Aspergers and Transexuality (gender dysphoria)

[pebbles]

Umm, sorry but I fail to see any relevance to the actual topic here. I'm having trouble connecting the dots here.

Cortisol isn't even a sex hormone and doesn't really have anything to do with sexuality or sexual identification. It has a lot of other functions, such as stress response and immune function, but nothing really to do with sexuality that I'm aware of.

Cortisol levels may have some relationship with aspergers, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that it would have much if anything to do with gender issues.

And is aspergers is linked to low cortisol which is linked to high levels of androgen. The only hormone replacement could be of cortisol, or maybe suppression of androgens. None of which seems to have any bearing on gender. And this is just my EXTREMELY uneducated guesses going on what's in your post.

It works like the following.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Steroidogenesis.svg

cholesterol is converted into steroid hormones at a persistent rate. All of the movements throughout and metabolism of these hormones are regulated by the enzymatic activity (green boxes) if you have a mutation in one of those boxes not only will it result in DROP of the hormones succeeding it's line but it ALSO results in a SURPLUS begin shunted down the alternative fully functional pathways.

CAH is a mutation in the gene that makes the enzyme 21-alpha-Hydroxylase you can see it in the center top vertically written. a Mutation in that gene results in a lower level of the following hormones begin produced.

Aldosterone.
Cortisol.
Plus several other unimportant hormones.
Deoxycorticosterone ect

But not only that unused PROGESTERONE family hormones that was gonna turn into those hormones instead gets funneled down the bottom pathway turning into ANDROGENS
results in a higher level of Androgenic hormones begin produced than anything else. This is present in the developing fetus.

Thus there IS a correlation and it dose imply causation. From all we understand thus far MTFs are produced by a number of factors all are related to a lack of Androgen Receptor signaling either through genetically busted receptors, Mothers immune system smashing the receptor with (Anti male Antibodies), Funny drugs like DES scrambling it's signal. Or just generally a lack of testosterone in the womb.

If you develop autism you were exposed to a very strong unambiguous Androgen receptor signal that influenced the development of your nerve cells You have a guys brain by all anatomical definition. Not trying to discredit your gender identity or how you live now in any way.

I suppose Intertalia is right it could be any number of things that cause that phenomenon misdiagnosis for one.

@Carlita
It wasn't what I meant anorexic is well understood and the predisposing genetic factors, Basically there is no physical root of it it's developmentally abnormal behavior cause by a normal brain going through some trauma (rough childhood bad dad ect) see Post Traumatic Stress disorder Or Borderline personality disorder I wanted to pick an example  that people might recognize more readily.

[Inanna]

When I was a child, my parents wondered if I might have Aspergers due to having few friends and poor social skills.  After transitioning in college, I now have plenty of friends and normal social skills.

Reflecting on this, I think I know why.  I was the type of child that always liked doing what the adults wanted, and interacting with people obviously meant they would expect me to follow my assigned gender role.  So, when I was around people I tried to act like a boy, which eventually eroded my enthusiasm for social situations.  As for my peers, they would simply pick on me to get me to fall in line (verbal and physical harassment).  Following that, as a teenager I became more isolated which negatively affected my social skills from lack of practice. 

When I finally started interacting with people as the right gender, my dormant enthusiasm for making friends woke up!

I don't know how much this applies to your child's situation, but do keep in mind that being required to be in an alien gender role can damage otherwise normal social development.

[jo5ianne]

Aerogal,
My son is 20, he has aspergers and he is transgender. I just wanted to ask you how old your son is? I am really struggling with our situation. I'm not trying to be mean, believe me I have tried and tried to let him be the way he is, but our family shouldn't have to suffer. I can't get into all the details right now, I have to go to work. But I am so happy that I found this forum!  Maybe I can get some answers? I guess we will see. My son drives, he doesn't work (not that he doesn't want to, he is having a tough time because no one wants to hire him because he is transgender and has aspergers). That's all for now I have to get going. Any advice would be great!

[tekla]

Though causation between Asperger's and GID is nothing but anecdotal, I do think that it can appear more that way on the web then it does in real life, as Asperger's persons have found the web (particularly posting boards like this one) to be a way they can socialize without the problems they encounter in face-to-face, real time situations.  So I think you have a skewered self-selecting group to start with.

[alia]

@ pebbles

That steroidogenesis diagram was my desktop background for a minutes a few months ago. I'm stoked on the papers you linked.

Know of any more regarding mapping of identified sex in the humunculus?

[alia]

Then again it might be the cause that certain transsexuals don't have any neurological cause of there dysphoria but others might. Add Austisic MTFs to this group of seeming paradoxes.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/4w515837q0821487/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20358272
If you have CAIS it's by all measures physically impossible to develop a "male brain" but there they are. I can't deny there exsistence.

Does CAIS necessarily confound any sort of identified sexual organs in the humunculus? We might be talking about two different mechanisms.

[Carlita]

@Carlita
It wasn't what I meant anorexic is well understood and the predisposing genetic factors, Basically there is no physical root of it it's developmentally abnormal behavior cause by a normal brain going through some trauma (rough childhood bad dad ect) see Post Traumatic Stress disorder Or Borderline personality disorder I wanted to pick an example  that people might recognize more readily.

Sorry ... or some reason I only just saw this ...

And Pebbles, I spent more than two years talking on a regular basis to some of the UK's leading experts in anorexia ... and I can absolutely assure you on their behalf that there are NO known causal factors in the disease. That's one of the very first things they tell you. There are tons of theories on the possible causes of anorexia, of which familial dysfunction is one, and there are certain personality types that are more prone to it than others (my daughter, for example, is a high-achieving perfectionist: not unusual among anorexics) ... but it is quite impossible for anyone to diagnose the causes of any individual case or to establish any statistically robust connection between given factors and the incidence of anorexia. Nor is there any known cure for the condition, other than keeping the patient alive and surrounded by care and counselling and hoping to God that they'll find the strength in themselves to recover. As a family we learned a surefire way of telling the specialists who knew what they were talking about. If they were frazzled, hollow-eyed and completely honest about the utter hell of the disease and the difficulty of curing it, they were good. If they looked like they ate and slept on a regular basis and assured you everything would be fine they were either incompetent or charlatans.

[alia]

@ Carlita

Your story is heart wrenching. Your daughter recovered?

[Carlita]

@ Carlita

Your story is heart wrenching. Your daughter recovered?

She is in recovery, thank God ... When someone suffers from anorexia as seriously as she did, it is like being an alcoholic. You are in recovery for the rest of your life. There was a six-month period in which my wife and I went to bed every night fearing our daughter would not be alive in the morning: and on some of those nights she came close to total heart-seizure and was only kept alive, I think, by the warmth of my wife's body lying next to hers. So for us, the fact that she is alive, reasonably well and now able to attend college is a miracle in itself.

[PixieBoy]

I've got AS, and I'm FtM. I don't think that one of those is the cause of the other; it's kind of like this: AS is the operative system of my computer (brain), while NT (neurotypical) is the operative system people without AS use. Regardless of what operative system we use, we can still have the same program (GID) installed on our computers.