social experience.

She threatened to take away my special interests if I didn't go to church, but since the only policy about my clothes were they had to be clean and not have paint smeared all over them. Once people stopped insisting I conform to society's standard of what girls are "supposed" to wear, I didn't really question my gender anymore. To be honest, it felt like I didn't have a gender. I wasn't interested in boys...or girls. But for some reason my mom really flipped out when I wanted to openly express the fact I was actually asexual.

I never had a problem with being a girl in my teens. I just thought it must be uncomfortable having something hanging between your legs and accidentally sitting on it and also I thought having a hair body was ugly and I couldn't imagine losing my normal voice so I was glad to be a girl.

I never wore make up nor been into fashion and I was into computer and video games and reading so those were my interests and I didn't care for fitting in and trying to be like everyone else. I dropped that in middle school. Some kids thought I was a lesbian and I didn't know my sexual identity because I thought people just chose to be gay or straight so I thought I could be whatever I wanted to be so I thought I just need to be into boys and date guys because I want to have kids so I need a guy for it or else I might not be able to adopt if I am with another woman and you can't get pregnant with another woman. That was my thinking for being straight and then I thought by my early twenties I was bisexual because I found lot of women cute and liked cute women but I never thought of having sex with them or making out so my husband told me I was straight. I thought it was revolting when he told me how ladies have sex together so he said I was definitely straight. So that was how I figured out my sexual orientation.

For a while I was actually scared about being a lesbian because I didn't want to be teased or harassed for it so I thought I better just like guys and date them and stay away from girls and find cute guys and like them and have crushes on them and be obsessed with guy characters on TV instead of female characters but looking on the bright side at least I was obsessed about Kevin when I was eight. No not that Kevin, this Kevin http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/uni ... 1225213424. No I never wanted to have sex with him because I was eight and didn't know anything about it then. But I used to kiss him on TV.

I am not autistic and I am not transgender, BUT I think you've gotten a lot of good advice. When I was in my late teens/earlly 20's, I loved looking and acting androgynous. I have never been a "girly girl" much to my mother's dismay!! I am still not very feminine at age 42. I will occasionally dress up in a dress and heels, and I usually say to people, "Ugh, I hate dressing like this. It makes me feel like a boy playing in his sisters clothes." I do not feel like a man at all, but I am just not into presenting as feminine as many of my peers. All of the different things women are supposed to do (get bikini waxed, face wax, manicures, wear makeup, wear jewelry) just feel mostly unnatural or like a pain in the neck to me.

my real point is, we can be not into the societal construct of gender presentation without feeling like our gender we were born in is wrong.

good on you for supporting her. I say let her dress however she wants, cut her hair however she wants... she'll figure it out. I've always been under the impression that transgender kids know from a very young age that they were born with the wrong gender. I don't know that it typically arises later in childhood/teen years.