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Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

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8ball said:
I suspect my gender ID is more towards the middle than yours, even though I’ve been told having autistic traits is linked to my having an ‘extreme male brain’ (which I’m personally a little sceptical about - I’ve never been much good at ‘being a bloke’).
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My understanding of this is that such ideas originally stemmed from the much greater rates of autism, and even greater rates of Aspergers, in boys compared to girls. From that sort of thinking then came the idea that it might relate to extreme forms of strengths and weaknesses that were already associated with perceived male traits. eg find it easier to see things as systems and get into detail systematically, find it harder to empathise and read social cues. More recently still comes the idea that it could be something to do with levels of testosterone exposure in the womb.

I don't think its too hard to see why such explanations offered attractively simplistic explanations, or why all manner of assumptions and claims on this front will be problematic for all manner of people for many reasons, especially the stereotyped 'male traits' and the opposite ones that are alleged to be the female counterpart traits. In part because even where there is some demonstrable truth to some detail on this front, its dealing with averages and overall statistics. Which is easy to conflate with 'whats considered normal', and plays into all sorts of gender expectations and the sort of crude generalisations that people have to struggle against. And thats before we even get into issues such as the extent to which these various traits are learned by kids rather than being innate, or tell us more about the preconceived ideas of those doing the observing/creating the study methodologies that give us the average gender trait statistics in the first place, than reality.

Personally I suspect that autism isn't even a single spectrum of related conditions, and that there are probably a whole bunch of different underlying factors that may lead to similar traits and symptoms but aren't really indicative of a single condition or cause.
 
elbows said:
.. Personally I suspect that autism isn't even a single spectrum of related conditions, and that there are probably a whole bunch of different underlying factors that may lead to similar traits and symptoms but aren't really indicative of a single condition or cause.
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I suspect there are interrelations in many cases due to the way certain neurodiverse traits correlate (that doesn’t mean there is a single cause, obv).

But in terms of what you say about lumping system-building traits with maleness and running away with it, I also suspect there has been some oversimplifying.

The more I read into this stuff, the more it seems there is no overall consensus.
 
Thora said:
I don't experience a gender identity that is separate from gender roles or being female.
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Yeah, I meant to include that. I REALLY do. I reject a lot of gender roles, have never felt much need to conform, and biologically my infertility stops me fulfilling the female sex imperative. But I am so strongly "team female", and I'm so enormously happy to be that, that my experience of gender has to be something beyond societal roles.

I'm left with the answer that gender identity itself must be on some kind of spectrum.
 
bimble said:
Well yeah. Am I now being accused of suggesting it’d be great if we could all go back to the era of that movie? :D
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I don't know but frankly posting that sort of thing in this thread was a really stupid thing to do in so many ways.

One of the problems is that regardless of the intention behind you posting it, doing so with the phrase 'simpler times' is liable to remind people of the sort of push back that small c conservatives, Peter-hitchens like throwback timelord wannabes, reactionary arseholes and the enemies of progress call for.

I'm not accusing you of that, I am saying the parallels won't be lost on people and you made a mistake.
 
elbows said:
My understanding of this is that such ideas originally stemmed from the much greater rates of autism, and even greater rates of Aspergers, in boys compared to girls. From that sort of thinking then came the idea that it might relate to extreme forms of strengths and weaknesses that were already associated with perceived male traits. eg find it easier to see things as systems and get into detail systematically, find it harder to empathise and read social cues. More recently still comes the idea that it could be something to do with levels of testosterone exposure in the womb.

I don't think its too hard to see why such explanations offered attractively simplistic explanations, or why all manner of assumptions and claims on this front will be problematic for all manner of people for many reasons, especially the stereotyped 'male traits' and the opposite ones that are alleged to be the female counterpart traits. In part because even where there is some demonstrable truth to some detail on this front, its dealing with averages and overall statistics. Which is easy to conflate with 'whats considered normal', and plays into all sorts of gender expectations and the sort of crude generalisations that people have to struggle against. And thats before we even get into issues such as the extent to which these various traits are learned by kids rather than being innate, or tell us more about the preconceived ideas of those doing the observing/creating the study methodologies that give us the average gender trait statistics in the first place, than reality.

Personally I suspect that autism isn't even a single spectrum of related conditions, and that there are probably a whole bunch of different underlying factors that may lead to similar traits and symptoms but aren't really indicative of a single condition or cause.
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I agree. This is another area where we don't really know much but there's an illusion of knowing.

