Transgender vs Asperger
I’m not gonna write a very long entry about this. I know that several people (including one of my best friends Minou – her blog is in Swedish btw) is trying to figure out the connection between autism spectrum disorders (especially asperger’s syndrome) and gender nonconformity (thats the right word, right?). It is said that aspies are “age and sex blind”, meaning that we dont see peoples ages or sex (some of us are even “face blind”, but thats belongs in another post). For me thats true, I dont “see” peoples age or their “sex”. I have learned that a person with visible breasts is usually a woman and a person with a beard is usually a man, but its not something that I know instinctively.
Wow, I almost lost my train of thought there. Back back! One of the reasons why I write this post is because someone had found my blog by searching for “asperger transgender”, and that reminded me of writing a post Ive been thinking about writing for a very long time. You see, most of my transgendered friends have asperger (or some sort of autism spectrum disorder), and by most I mean 16 out of 20 (im talking about real life friends here). I find it interesting that more than half of these are FtMs.
Some people has referred to asperger’s syndrome as “excessive maleness“, and I wonder if my FtM friends (including me) were diagnosed wrong. That we actually were gender variant children or teenagers. The same signs as you can find in many kids who has been bullied (lack of eye contact, struggling to maintain friendships, find other people unpredictable, become withdrawn and seem uninterested in other people, appearing almost aloof) are some of the so called “difficulties” people with Asperger can have, and also the same problems a that Ive seen many young gender variant child or teenagers have.
A psychologist I saw when I was coming out to myself told me that many of her patients had asperger’s, and that many of their asperger “symptoms” disappeared when they altered their body with HRT or by surgery (they were all gender variant/genderqueer in some way) and became happier with themselves.
Hm. I’m very, very tired right now. And I think Ive lost my train of thoughts. I dont know if Im trying to say anything with this post. I usually think too much.
June 16, 2008 at 11:47 pm
It’s interesting that you mention this. I had heard about a potential connection before between autism/asperger’s and “variant” sexual identities (including gender variance and alternate sexual orientation) but I don’t remember where.
But I do like to joke with my little guy that him and I make quite a pair with our – a-hem – so-called “disorders”.
June 17, 2008 at 8:52 am
Well, I know that Gunilla Gerland has written a book about Autism – sex and relationships. I cant find it in English tho. Have you read anything by her?
Its a very interesting subject, I just wish there was books and articles that I could refer to.
June 17, 2008 at 11:08 am
The head of FTM Australia (who is a complete nutbag btw) is strongly convinced that *all* children of trans men will have Autism. I am not sure if he means children conceived and born post transition or not, but he’s quite outspoken (and offensive) on the point.
I did find your post very interesting. Especially the part about being age and sex blind.
I have found that most of the people I know who have autism spectrum disorders are just wonderfully unprejudiced about things.
As an amusing aside, I also find judging people’s age almost impossible. I gravitated to one of the guys at work, operating under the assumption that we were ‘about the same age’, only to find out he is more than 10 years older than me. In hindsight this is very clear. He has greying hair, and crows feet, and a myriad other small signs of age, that I just didn’t notice.
June 17, 2008 at 11:43 am
Woah, thats an.. uhm… interesting statement. I guess he’s against transmen having babies (pre and post transition).
Thank you, I didnt believe it myself before I realized that I tend to think of everyone as people my age (cause thats the only age I can relate to). And my best friend is 45.
June 17, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I think it was me who found your blog by that search string.
I’m a MtF Aspie, and I’ve found volumes of information online for both of these individually, but the way these two pieces of me interact makes them both atypical.
I’m just trying to find people who share the experience to try to make sense of my own situation.
It also seems like there are more FtM aspies then MtF aspies… and oddly I’ve always thought myself empathic.
Anyways, I’m rambling in the blog of a complete stranger! This must seem a little wierd.
If you find anything useful, feel free to email me.
June 17, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hey Dan.
Thats cool. I think its awesome when people find my blog via google (or any other search engine). I know a couple of MtFs who are diagnosed with asperger (or other autism spectrum disorders). Most of them are members of the Transe-Generation Forum (you can find a link to in one of the sidebars here on my blog).
Dont worry about rambling. I like it when new people comment my blog. ^__^
June 17, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I think my autie son was gender blind until he got brainwashed abotu gender norms at school. He likes pink, or at least used to, but now it’s a no-no. And he’s comment on certain things being for boys or girls.
