should i disclose this at my assessment?

Post Reply New Topic

I have an assessment for diagnosis booked on the 16th of feb. I have not spoke about this before on here, but i am transgendered FTM post everything. I understand that females display aspergers differently to males esp in the child development stage and that females can sometimes slip under the radar of aspergers when younger, which i think happened to me. A part of me knows this will be useful information for my assessor, but at the same time know that if the assessor doesn't have full knowledge of gender identity disorder they may use that as a reason to not diagnose me.

Do i disclose or not?

Good luck on your assessment!

Yes, autistic females do present differently, and those who are (or desire to become) FtM are recognized in research literature to be disproportionately autistic (10 percent of autists and 10 percent of LGBT individuals overlap). So, should you disclose for the sake of gaining a diagnosis? I would say "yes," if you also suggest to your diagnostician to look into the recent research ( http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3 ... de=iirp20& and https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... iderations ) with more online ( https://www.twainbow.org/ ).

One must consider whether the information disclosed might be shared with others outside the clinical realm. In a brief review of U.K. health-privacy laws ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_p ... ed_Kingdom ), very little information may be shared, and it appears to me that anything you disclose about your gender identity would be exempt from sharing, anyway.

If I were you, I would disclose as much as is needed to convince your diagnostician that being gender dysphoric is a significant clinical characteristic among autists, and vice versa. Beyond that, be the best little autist you can be, and answer the questions honestly.

Let us know how it turns out. Go Rhinos!

Hello

I think yes. My assessment was Aug 2017 NHS. The signs in females seem to be less obvious than in males. I believe this is because we get a lot more guidance in how to behave than boys get. They seem to get more of a sink or swim approach. But of course faking all the time as we have been guided/brain washed to do, is exhausting. My point it (sorry I ramble) that the signs differ and therefor I think you should be completely honest in order to get the right diagnoses. I don't remember the questions being particularly gender or sexual in nature, so I don't think a lack of experience of trans gender would be an issue. There is a section on friendship groups in Senior school and after leaving school so if you had problems then it might be hard to tell whether that's autism or gender issues. But there are a lot of sections, and everyone will have other issues (not necessarily as big) that affect the assessment. I was asked about hugging my mum, I explained that I did not feel comfortable doing this but also that my grandmother never hugged my mum and so hugging is not that natural for my mum either, so is this a sign I'm Aspie or not. Try not to worry, and good luck.

That's some great info, AspieUtah, thanks

I did read some things a few years back in regards a connection between gender identity and autism, but wasn't really sure how much to read into it and if it was just people looking for connections just because they can kind of thing. Looking now, it seems there is much more info about it and it has been looked at more deeply with some more concrete evidence of the connection.

It would make a lot of sense. I'll pop something on the questionnaire they gave me, then at least they'll have the info before my assessment.

I'm late to reply to this but I agree with the others... yes, yes, and more yes.

I did not disclose my gender diversity in my assessment a couple of months ago and it made the whole thing awkward and increasingly complicated and it had a big impact on the credibility of the results for me. My issues were in the opposite direction. I am amab, but my autistic presentation is much more like female aspies. So the world has overlooked me because I don't have angry melt-downs, my interests are a little more difficult to recognize as unusual, and even my positive traits align much more with those found in aspie girls than boys.

What really was tough is it made it so that I saw problems but because it was an intesnse situation I couldn't bring myself to challenge certain gender based portions of the assessment. For example there were several paper tests they had me fill out... some of them had "Male" and "Female" check boxes at the top... well for me that's very complicated. If I had been up-front about it I could have asked "which should I answer?"... even if they still marked male, it would have made me feel better that maybe they knew that this was the right answer.

Just living with gender-diversity means that we have additional perspective and breakdown of gender stereotypes. This stuff will bias results and possibly cover up aspie traits. It'll make us seem like we're actually more in-tune with and understand people when that's not a function of a better operating brain, it's a function of having to focus on gender like it's a special interest until we know all about it.... or well... it is for me anyway...

Good luck with the assessment! I will not tell you to be yourself because that saying is so confusing to me (aren't I always myself, even when I am pretending to be someone else? or maybe "me" disappears... I don't know)... I will say try to be honest and maybe a little vulnerable, which could be tough for a guy but if you can manage then it's worth it.