Asperger's Syndrome blunts sex differences in the brain.

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This study found that the brains of males and females with Asperger's Syndrome were more similar than the brains of males and females without Asperger's Syndrome, to the extent that on some occasions, sexual dimorphism in some parts of the brain were completely absent.

http://www.ajnr.org/content/33/1/83.short

Meaning we're more likely to be androgynous. I'd someday like to know how bigendered/transexual Aspies are explained

I spent a year as a female. Legal ID and all, in California. I'm not sure if I am intermittently trans or if that was a special interest. Certainly was a curious experience.

Here is a theory about that. Maybe it's because they are forced to live in and raised to believe that we have a binary gender system so after years of people trying to force them to live like one gender that doesn't fit they think the other one would fit better?

I feel pretty androgynous but how many people would be ok with that and not insist that I be male or female?

I find it interesting they defined AS as "a 'pure' form of autism not involving major developmental delay". I usually hear AS described as a 'mild' form of autism, which can serve to undermine problems. But's that's just an aside.

Re sex differences, Rudy Simone (author of Aspergirls) talks about this as well, and it certainly echoes my experiences. It's great there's evidence to back it up.

I have noticed that Gender Issues are common for people with Aspergers. My Autism Expert tells me it is anyway. I suspect myself to have Aspergers but i'm soon getting tested. I also love Cross Dressing and presenting myself as a female. I guess it does have to do something with the boundaries NT people see. I personally see little boundaries.

There's been research that's documented neurological differences in transgender men (assigned female at birth) and women (assigned male at birth) that shows that their brains develop more like their actual gender than their assigned gender. How this relates to autism I have no idea, especially in light of the article Chronos linked. Also, ~5% of transgender people may be autistic per another study. Since apparently autistic brains show differences in development relative to neurotypical cisgender people and trans brains show differences in development relative to neurotypical cisgender brains, it doesn't seem far-fetched that both could happen in one person's brain - and there are several people on this forum who identify themselves as transgender.

I wouldn't rule out your theory about being forced to live one gender that doesn't fit and thus trying to fit into the other binary gender, though. However, there are people who feel they have no gender and people who feel they have no sex, and seek transition to that state.

I don't think I'm also male. I just have trouble conforming, is all.

I was in the 6th grade before I even realized that there were "gender differences."

I understood that men and women were different physically, but the cultural expectations surrounding "gender" never "registered." When kids at school would make fun of me for wearing "boy shoes," I would be puzzled. Shoes don't have genitals, so I didn't understand how shoes could be "boys" or "girls."

I naturally gravitate to "male" clothes and interests, but, if I was suddenly to find myself in a male body, I would be considered "effeminate." As it stands, I'm viewed as "butch" for no other reason than I have a female body. **sigh**

I get that men and women have certain general tendencies as dictated by biology, but most aspects of "cultural gender" I judge to be irrelevant, if not utterly idiotic (I don't wear make-up or high-heels. Period).

Thanks for posting, Chronos.

Wow, I was wondering about this last week, but I only found information about transexuality and sexual preferences, the word I was looking for was androgynous, thank you ^^. I just don't get the transexual's idea about being a woman in man's body or being a man in woman's body, because I'm not trans and I also don't feel a woman in woman's body, I'm a 'nothing' in woman's body.

I remember that when I was 4 or 5 years old I wanted to give flowers to the boy I liked and my parents had to tell me that girls don't give flowers to boys.
My toys were dolls, cars and dinousaurs, I hated when they didn't wanted to buy me something because it was for boys.

The whole world of gender and sex and all of that is probably my biggest blind spot. If I called myself androgynous, that would mean I understood that there were two different categories and that I am a fairly equal blend of the two or just not fitting into either one. Out in the world, I see people and recognize them as male or female, but it's more like that everyone is one kind and its just that some of them wear things like floral print summer dresses, and those are the ones that are really unpredictable: they'll either be really nice or really mean at random. Its safer to approach and spend time with the other ones.

I don't like being male at all - I've had gender dysphoria for as long as I can remember. I also dislike most gender roles, stereotypes, expectations, etc. for both males and females.

Not necessarily. It could show that most Aspies have "male" brains, so males are less likely to be androgynous but females much more likely. The article doesn't say whether the Aspies converged in the middle, or towards one "extreme".

I think there may be some truth in this. I do know that I never really thought much about being "Male" or "female" as a kid. I even experimented a bit with the gay side, but that proved unrewarding.
At this point, I just do not think much about it at all. It frankly has ceased to be a worry. Of course, as I said many times bfore, in my generation any little deviation was a clue that *GASP* you were homosexual. Of course, the only worse thing that that was having an Autism (read: ret*d)label pinned on you. Tolerance did not play a major part in my youth. Nor was I even very tolerant of others different in certain ways.
Its almost puzzling how much things have changed.

Sincerely,
Matthew

One explanation might be that people with AS are less likely to acquire gender traits that are shaped by cultural, social and environmental factors. In other words, those with AS might be more similar to humans raised in a hypothetical gender neutral society.

I've read that a few times in various papers; I guess they think if you take away verbal disabilities and other learning difficulties, you can differentiate between what's the autism and what's not easier.