Female-To-Male Transsexual People Have More Autistic Traits,

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I know nothing about female to male transgender people, but since the eggsplanation of their behavior and cognition came from Simon Baron-Cohen, I assumed that it was wrong.

You, you are correct.

I'm mentally androgynous. I stick with a female-looking body because I think people would discriminate against me if I had an androgynous appearance. I don't do girly clothes and makeup any more and I already stand out enough for that.

I have physical dysphoria about my female bits but I haven't got a clue what I'd like to replace them with. I identify as a woman even though I don't have the neurological and hormonal profile or a typical woman - because I have had to be socialised as a woman and subject to the gender norms that society imposes on females. I identify with women for political reasons - I share many of the same struggles as them and want to create a society less restricted by gender.

I'm just glad that it's 2013 instead of 1913 and me saying that has a lot to do with this thread. If this was 1913, I'd be locked up in an institution for dressing like a man. Even worse I'd probably kill myself, because the restricted demand that I be feminine and wear a dress all the time would drive me to suicide.

My youngest son was my daughter, he hasn't been through anything yet but describes his female body with repulsion.
I wasn't surprised when she told me she was gay, but it was so hard to get my head round the trans bit that came a few months later, not so much be cause I have a problem with someone being trans but because my daughter became my son. Now I sort of have 2 people in my head. They even have different names. I love them both and I know they are the same person but it's a struggle to reconcile the 2 in my head sometimes (it's still pretty new).

I think if this is difficult for me and I'm not the one going through the anxiety and the emotional pain, or facing making irreparable changes to my body, or knowing I will face a life of intolerance............, I simply can't imagine what it feels like for him, I just know that it's causing him a great deal of distress.

And I think if someone is that desperate that they feel they need to take those steps to get out of the wrong body, then staying female must be something close to a living hell. If he still feels this way when he is old enough to start treatment then I will support him all the way.

Many start treatment at a very young age.

Treatment before puberty is social stuff - clothes, name, referred to as a member of the correct gender, etc.

At puberty, treatment usually involves puberty blockers until 16. These have no irreversible effects.

Hormone replacement therapy typically starts around 16, and surgery is typically after one turns 18. Generally speaking, the sooner you start the better. Mitigating puberty is probably one of the best things you can do for a trans child, and will actually make everything else easier.

Not near us!

Camhs here won't look at anything till 18, they saw him 3 times, told me I'm doing well and left us to it. I'm doing the social as best as I can - trying to replace all the girly duvet covers and underwear, redecorating his room, name, pronouns, male toiletries, etc - but we're pretty much on our own. Fortunately school is supportive and we've found a local trans club - the support staff there are great.

unfortunately, it's too late to mitigate puberty and he's had a rough ride with it

Can I pm you about something personal for him, Verdandi?

Ah, of course. That really does suck.

I also apologize if I came across as judging you as a parent. My intent was to offer information, not judgment. It sounds like you are doing the best you can for your son.

No offense taken - the UK does things more slowly.

He's very fortunate in some ways though, he has good close family of varying sexual orientation, both on the spectrum and NT, so lots of people to talk things through with when he feels up to it and when I can I send him off to stay with his wonderful aunts in London who make sure he gets plenty of positive experience in the LGBT scene there.

Having a supportive family is a really big thing, and kind of amazing considering what happens to a lot of LGBT children. Admittedly, there shouldn't be anything amazing about being a good and supportive family - it should be what everyone does.

I've been asking transgender people questions on this thread and a question in one post still remains to be answered as in my opinion this is a highly emotive issue and certain questions make people very defensive as they sense their thinking on the subject is being questioned and they do not want to subject their thoughts to rational debate, which I think says a lot. It seems to me that there is no one set response to feeling as if your brain is in the wrong body, as has been demonstrated by responses on this thread. So for any one person to say they talk for the whole trans community/anyone with transgender issues isn't true. They can say how thy personally have dealt with this issue themselves but they cannot speak for anyone else and it is clear that two people at least on this thread have decided to not change gender hence proving that changing gender doesn't have to be the automatic response to feeling this way - just as I suspected.