*sigh*
I’ve explained to him that Mommy is taking medecine to turn into a boy. I’m not sure how much he really understands – he’s only 8. I’m apprehensive about how he will take the physical changes, especially now with the gender brainwashing from school and probably my ex.
June 17, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hehe, that makes me wonder how Tarald is explaining things for his daughter now that he has started T and all (I know that he wanted her to say “Tarald” instead of mommy for example but that was pre-T). Do you know?.
June 17, 2008 at 2:24 pm
This is fascinating. A friend of mine sent me a link to a scientific paper a few months ago that also made the connection between transgenderism and Aspergers. Like the genetic roots of transgenderism, it sounds like there isn’t really that much known about Aspergers, and these fields of study could benefit from more attention.
My GF just reminded me of a newspaper article that was done about me when I was 16, where they compared me to Rain Man for my obsessive statistical knowledge on a certain topic. I’m going to have to re-ponder that one for a bit now!
June 17, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Wow, thats interesting. Could you send me the link?
June 18, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Comorbidity of Asperger syndrome and gender identity disorder
Unfortunately, I get a “corrupt PDF” error when I try to open the full text of the article. However the lead author’s email address is listed on the page. Perhaps they could send you the file directly.
June 18, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Great, thanks!
June 21, 2008 at 8:51 am
Heh. I’m the one who found your blog by googling for Asperger + transgender
I have both (I’m MtF) and most of my TG friends have AS as well. So strange. I’m sure there’s a correlation.
June 25, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Hi everyone!
Cool blog PF. Dan, your comment seems ‘normal’ (brief and on topic) to me, but what do I know, I have Asperger’s. [wink]
As to the topic of PF’s blog entry, I found this page by putting [Asperger gender] into Google.
Anecdotally, observing the people I know, I can say there is a high correlation of AS and rejection of the gender binary.
I know I’ve also seen passing mentions in scientifical books/webpages of a relationship between AS diagnosis and rejection of socially expected gender identity (or aspects of the expected gender role, yahda yahda). As for me, I decided a long time ago, one good way to describe myself is a male lesbian.
I can go into that term more, but here’s how it relates to finding this blog. I’ve been feeling extra lonely lately, and I thought, “If only I could connect with some other male lesbians, life would be a little bit easier.”
I looked for a “Male lesbian” article on Wikipedia and was sad to find that there isn’t one (yet). I put [male lesbian] into Google though and found I wasn’t the first person to use the term. A psychologist named Brian G. Gilmartin used it in his 1987 book, “Shyness & Love”. Dr. It’s a monograph on the diagnosis of ‘Love-shyness’ (which he created, but nobody else has really recognized.) He writes that many “love-shys” (his term) should probably be considered male lesbians. He defines male lesbian pretty much the way I would, even though we came up with the term individually! Pretty rad, huh?
It’s out of print, but it seems there is a small community of online fans of the book. One of them has converted an old copy to pdf. Inside the file is a letter from Gilmartin giving permission to distribute. There’s a paragraph in the letter that really startled me in a good way:
Another area of some importance not covered by my book is the rediscovery…of the works of Hans Asperger….Many of us [no idea who this 'us' is] now believe that as many as 40 percent of the cases of severely love-shy men would qualify for a diagnosis of “Asperger’s Syndrome”. [no idea what the quotes around Asperger's Syndrome are there for]
So to sum up: I have Asperger’s, I invented the term for myself of “male lesbian”, but someone else had invented it 15 years earlier to describe some of the people with “love-shyness”, many of whom the first inventor also believes have Asperger’s.
The fact that Gilmartin connected Asperger’s and male lesbianism made me want to look more at AS/gender-binary-rejection. That’s when I did the Google search for [Asperger gender]. I found the same article as genderoutlaw, but also couldn’t open it. (It looked like they wanted money.) I also found this blog. I was surprised at how little else came back, seeing as I’ve read stuff about the connection before. Clearly more scholasticizing is needed.
June 25, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Interesting. I have only heard the term “male lesbian” once before in an L Word episode. I would love it if you explained what being a male lesbian means to you. I know I sometimes see myself as a maleidentified lesbian, but I dont know if thats the same.
Anyway, welcome to the blog!!