ASD is now thought to present differently in girls, they are thought to be missed by diagnostic criteria skewed to male presentation. Which is maybe interesting in the context of this thread. What is it that is expressed differently? Is it the same 'thing'? How and why is it different? etc.
 
Red Cat said:
ASD is now thought to present differently in girls, they are thought to be missed by diagnostic criteria skewed to male presentation. Which is maybe interesting in the context of this thread. What is it that is expressed differently? Is it the same 'thing'? How and why is it different? etc.
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Ah yes now you mention it I heard something about that, but know almost nothing about it. I will see if I can learn something over the weekend, cheers for the very interesting avenue for further exploration.
 
spanglechick said:
Yeah, I meant to include that. I REALLY do. I reject a lot of gender roles, have never felt much need to conform, and biologically my infertility stops me fulfilling the female sex imperative. But I am so strongly "team female", and I'm so enormously happy to be that, that my experience of gender has to be something beyond societal roles.

I'm left with the answer that gender identity itself must be on some kind of spectrum.
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I don't think i could be more team woman. I've worked in two different women-only settings, most of my social hobbies are women only (dance, women's choir, craft) - these are my interests but also places i can be myself and be heard away from the male gaze- and I've pretty few male friends who are all very gentle and non-macho and not very team man.

But I don't think that's to do with any kind of gender id - i think it's because my personality and socialisation, and the way men are socialised, means I don't get on with lots of them, from the sexist teachers to the cat callers to the many many laddish men (including lots of my boyfriend's friends) who treated me as if I was mute when I was young and pretty.

You watched the BBC doc, right? Those boys already knew they were on the winning team and the girls knew they were on the losing team. I'm for women as marginalised voices, as having to fight harder. I imagine this is how minority groups can feel too.

I also wouldn't count myself among among "the cis women who have most concerns about the access trans women have to womanhood (in its varied situations)" - I couldn't give a shit about who uses toilets and changing rooms on my own account, but I feel obliged to listen to women who have concerns because of e.g. having been sexually assaulted. I do have a concern about any kind of pink/blue brain narrative, in the absence of very clear evidence, for lots of personal and political reasons.
 
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elbows I was being flippant in that post and i get why you said what you did. There's not many of us here so I kind of get to assume that people know each other a little bit and that I'd not be misunderstood as saying either that 'feminists should not enjoy being women' or of being a 'Peter-hitchens like throwback timelord wannabe'.
Without context or explanation I get that it was a potentially offensive post but there's something about that song and video which I was too lazy to try express.
I genuinely do like the song, ironically and kitschly of course but its on a playlist of mine that I used to listen to before going out.
It joins up, for me, with the (Judith Butler's) idea that gender is an interactive performance, its a bunch of actions messages symbolic practices that happen in relation to the world, other people.
When I'm alone in my flat I don't think I feel any gender identity at all but if I were to put on heels and walk down the street I would, do you see what I'm getting at?
 
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innit said:
I don't think i could be more team woman. I've worked in two different women-only settings, most of my social hobbies are women only (dance, women's choir, craft) - these are my interests but also places i can be myself and be heard away from the male gaze- and I've pretty few male friends who are all very gentle and non-macho and not very team man.

But I don't think that's to do with any kind of gender id - i think it's because my personality and socialisation, and the way men are socialised, means I don't get on with lots of them, from the sexist teachers to the cat callers to the many many laddish men (including lots of my boyfriend's friends) who treated me as if I was mute when I was young and pretty.

You watched the BBC doc, right? Those boys already knew they were on the winning team and the girls knew they were on the losing team. I'm for women as marginalised voices, as having to fight harder. I imagine this is how minority groups can feel too.

I also wouldn't count myself among among "the cis women who have most concerns about the access trans women have to womanhood (in its varied situations)" - I couldn't give a shit about who uses toilets and changing rooms on my own account, but I feel obliged to listen to women who have concerns because of e.g. having been sexually assaulted. I do have a concern about any kind of pink/blue brain narrative, in the absence of very clear evidence, for lots of personal and political reasons.
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I agree that my idea of gender ID could well be personality and socialisation, but wanted to separate it from gender roles, which have never felt like a "gender prison". I've more or less always been too fat to conform to beauty standards and I've never really felt that much gendered pressure to change that.

And yes, it's very important to heed the concerns of survivors of assault, but since not all of their suggestions or wishes are the same, each person must also use their own judgement. In the case of sex offenders entering the prison system and having access to the type of people they prey upon, we already have protocols for this. Cisgender sex offenders who offend against their own gender are segregated from the main prison population - in part for their own safety, and also to protect other prisoners. Why wouldn't this happen with transgender sex offenders?

