- Adolescents with autism are overrepresented in the youth transgender population, and some medical professionals attribute this to autism spectrum traits such as obsessive thinking, vulnerability to body image issues and a sense of social rejection and isolation during adolescence.
- Dr. Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist who began working with gender dysphoric children in the 1970s, said she believed most of the children who sought gender transitions had high-functioning autism and were being exploited by the medical industry.
- “When somebody happens to mention that, you know, they’re trans or they hear about trans kids and go online, even if all they do is say, ‘I wonder if I’m trans,’ a lot of these kids are automatically accepted. ‘Well, you must be trans if you’ve even thought about that.’ And for them, that is a very helpful reaction, because all of a sudden, they feel as though that explains all of the trouble all the way along,” Bradley told the DCNF
Children with autism make up an outsized proportion of the transgender-identified population, and autism spectrum traits make them particularly vulnerable to thought patterns that can lead youth to pursue gender transitions, according to research and medical professionals.
Transgender individuals are about three to six times more likely to be autistic than non-transgender people, research shows; the connection between transgenderism and autism has been a subject of interest for researchers since at least 2010, and the Gender Development Identity Service at Tavistock, the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic, came under fire in recent years over allegations that as many as 97.5% of its gender patients had autism. Dr. Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist and pioneer in treating gender dysphoria, told the DCNF that she now believes most pediatric gender patients are actually on the autism spectrum and are being exploited by medical professionals.
Approved ~ FS
