is anybody here who has autism and is transgender?

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You are right, to a large degree. But females have a larger callosum, and tend to use more areas of the brain for some tasks, and that shows up on the FMRI.



You might be right there. That would explain why some have smaller neurons, why heads tend to be larger early on, and why SO MUCH is remembered. As for the case where they claim an extreem diversion from that, where there is apparently MORE pruning, it has ALWAYS been my contention that THAT is CDD.

In general,

They HAVE found that interestingly estrogen can't cross the brain barrier, but testosterone CAN! And the testosterone aromatizes into ESTROGEN, INSIDE the brain, and changes the makeup of it. Here is how wikipedia describes it:



THIS explains cases like the two twin brothers where some IDIOT doctor, to cover up his mistake CASTRATED one boy, gave him a "sex change", gave him estrogen all his life, and he STILL kept acting male, and later had ANOTHER "sex change".

BUT, can I ask you guys, and gals, a question? If you believe there is NO inbred sexual identity, then WHY do you contend that there should EVER be a need to change sexes?

I don't pretend to understand various differences. I have seen VERY young girls LOVE the idea of taking care of kids, etc... And I NEVER felt that way. I have seen VERY young girls play house, etc... HECK, even before I was in kindergarten I saw the distinct differences, and I knew some of the parents. They didn't push their kids into that. Even the idea of having a flowery PC, etc... doesn't make sense, but I have seen females from like 6 to 50 or so that liked the idea. EVEN females that AREN'T so flowery tend to have feminine ideals.

Krhm..you’re right It’s not always easy to remember that some people feel like that. I’m a really shy girl + AS so there’s a lot to do in these everyday situations and to remember how to manage them myself...

You seem to be conflating a lot of things with this question. I am not sure that you are arguing that transition should or should not happen, or simply suggesting a logical inconsistency. If the latter case, I would suggest there are a lot more factors at work here and you can't easily simplify this to a question of "if gender is socially constructed, why does anyone need to transition?"

Even if gender is a social construct, in a concrete sense transgender people exist and have a demonstrated need to transition. In general, they do much better psychologically and socially once these needs are met. Whatever the etiology, transgender people themselves are real. Any discussion has to take that into account or it simply can't address reality.



I think this is an incomplete observation. But then, so are most about gender. There really is a significant amount of gender expression policing socially. This comes from parents, teachers, other children. It happens throughout one's life, to adults, to everyone. Policing of gender expression is intrinsic to sexism, to homophobia, and to transphobia. No one attaches instinctive meanings to gender that include traditionally feminine and masculine traits, and "traditional gender roles" is a cultural phenomenon, and vary from culture to culture. This does not mean that identifying as a particular sex/gender is cultural - it happens everywhere, demonstrably so. If you identify yourself as a boy or man, you are more likely to adopt gendered cues that signal this - gendered cues that are communicated, culturally, everywhere. From everyone. From people who will ostracize or punish you if you deviate too much from these expectations.

Haven't you ever heard "Ladies don't behave that way" or "a real man does X?" That's part of it right there.

Anbuend pointed out that not having an inborn gender identity meant she stood out in comparison to others. And anyone who does not fit into standard gendered expectations stands out to a greater or lesser extent. It can be treated as non-compliant, with hostility and aggression. While in children this manifests as bullying, in adults this becomes somewhat more sophisticated. Often finding ways to suggest that transition is frivolous and unnecessary, but betraying a perspective that seems to find it preferable that transgender people not be allowed to exist rather than be accommodated.

It seems strange to me that you specifically mark femininity but not masculinity as not making sense. Could you elaborate on that? I am curious what you think about masculinity in this context.

Define transgendered. Some people, when they say it, mean woman in man's body or man in woman's body. From my understanding of the standard definition of it, I am transgendered (androgynous).

The thing is, sex is in the body. Gender is in the mind. There are actually parts of your mind (and certain hormone glands as well) that control your gender identity. These can be in line with your sex, but they can also be apart from it.

This is my take (not arguing with you):

Transgender is an umbrella, or maybe a three dimensional multiple axis system (not a spectrum) that covers everything from people who need to transition socially and medically to people who only need to transition so far to people who don't need to transition at all. It covers people who are men, women, and who have genders that have elements of both or neither but are not strictly part of the binary. It covers people who would transition if they could, but the modern medical profession would not give them access to that care because of assumptions about their gender and medical needs being invalid. It covers categories of people I have forgotten to mention here, but this list is not meant to be exhaustive.

There are a lot of labels that define diverse overlapping groups of people who all have one thing in common: Their gender is not the gender expected of them by the majority of people who make up society.

A transgender person is not a man in a woman's body or a woman in a man's body. If you're a woman, who is the man that your body supposedly belongs to? There isn't one. Your body is a woman's body, but you are probably perceived by others as a man (unless you really want to describe yourself as a woman in a man's body). It almost strikes me that this phrasing implies transgender people (at least those who transition) don't really "own" their bodies. Not that I'm saying you said this - it's a common formulation, obviously, and a lot of transgender people use it to describe themselves, often because that's what they hear or read when trying to figure out what's going on.

Isn't gender a cultural thing rather than hormonal?

It's both, as far as I can tell...

Well, yes and no. The culture places arbitrary definitions of gender, but it's the mind and the hormones that determine what definition you fit. The culture, I believe, defines it in such a way that most men (by sex) fit into the male gender and most women (by sex) fit into the female gender.

Besides my self-diagnosed aspieness, I am TS, postop since 1991, as well as bi, often asexual.

WOO!! ! I'm Wapanese

I am a Trans Man and I have Atypical Asperger's Syndrome. My therapist says that my experience not fitting in as an Aspie would make it not as hard a blow if its hard to fit in after transitioning. I do think I can better handle the discrimination since I have experience. I don't really pass so people don't take me seriously.

I am also transgender and I have AS. I am an FTM, but I know dozens of other people that identify as MTF or non-binary.

I'm MTF trans, currently desperately trying to transition. I am horribly depressed all the time from feeling like I'm the wrong gender. Often I tell myself that if things don't change soon, I'm going to kill myself. I can't stand this body anymore.

I've been on hormones for almost 3 years now and still look completely male. My self esteem is zero now - most of the time, I feel I'd be better off dead.

I don't know whether I'm one of the AS transpeople whose sexual orientation is changing due to taking hormones, but there are certainly signs of it. Before hormones, I had always been exclusively attracted to women, not wanting to do anything non-Platonic with guys. Now, however, I feel like I want to be held by a nice guy who protects me. My sexual fantasies have changed to usually imagining myself as a woman being with a guy.

Not that that dream will ever come true. =(

I suspect David Reimer was always likely to become uber masculine as reaction to the lie that he had been forced to live and the need to make an assertion of his manhood. It would be interesting to know how "manly" his brother was.

Also I don't think the case shows that people are biologically programmed to want gendered things, I think they are just biologically programmed to feel connected to a particular kind of body and want to imitate other people with that kind of body.

If I had been born 50 years before I was, I would probably have been interested and competent at sewing and knitting, but because these are no longer things women do and none of my role models did them, I have not picked up those interests. Similarly, in those days, women would not have driven, but now most women do, so this is no longer a gendered thing.

FtM here.

I pass about half the time, and I'm pretty okay with those odds. Haven't started hormones yet. Hoping I can get my documents changed some time this year. I just need to get some stuff in order and figure out where my life is going so I can get things started in the right direction for my transition...

MtF here, though mainly I identify as genderqueer these days. I tend to use female pronouns/etc in society because it's closest to where I am out of the mainstream binary system.