Where the problems are yet to be solved, such as boutique changing rooms with flimsy curtains, this is already a problem for victims of voyeurs who like to spy on their own gender. That alone is a problem worth solving, although not one I've heard many people complain about. The solution is unisex cubicles with doors, of course, as already exist in many shops.

It just seems to me that we can protect people without entering into a discussion where trans and non binary people are forced to fight for what they know to be true about their own identity to be accepted, or to be endowed with anything approaching equal rights.
 
bimble said:
It joins up, for me, with the (Judith Butler's) idea that gender is an interactive performance, its a bunch of actions messages symbolic practices that happen in relation to the world, other people.
When I'm alone in my flat I don't think I feel any gender identity at all but if I were to put on heels and walk down the street I would, do you see what I'm getting at?
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That idea sounds right to me. I think I feel the weight of that performance more in front of other men than in front of women. I wonder if that is a common feeling - that the weight of gendered expectations can be felt more among 'your' gender than the opposite one.
 
Red Cat said:
I agree. This is another area where we don't really know much but there's an illusion of knowing.

ASD is now thought to present differently in girls, they are thought to be missed by diagnostic criteria skewed to male presentation. Which is maybe interesting in the context of this thread. What is it that is expressed differently? Is it the same 'thing'? How and why is it different? etc.
Click to expand...

This is something I find really interesting, (what's seen as) gendered behaviour and how much it's down to socialisation and how all that comes into play with how autism presents in transgender people. I'd love to know more about it but there's still so much we don't understand.

I actually seem to present in a more typically "male" way now, although that's not something I can prove or measure and there's so many variables it would be impossible to pinpoint the change responsible.

(I haven't forgotten btw Athos, will try and answer later today)
 
iona said:
This is something I find really interesting, (what's seen as) gendered behaviour and how much it's down to socialisation and how all that comes into play with how autism presents in transgender people. I'd love to know more about it but there's still so much we don't understand.

I actually seem to present in a more typically "male" way now, although that's not something I can prove or measure and there's so many variables it would be impossible to pinpoint the change responsible.

(I haven't forgotten btw Athos, will try and answer later today)
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No rush. I'm not expecting it to be an issue that'll be resolved today!
 
Was actually discussing the "extreme male brain" (autism) / "extreme female brain" (borderline personality disorder) theory the other day with a cis man at my autism group who, like me, has been given both dxs. I don't buy it myself, but from what I remember of the convo he saw some connection between his bpd dx and some "feminine" aspects of his behaviour/personality (think he mentioned his sexuality here too)
 
iona said:
Was actually discussing the "extreme male brain" (autism) / "extreme female brain" (borderline personality disorder) theory the other day with a cis man at my autism group who, like me, has been given both dxs. I don't buy it myself, but from what I remember of the convo he saw some connection between his bpd dx and some "feminine" aspects of his behaviour/personality (think he mentioned his sexuality here too)
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the science behind it (extreme male brain at least, haven't read on extreme female) is incredibly sparse and highly dubious. I suspect it is only popular because it's nice and easy to understand, and has a superficial correlation.
 
belboid said:
the science behind it (extreme male brain at least, haven't read on extreme female) is incredibly sparse and highly dubious. I suspect it is only popular because it's nice and easy to understand, and has a superficial correlation.
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Yeah no, I think that's bollocks. The conversation was interesting though, as is the wider subject.
 
iona said:
Was actually discussing the "extreme male brain" (autism) / "extreme female brain" (borderline personality disorder) theory
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It's antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder you mean. Autism is something completely different. It's not a personality disorder, it's a neurological condition.
 
mojo pixy said:
It's antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder you mean. Autism is something completely different. It's not a personality disorder, it's a neurological condition.
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No, the extreme male brain theory is a theory of autism. A very well known one.

And no one really knows what any of these 'conditions' are. Many women who end up getting diagnoses of asd have previously been diagnosed with bpd. Many women with a diagnosis of bpd may be better described as having complex trauma or PTSD. There's nothing clear about any of it IMO.
 
You guys.

Autism is nothing like BPD. It's a condition of brain structure. You can have both autism and a personality disorder (in fact it's quite common) but personality disorders are generally treated as psychological conditions. Autism is neurological.

I'll have to bow out now because I'm getting quite cross that autism is being compared with antisocial personality / borderline personality disorders.
 
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