Study: Why Some Transgendered People Have Higher Levels of Autistic Traits

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/18/study-why-some-transgendered-people-have-higher-levels-of-autistic-traits/
5/18/11
By Maia Szalavitz

Female-to-male transgendered people — known as transmen — have more autistic traits than typical heterosexual men and women, and more than those who wish to switch gender in the opposite direction, according to new research.

Scientists led by Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology, at Cambridge University looked for autistic traits, such as problems parsing social signals and difficulty in dealing with changes in routine, in 61 transmen, 198 transwomen, 98 typical females, 76 typical males and 125 people with actual diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.

"Those in the female-to-male group scored above average in terms of the number of autistic traits," says Baron-Cohen. Indeed, the transmen outscored all but those with Asperger's diagnoses on the Autism Spectrum Quotient, a scale devised by Baron-Cohen.