June 25, 2008 at 4:32 pm
oh, and Nerdygirl: welcome to you too!
June 26, 2008 at 12:56 am
I’d absolutely love to explain. And I celebrate your welcome; this seems to be a wonderful place! Sorry about the cliffhanger, there are a couple of factors to the somewhat cryptic nature of what I said about male lesbianism: 1) I arrived at your blog under the influence of insomnia and 2) I was trying to be brief. (I wanted to make a joke to Dan about me being the one who rambles)
I hope you are still awake to moderate this PF, and can enjoy my explanation tonight, but in any case, we can continue this discussion EXTENSIVELY in the days to come. I would say that if you’re a post transition male and you continue to identify as lesbian, it IS the same thing as being an XYMale male lesbian. YAY GENDER REBELS! But here are the boundaries of my identity, ill defined as they are:
Age: 24 (that one’s easy)
Chromosomes: XY (it can be assumed, no evidence to the contrary)
Phenotypical Sex: Male (somewhat lower than mean average body hair coverage)
Preferred Pronouns: None (”He-his” doesn’t make me uncomfortable, in my brain it connects to sex, not gender. “She-her” wouldn’t make me uncomfortable either, if that’s what the speaker picked. I do ask people not to call me a “man” though.)
Assigned Gender from birth: Boy/Man continuum (I’ve never accepted this as exclusively describing me, nor do I proclaim an exclusive identity as a woman; I don’t consider myself transgendered, because I’ve never “left” one of the binary genders, and I’m not trying to “enter” the other one; I’ve never accepted either. I like where I am; I think it’s a much more authentic expression of human experience. Sometimes I jokingly soliloquize that I’m a gender-transcender, I also found an article on wikipedia –I’m addicted to wikipedia, can you tell me how to link to it here?– on a word I liked: ‘omnigendered’, so occasionally I say, “I’m omnigendered.”
Gender Identity: Inclusive (I’ve always liked the stuff “girls are sposta like” much much more than the stuff “boys are sposta like.” Most of all, I’ve always HATED the way we divide “feminine” behaviors/interests from “masculine” behaviors/interests and the way adults segregate themselves and their children by sex. Furthermore, I’ve always had a gnawing desire to be accepted into friendship with a big group of women-gendered people in what’s considered the “feminine” style of friendship [more talking, emotional intimacy, etc] without feeling any strong need to change my biological sex. In fact, I resent feeling that “feminine friendship” is only open to certain people, based on biology.)
Romantic interests [Affinity]: Girls/women (From a VERY young age it was always girls and women [matching my age at the time] I would consistently have one object of intense, unrequited love for a long period [usually one school year]. This started when I was 4 or 5 years old. I would fantasize extensively [but not as much as the men in Gilmartin's book] about the object of my desires. As I got older and started to notice the [to my view] insane things females my age were doing to their bodies [cutting the hair off from under their arms, covering their faces with colored goop…] I developed a more specific “type” that I envisioned myself with: a sexually-phenotypic-female not interested in makeup, hair removal, or dye jobs; who prefers clothes designed for comfort and durability rather than to “turn men on”; likely with long head-hair and hopefully no tattoos and very few or no piercings. She would be into physical sports for fun and transportation, but also very tender and nurturing like me–into taking care of living things, especially young humans! She would have what I call [out of frustration with language] “real femininity”. I can only describe this as what exists in my imagination of 19th century American farmwives: doing a lot of physically hard work and being very emotionally strong but also nurturing life. [These farmwives of my imagination also lived in a time before razor manufactures invented the disease of female-body-hair-hysteria with which they intentionally infected modern western culture to increase their own profits!])
Sexual interest [Sexuality]: Humans!!!!! (My early childhood fantasies –starting at age 3 or 4– were often VERY sexual [even though I wasn't aware that people moved during human sex expression.] In them, my ALWAYS female partner and I [both of us would be the age I was in real life at the time and she, the object of my current romantic fixation] would lock in a continuous nude hug while sitting up on the ground. Our faces and [appropriately] flat chests would be pressed together hard! There would be motionless coital contact and we would use our arms to squeeze each other as hard as we could.
I think this image has a lot to do with two emotional needs: the autistic pleasure of pressure on the body surface, and the desire for permanent acceptance. I think my very young brain had made a strong, evolutionary, and correct connection between intimacy, acceptance, and sexual expression. Because I was only interested in strong emotional connections with females of my age, these were my sex interests.
