gender confusion

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Is feeling as though you are the wrong gender an AS trait?

The reason I ask this is because when I was younger I was convinced that when I grew up I would be a boy. This didn't happen but now that I'm an adult it's as though I'm a little boy inside but one who enjoys dressing up in female clothes. This is quite confusing I know, but I kind of like it. I think it confuses other females. Or at least I think it's confusion on their faces.

No.

Many NTs are also "confused" about their gender. If it were otherwise, then all Aspies would be "confused" about their gender, or all such "confused" people would be Aspies, or both.

There is no AS/NT causation involved.

Well... I do know transgendered people are somewhat more common on the spectrum. But most transgendered people are NT.

Plenty of people have some degree of gender dysphoria without being actually transgendered. (Dysphoria: Being unhappy or uncomfortable with the difference between your mental gender and your physical body.) For example, I'm physically female, mentally androgynous, and don't like having boobs, but don't want... er, male equipment. But it doesn't bother me so much that you could ever call me a female-to-neutrois transgendered person, because there just isn't significant distress related to it. I'm just me, and I don't care about pronouns.

There are lots of people who have a bit of a gender mismatch and who still aren't actually transgender. There are guys who hate that the world won't let them bake cookies and sew quilts without questioning their masculinity; there are girls who don't like make-up and don't like dresses. There are people who know they're somewhere-in-between but don't mind people calling them by their physical gender because it just doesn't matter that much to them. And then there are people who just like to play with gender, cross-dressing or deliberately mixing up their gender signals just because it feels sexy or fun for them. You can't diagnose any of that, because it's not causing either distress or dysfunction for anyone.

Maybe you aren't as strongly identified with your physical sex as most people are. Maybe you have a bit of both. Maybe you're just kind of tired of the gender binary. Maybe you actually ARE fully a guy, and are just putting off telling others. Who knows? Whatever it is, I guess the important thing is just to know yourself for who you are, and make no excuses about it to others.

There actually is some degree of correlation. One study in Europe (forget which nation) found that about 5% of transgender people at one particular clinic were on the spectrum, which is a much higher than the general population. This doesn't mean that being autistic is a cause of being transgender or vice versa, although there's evidence that being transgender is itself another neurological difference.

I wouldn't call it "gender confusion," though.

No, a higher percentage of aspies are transgender than NTs are. There definitely seems to be some correlation, just not necessarily very strong correlation.

Not all aspies handflap, there are NTs who handflap, that doesn't mean its not an aspie trait.



However to answer the initial question - not fitting gender stereotypes tends to be associated with the spectrum, however actually feeling like you're in the wrong body is still unusual.

Last edited by Tuttle on 15 Nov 2011, 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry I couldn't think of the correct terminology

I'm not "confused" about my gender at all. I'm happy being a guy, and looking like one. However I am very androgynous in my interests and thoughts, if I like something, I like it. Doesn't matter if its for dudes or wimminz. Hence why I watch MLP:FiM.

I'm not necessarily confused about my gender. I just think that I lack one.

Correlation = Coincidence

I'd like to see someone else provide a link to some real, vetted research on this subject.

I'm not confused about my gender at all, it's just that I wish to be a man.

Sorry, no. Correlation is the opposite of coincidence. The very definition of correlation means that the correlation is NOT a coincidence. Coincidence by definition means there is no correlation. I think what you mean to say is that correlation does not necessarily equate to causation, which might seem the same as coincidence, but it's not the same thing at all.

Correlation simply means that one thing is dependent on another. It does not mean that one thing causes another. If one thing does not cause another, but the two share a relationship with each other that may appear to be a coincidence.

For example, if you flip a lever on one side of a box, and apples come out every time you do it, the lever "causes" apples to drop. That's "causation."

If however, there are two levers, and you flip each one ten times, and six out of the ten times you flip the left lever, green apples come out, but only two of the ten times flipping the right lever, green apples come out, and all the rest are red, that may indicate the left lever is more likely to deliver green apples, which indicates a POSSIBLE relation between the left lever and higher chance of getting green apples, but does not indicate pulling either lever will cause green apples to drop. Thus, there is no causation, but there could be a relationship. It would take many more tests of both levers to prove a relationship.

If you flip both levers a thousand times, and get the same percentage results (600 green apples from the left lever, and 200 from the right lever), you've pretty much proven there is a correlation between flipping the left lever and a 60% chance of getting a green apple, and a correlation between flipping the right lever and a 20% chance of a green apple.

Flipping the levers that many times and getting consistent results like that proves it's no coincidence that the left lever produces more green apples. Conclusions about why it does relies on speculation, unless you tear the box apart and discover the mechanism each lever is connected to. If you find that there are actually two chambers inside the box, each connected to only one of the levers, then count the green and red apples inside of each, and discover that the left chamber contains 60% green apples, and the right 20% green apples, THEN you can come to a clear conclusion as to why you're getting the results you are getting.

Without being able to see inside the box, all one can do is speculate, make educated guesses, and draw conclusions based on logical thinking, but there's no guarantee you'll be right.

The research linked from another thread:

6%, not 5% of the transgender people tested were autistic. Definitely enough to establish correlation beyond random chance (you don't need to exceed 50%, you just need a statistically significant higher occurrence than in the general population). When you're looking at an occurrence of .91% in the general population and 6% among transgender people, you're looking at a 659% increase in occurrence.

There's no evidence that one causes the other, but there is evidence that there's possible association between the two.

Oh, I know.

Look at it this way: You have someone who will move heaven and earth to be seen and accepted as a member of a sex and gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. Does that sound like confusion? It sounds pretty decisive to me.

There is correlation. I never claimed causation, but studies have been done - Verdandi linked to the paper I was going to link to.

It's not that one causes the other, but the probability of not having some connection with such drastic numbers is extremely low.

Oh, I know I'm a boy, and I'm heterosexual, but in many ways I feel more feminine than masculine.

Keep in mind that there is 3 or 6 types of correlations: A causes B (directly or indirectly), B causes A (directly or indirectly), or some C causes both A and B (directly or indirectly).

Okay, so how about a link to the study that says people with AS are more likely to be "confused" about their gender than NTs?

I have no such confusion, and I have AS.