We’re Lesbians on the Autism Spectrum. Stop Telling Us to Become MenJ Peters
23 Jan 2022
If there was ever a case for a trans child, I was it. Let’s take a look at the DSM-5 guidelines and its diagnostic definition of gender dysphoria, followed by descriptions of my own experience:
A strong desire to be of the other gender or insistence that one is the other gender.When I was in kindergarten, my teacher called home to express serious concern that I was developmentally confused, due to my insistence on lining up with the boys to go to the bathroom. Well into adolescence, I went to great pains to “pass” as a boy and even got reprimanded for going into women’s restrooms. I liked this, considering it a sign of my success.
A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the opposite gender.When I was in first grade, I began refusing to wear my hair long or to dress in anything other than boys’ blue jeans and polo shirts, or similar attire. This “phase” lasted through my junior year of high school, when I finally accepted (following a long and arduous puberty) that I would never “pass” again.
A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play.* * *
There are probably many of you out there reading this, nodding along. Likely, many of you are teenage girls or young women around my age. Others, likely teenage boys or young men in their 20s, are probably feeling that this list would apply perfectly to you, if only the sex and gender roles involved were reversed. You perhaps identify as trans, or non-binary, or at least gender-questioning.
And I don’t blame you. When I first discovered the DSM-5 guidelines, it was jaw-dropping, so much so that it’s one of those moments that imprinted itself in my mind forever. I still remember where I was, what I was wearing, and the exact texture of the rock that was stuck in my shoe.
This is likely where mine and my readers’ personal narratives begin to diverge. While their reactions to reading these guidelines, or discovering a trans Internet forum, or stumbling upon a trans group at school, were likely of relief at finally finding an “answer,” mine could never be that simple. The analytical wheels of my brain started turning, wondering how something so common as a tomboy could become a psychiatric diagnosis.
* * *
Here’s the thing: I was saved by the grace of discovering this phenomenon too late. By then, I was 20 years old, and had already found ways to cope with my so-called gender dysphoria that didn’t involve turning myself into a lifelong pharmaceutical patient, or subjecting my already fragile body to more and more unnecessary surgeries.
You see, even at 20 I knew what that meant in a way most people don’t. I was already a lifelong pharmaceutical patient who’d been through multiple (unrelated) invasive and damaging surgeries due to factors beyond my control. The idea that anyone would do this to themselves—or worse, to their child—for the simple sin of not conforming to gender norms in the Year of Our Lord 2016 was beyond my comprehension. (If you think I was disturbed by this, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered “Body Integrity Identity Disorder” not much later.)
* * *
That fantasy was a brief one: I shortly realized that the reason the trans community on campus disliked the guidelines wasn’t because they were overly broad, but because they were apparently oppressively narrow, withholding lifesaving medical interventions from an already vulnerable population. And the emphasis here was on medical interventions, i.e., puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries. It struck me that these individuals didn’t seem concerned with actual psychological treatment.
* * *
The result, however, was not what they intended. The more sources I read, the more questions I had, with none of my previous questions being answered in the process. No one seemed to be able to define terms such as trans, gender dysphoria, non-binary, or gendered soul without using what struck me as obvious gender stereotypes. No one could define the word woman, either. In fact, I started being reprimanded for even daring to use the word woman or making any references to female biology in a political context at school.
I’m the kind of person who takes forever to make my mind up about something. Righteous anger on behalf of any viewpoint isn’t my strong suit; in fact, I find it grating, and usually indicative of a lack of even-handed thought on any given topic. So I kept assuming I must be missing something. That this whole thing wasn’t homophobic or sexist, that it was just a misunderstood phenomenon, and that if I just stuck it out with my good old-fashioned epistemic humility, the answers I wanted would come in due time.
They didn’t. And then my closest friend in the whole word, a classically masculine straight computer nerd obsessed with sci-fi and video games, told me he was a lesbian. After that, he moved back into his childhood bedroom, stopped pursuing further education or employment, and began a series of invasive medical interventions all while engaging in some rather disturbing roleplay in which he was a 12-year-old anime girl. Apparently, this was my breaking point.
* * *
I don’t much relate to the accounts of transitioning girls and young women in Abigail Shrier’s (impeccably-researched) book, Irreversible Damage, though I feel deep concern for them, and for the cohort of girls that will no doubt follow them. In the case of girls, these stories often involve social contagion. Ironic as it is, I relate far more to the stories of the solitary, introverted, inward-looking boys documented in Angus Fox’s seven-part 2021 Quillette series, “When Sons Become Daughters.” Perhaps this is because I’m a pretty textbook case of what used to be called Asperger’s syndrome, though I wasn’t diagnosed until college due to the insistence of an adolescent psychologist that I had OCD instead.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tend to present differently in girls, and some of this is explored in Shrier’s book. Because ASD is a mostly male phenomenon, psychologists often don’t know what symptoms to look for in their female patients. In fact, many psychologists simply don’t look for any symptoms of ASD in women and girls at all, and attribute even classic symptoms to other conditions, even when those conditions aren’t as good a fit.
* * *
Here’s the thing about ASD: One of its hallmark symptoms is discomfort in one’s own body, and with the physical world more generally. Especially in this day and age of self-diagnosis, and the sea of misleading “autism” memes on social media, it’s hard to realize that there’s more to the condition than social anxiety. In fact, I’d argue if you’re hyper-aware of your own social ineptness, especially in childhood, you probably aren’t on the spectrum. The issue here is social obliviousness, not social anxiety. Sure, the anxiety often comes along later, when you finally realize you’re doing something wrong, but it’s not the source of the problem.
* * *
Source:
https://quillette.com/2022/01/23/i-wanted-transition-to-solve-my-problems/