Very gradually over the 6/7/8 years after puberty started, I became more and more aware of being sexually excited by lots of different people, regardless of chromosomes, body parts, or gender. Because I never felt sexual expression was gross with someone of the “wrong” combination of these three, I accepted this as part of my sexuality and incorporated people of lots of identities into my fantasies. [So far, 97% of my sexual/romantic experience has been fantasy.]
At the art conservatory I attended for university, I learned about the pansexual identity. I liked the concept but didn’t like the prefix pan- because I felt it sounded like having a lot of sex, which I don’t do for various reasons. I recently hit on the label of “monosexual,” rejecting the concept that there are two kinds of sexual interest [the heterosexist binary, GRRRRRRR] where a human is either A (het), B (homo), or A+B (bi). I think of monosexuality as the sexuality of all humans. In my theory, humans are genetically designed by evolution to be sexually excited by other humans. [especially when those other humans are being sexually expressive, yay!])
IN CONCLUSION
Despite all this, ~87% of my sexual fantasies and 98%+ of the objects of my romantic interests are women with female parts. 30-40% of these bio-women identify as lesbian, which doesn’t help. I couldn’t care less how someone identifies, or what chromosomes are present, my overarching romantic desire is to be with someone with female parts [but also taller, hairier, boxier, smaller breasted, and more muscular than average] with what I described above as “real femininity”, who relates to me as a HUMAN with male parts, but within the expected structure of a “woman-woman romance.” I guess this “ww romance” would be the stereotypical “feminine friendship” with a lot of female-gratifying sexual expression of the slower variety thrown in! (Yay!)
Because of my non-rejection of male parts and longing to be in a “ww romance” I like the idea of being considered a male lesbian, even though I am sexually excited by people other than XXWomen with female parts and this would exclude me from Gilmartin’s definition.
Here is what Dr. Gilmartin says about male lesbians on page 125 of “Love & Shyness”:
“Unlike the transsexual, the ‘male lesbian’ does not feel himself to be ‘a woman trapped inside the body of a man.’ Moreover, none of the love-shy men studied for this research entertained any wishes or fantasies of any kind pertinent to the idea of obtaining a sex change operation. All wanted to keep their male genitalia; all wanted to remain as males. However, all deeply envied the prerogatives of the female gender and truly believed that these prerogatives fitted their own inborn temperaments far more harmoniously than the pattern of behavioral expectations to which males are required to adhere.”
and on page 273:
“…if he [referring to any male lesbian] had been born female he would still have felt strongly attracted to women (and not to men) romantically, esthetically, sexually, and socially.”
The second passage is SO KEY to my thinking: the difference between a “male lesbian” and a “male heterosexual” is that the male-het is interested in FEMALES for sex and romance [in my emotional narrative, especially interested in "owning" females who do insane s-!# to look more "feminine," if you ask society, or "gross," if you asked me] Simultaneous to this need to “own” a fembot, the male-het desires to be with other “hetero” males for “non-sexual” enjoyment (like wrestling and American football, lol.)
Meanwhile, the male lesbian is solely interested in being with WOMEN in a VERY INTENSE and time consuming way. This interest includes a social and æsthetic affinity for womanness. By ‘esthetically attracted to women’ I take Dr. Gilmartin to mean not attraction to the way women look, but to the culturally defined “Frauenweltanschauung”. [word I just invented]
Dr. Gilmartin is not a god to me: I just discovered his book; I’ve only read a tiny portion of it (the parts that talk about male lesbianism); and he defiantly says things I think are ridiculous, ignorant, or mean; but I really like the way he lays out the concept of male lesbianism and the printed excerpts from interviews with the subjects of his research are so powerful: I identify so strongly with the things the subjects say.
My personal clothes choices and transvestitism (or extreme lack thereof) is the subject for another 15 hundred word post.
Let me know if you have any questions and hopefully we can connect when you visit my native Cascadia (our local name for the pseudo-separatist region of Wash-Ore-BC).
