Well isn't that interesting, HuffPo questions a connection

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Intuitively it seems to me that there are a couple of aspects of many ASD presentations that could influence the development of gender identity.

First off is the literalism with which many people with ASD understand things. When presented with observations of self, it seems to me that people on the spectrum may be more likely to incorporate those observations into their sense of self without modifying them to fit some prescribed notion of self.

The second aspect is the deficit in social cues that many of us present. Because many of us don't tend to pick up on these cues, many of us have a much less rigid understanding of gender, and classifications of what is "appropriate" to each. Not only might this facilitate the development of a gender identity distinct from physiology, but it might also facilitate the development of very fluid, or ambiguous gender identity.

I'm just trying to look at these things from every angle, trying to find a bit of truth or at least commonality.
Personally I don't feel like I have the kind of core sexual identity that it appears most people have,
My name, gender, family and socioeconomic environment were just attributes provided to me at birth,
Which I was expected to adapt to, in much the same way as my national insurance number.
I'd say that I don't really 'identify' with my name or gender much more than I do with my national insurance number,
Both are things you just have to get used to over time, and both name and gender are very complicated and disruptive
to alter, with gender in particular having a great deal of social stigma attached to it.

It does seem like a far greater number of transgender people are diagnosed or potentially diagnosable
with ASD conditions than would appear to be consistent with general incidence statistics for
The population as a whole, though it is seemingly not so much the case the other way around,
but I agree it seems quite difficult to determine which is the chicken and which is the egg.

If you are an undiagnosed aspie and you find it really difficult to form same-sex friendships with your
Peer group, and without having that strong a sense of your own identity you might well start thinking
that the grass is looking a lot greener on the other side of the fence.
On the other hand if you are a closet transsexual you might find it really difficult to form
Social attachments, and the lack of relationships and emotional repression might lead to your
displaying symptoms that could be interpreted as autistic in origin.

Or perhaps the same 'issue' in early foetal brain development can create both the
expression of ASD traits and transsexual gender identity.

I do wonder if both are a result of endocrine disruption, particularly as a result of the
contraceptive pill, either directly or via environmental pollution.
It seems like the incidence of both has risen a lot since the '70s
and I doubt that there was much testing or consideration of long term effects like these
before the drug was made widely available.

Another study that links the two sides, at least in the phenotype sense.
"The extreme male brain revisited: gender coherance in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Males with ASD tend to have a more feminine appearance, while females are more masculine


The paper contains a speculative question about gender identity disorder, but the research doesn't address it directly.

Come on all you science guys/gals!
Keep putting the pieces together by looking at the bigger picture!

These papers seems so tentative and so full of technical analysis and statistical methodology,
has the process of science now slowed to a crawl?

I can't say one way or another if there is a link, mostly because I can't shake the idea that the higher rate could just be from those on the spectrum being far more honest about their struggles. I've noticed that a lot of people not on the spectrum will flat out reject the idea on the basis of 'fitting in', whereas none of us do already so we have no specific place we're afraid of losing.

I think part of it is that we are more likely to reject, ignore, or be oblivious to society's attempts to brainwash people into whatever the current gender norms are.