Is There a Link Between Autism and Gender Dysphoria?Kyle Simon, The Huffington Post, 09/13/2013 6:33 pm
One of the more common autism-related numbers thrown around these days is the fact that it is four times more likely to occur in boys than in girls. A less commonly discussed phenomenon in the autism community (and in the greater mental health community) is that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) occur at a higher rate in transgender people than in the general population. This trend, documented in dozens of case studies and prevalence studies, causes some uncertainty around the four-times-more-common-in-males statistic and raises questions about autism and gender identity.
A study conducted by a team of British scientists in 2012 found that of a pool of individuals not diagnosed on the autism spectrum, female-to-male (FTM) transgender people have higher rates of autistic features than do male-to-female (MTF) transgender people or cisgender males and females. Another study, which looked at children and adolescents admitted to a gender identity clinic in the Netherlands, found that almost 8 percent of subjects were also diagnosed with ASD. That figure is nearly four times higher than the rate of ASD in the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)...