DISCLAIMER:
I realize the concept of male lesbianism is EXTREMELY THREATENING to most of the earths population, not leastly XXWomen lesbians. Take comfort in the fact that I don’t go around getting in everybody’s grill [sic] saying, “I’m here. I’m a male lesbian. Accept me now!” In fact, besides some people in my secondary school maths class, and whoever reads this, I’ve never mentioned it to anyone before. That being said. I want people to know that the feeling of being a male lesbian is very real for me and that it’s very distinct from being a “heterosexual” XY male attracted to XX female women or simply enjoying the fake and disrespectful “lesbian” porn that’s so popular or wanting to be inside a body with female parts and have sex with women. It’s not about sex, it’s about a whole bunch of other stuff. Mmkay?
June 28, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Hi everyone, I’m Jazzie, a 26 year old transsexual girl from Sydney, and i’m realy realy tired too, because it’s realy realy late here.
I agree with alot of how Cascade Other feels, though I identify as a female.
I often over-scrutinise myself about my gender, and that’s when I feel down, but when I feel that I’ve passed through my self-scrutiny, I feel confident and optimistic. In fact when I changed my name, I felt so proud of myself I couldn’t remember feeling like that ever before in my entire life!
I used to be attracted to other girls when I was in school, but now I usually have an issue with their breasts and body shape etc.. But i still love being with women as friends, even much older ones.
I guess I’m probably heterosexual from my internal (transsexual) perspective, in regards to actually having sex, but I’m doubtful that I can find a man who will be as nice as most women are, and I find most men to be boring- they seem to waste too much time on sport and are so coarse.
Ideally, a realy realy nice soft guy would be just right.
I have been diagnosed with several neuro-atypical disorders: ADHD, OCD, social phobia, possible mild ASD & possible mild Dyslexia, and as expected Gender identity disorder/Gender Dysphoria.
I often wonder about all of these and whether they are linked.. it sure makes sense to me if all of these can be present in one person.
A while ago I asked this question “Any Transexuals with OCD or ADHD?” on the Yahoo Answers forum which had interesting responses:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080128021821AATgbUN
August 13, 2008 at 12:27 pm
[...] Norsk person som blogger på engelsk om det å være transgender og Asperger [...]
August 29, 2008 at 4:00 am
[...] Transgender Vs Asperger by Punkfairy A psychologist I saw when I was coming out to myself told me that many of her patients had asperger’s, and that many of their asperger “symptoms” disappeared when they altered their body with HRT or by surgery (they were all gender variant/genderqueer in some way) and became happier with themselves. [...]
October 8, 2008 at 8:53 pm
[...] vs Asperger: The questions! Ever since I made the post on transgender vs asperger I’ve wanted to interview people with an ASD (autism spectrum disorder) diagnosis and some [...]
October 17, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Hi I chanced on this blogg by google search ‘Asperger and Gender Dysphoria’ I consider myself Transsexual MtF at the moment. I just got back from an 2nd interview at the NHS London UK Gender Identity Clinic and came away feeling quite down and confused as I was told I had Asperger’s and that maybe my GD would just go away when I got bored with it!
My previous interview at GIC resulted in diagnosis ‘late onset Gender Dysphoria and Autism’ so I’m thinking now I also have Asperger’s what is going on? but reading this blog has made me feel a bit better knowing that I am not alone with this Asperger’s and GD which is cool
Hugs Petra.
October 17, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Petra: Hey! I’m glad you found this blog. They told me the same thing at the gender clinic here in Stockholm, but Ive seen them for a year now and they are absolutely sure that I’m trans also. Dont give up.
Feel free to email me or anything if you want to discuss things.
Hugs!
October 20, 2008 at 7:05 am
Hello folx, I found some reference to trans and autism at the link below, starting on page 86. It makes reference to 4-5 journal articles. No luck trying to read any of them online, though…
http://books.google.com/books?id=–ZN-_Tw8z8C&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=intersex+autism&source=web&ots=snLo2NAvit&sig=LLjlU1cc5IwIzWVoX9o_UfkSMbI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA86,M1
November 6, 2008 at 1:40 am
… Wow. Got here by following links. Need to comment properly, but right now it’s very late and i should have been in bed 2 hours ago. So will bookmark and return tomorrow… incredibly interesting tho…
CascadeOther: i’m *amazed* both by how much we have in common, and how many differences… there were sentences in your long comment where i thought “wow, are you me?” and then stuff that was totally opposite (like the sexuality in early childhood stuff)… would LOVE to have a conversation with you…
you might be interested in some of the posts in the “gender” category on my blog?