I do not appreciate being painted as some kind of villain for creating a thread on what I think is a very interesting and highly relevant piece of research, that has evidently prompted a number of people on WP to want to talk about their experiences, hence this thread has been useful and furthered peoples' understanding of the condition in my opinion.

One person's experiences or feelings should not be used as a way to shut down debate in my opinion, otherwise a person feeling suicidal about being autistic could go on every autism-related thread on WP and say 'The whole topic of autism makes me feel suicidal - you have all set me off, stop talking about it!' Can you realistically see that happening?

This behaviour also merely proves to me what I suspected all along as well but I won't say it on here because I am being effectively gagged by an oppressive form of emotional blackmail.

I have an androgynous appearance and people discriminate against me as a result, whether I wear make-up or not. It seems to really perturb people if your gender presentation isn't sufficiently stereotypical for them. I don't understand why it has to be such an issue for people how other people look - that's their business surely?! People are constantly policing others to ensure they don't move away from the norm in terms of gender presentation and it's as if people who do must be punished. It really annoys me! It's like you are seen as a lesser person or even less human for the major crime of not looking 'sexual' enough/not sufficiently typical of your gender. I can't understand the logic of peoples' animosity because surely if I'm not fitting the mould of what people look for in my gender surely that's less competition for others of my gender ie I'm no threat so what's their problem?? The nasty judgemental attitudes I have had to put up with off both men and women has been appalling and it clearly demonstrates to me that a person's worth to society is mainly determined by how gender normative they are and/or how sexually attractive to the opposite gender they are; personality just isn't even in it! It's made me despise the average person who take the acceptance from others of their gender presentation for granted as they don't know they're born!

To have had to deal with all this prejudice on top of the Aspergers has nearly broken me as a person but I've had the strength of mind and character to battle through. Changing my body to fit in with what society expects would be for me total surrender to these nasty, judgemental c***s; it would be like saying 'Yes, you're totally right, I am defective, therefore I must change myself so I am more acceptable to you; so you will like me and stop treating me like s**t'. F-k that! I wouldn't do it in a million years! I'd go to prison for beating one of these judgemental f-kers to death before I changed one hair on my head to suit them!

I wasn't saying that all transgender people have the same feelings. I was saying it is good to fact check before proceeding from an apparent position that such statements are correct. I think Simon Baron-Cohen's theorizing about cognition in general tends to be rather rubbish and what he says about autistic people is no more enlightening.

I did make a comment that it is pointless to question why trans people transition, but there were a handful of comments of that nature in this thread, and it has been my experience that such comments (about any trait) tend to be discouraging (at the very least) for people who meet the criteria for that trait. In the past, I have stopped participating in some online forums because of the way people - primarily men - talked about and discussed women. Or how straight people discussed same sex attractions. What made the difference to me was when others would say "That is not cool." So, when I have the chance and I see certain topics develop, I try to point out when I see something that is "not cool."

I think that not wanting to get into a debate over whether someone is truly the gender they say they are is not particularly indicative of anything, really. It seems to me that not wanting to entertain questions of that nature is fairly normal reaction. I think a discussion about gender and what people associate with being or feeling or thinking about their gender would be a fairly interesting topic, but this thread is not that topic.



I didn't paint you as a villain. I responded to and commented on comments made by Simon Baron-Cohen and Rebecca Jones. I am sorry that you seem to perceive me having a go at you, but I am not. I am sorry if how I wrote my post comes across as having a go at you, because I was trying not to do that.



I have not made any argument that "one person's experiences or feelings should be used as a way to shut down debate." I do think that in general, people's genders shouldn't really be up for debate by other people. That is one of many traits that I think is inappropriate to debate. That is, unless you want to debate everyone's gender, including those who are not trans and would never want to transition.



I don't know what it is you suspected all along, or what emotional blackmail you're referring to. If anything I said made you feel emotionally blackmailed, I am sorry. I am not trying to be antagonistic. I know we have had a couple of exchanges on this topic now, and I think I should be clear: I do not think you are acting out of ill will.

Testosterone