December 4, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Hello
Thank you everyone for your contributions and specially to our kind host, it does make me feel better to hear from people in similar situations. I found this blog by googling “Aspergers Gender Dysphoria”, too.
While I feel very well described by the term “Male Lesbian” myself, I have the following doubts about the legitimacy of the concept which I would like to share:
1. The main feature of my sexuality is that it is not functional, ie. I can’t express it, because I lack the necessary social skills. Do lesbians have this problem? I may well be wrong but, the way I perceive lesbians, they don’t -they can get on with their personal lives reasonably well. This is a very fundamental difference between lesbians and male lesbians, since lesbians apparently still need to be equipped with and deploy social skills, and therefore if we male lesbians were transgendered we would remain just as lonely and miserable as we are now, only looking physically like females. So our problem isn’t at all being in the wrong body type -it is just lacking the ability to manage the mating/courtship process effectively.
2. How do lesbians cope with being solicited for sex by males pretty much all the time? Because I know I would hate every second of it, men disgust me profoundly. Another reason why it might be inaccurate to call us “male lesbians” -we would actually loathe living in a woman’s body, as lesbians do.
3. Is it even possible to be a male lesbian? Having a heterosexual orientation, we logically should just be able to strike up relationships with females, and indeed be in a better position to achieve this than lesbians are. Could it be that our feeling of “wanting to be lesbians” is a mirage? What we really want is, simply being able to get girls! But looking like a woman wouldn’t do the trick!
4. More critically. I believe women just have a quantitatively much lower sexual drive than men. Simple as that. And that IS the problem. Heterosexual NT men adapt to it and learn coping strategies, because they have the flexibility required, and we Aspies don’t. We have _wrongly_ concluded that women enjoy the same pleasure that we would enjoy if we held their superior selecting & decision making position. It is true that females have a higher biological status than males. But women will not USE their privileges quite so much as we male Aspies would if we were in their shoes, because they don’t need to. Women find a lot less men so strongly attractive that they would have intercourse with them, than men find women likewise. Bluntly, the average woman perhaps would feel motivated to have sex with 10% of men, whereas the average man does feel motivated to have sex with 60% of the women he sees or more. In other words, if we “Male Lesbians” were magically transformed into lesbians, we would also find that our sexual drives had become dramatically reduced.
5. Most crucially of all. Even when a woman does feel turned on and aroused by one particular man, that is not enough for her to give the Go Ahead. She needs a more substantial basis for that -some important shared interest; a conscious “good reason” that will win her over. Without it, she can’t do it, even though she feels like it.
My conclusion is that Aspergers males just want women for sex -a very “extremely male” behaviour, indeed. But, unless you belong in the top 1% good looking men (and those who do will not be in this forum), this approach is very destructive and totally useless. Aspie men therefore make perfect prostitute clients. I am sure I am not alone in rejecting prostitution, however. Hence the problem. The solution might be to focus on building RELATIONSHIPS with women, as different from just “chatting them up”, and note the word _building_, which suggests thought, foundations, effort and time.
PS I agree that as an Aspie I am gender and age blind. AS has been described as mind blindness, more generally. I think calling us “gender and age blind” is a euphemism. The reality is that we have a hard time understanding complex situations, and dealing with a very different opposite gender and a wide range of ages is certainly a complex situation.
January 6, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I always liken gender more to personality, at least the performance of gender. What is generally accepted as ‘normal’ gendered behavior, including likes, etc, can and are transgressed (transcended) by individuals within one gender ‘group’ within contemporary society. Transgender, or more specifically transsexualism is (in my opinion and experience) more to do with an innate sense of self, the presentation of which s a reflection of that self-perception. Add to that mix the incidence of an autism spectrum disorder and you have the intersection of a sense of self that s in conflict with the generally accepted norms of both gendered behavior, and sex, but also the socially dislocating aspects of one’s ASD.
In my opinion and experience, transsexualism and Asperger syndrome are relational issues, and that is the way it has made sense to me; in that aspergers mostly involves the relationship one has to others, while trans is more about one’s relationship to one’s self… it is in the projection or presentation of that self where conflict with others may occur (passing, and the politics around that issue).
I have had a conversation once wth Tony Attwood on the subject of the incidence of trans-aspies and his thoughts on us, and I am not in agreeance with a lot of his views, though they do make some sense to a degree (which I will not go into).