Autistic Trans Children Are Not Cause for Alarm
cn: dealing with anti-trans arguments, dealing with anti- autistic sentiment, transphobia, bodily autonomy, brief surgery/hormones mention, intersex coercion
Trans people are more likely to be autistic. This is a fact that leads to anti-trans campaigners to panic. Their ideas often suggest that autistic children are less able to understand their inner world, but that is laughable. As an autistic trans person, being autistic doesn’t lead you to transition for “the wrong reason”. There are very few “wrong reasons” to transition unless you are being forced to do so by another person. Much more common is trans children are forced to present and think about themselves as cis.
Never the less, this tactic is used to scare the public into thinking trans children are actually just confused autistics who have no idea what they are doing.
For a lot of autistic people, we understand ourselves (and the beliefs and concepts we hold) much better than we understand the rest of humanity, and we understand ourselves better than the outside world does.
Gender is a concept directly linked to the use of it in language and development of it happens naturally as a child ages. As a society and parents, the best thing we can do for our children is teaching them that a person can be anything they want regardless of gender, but acknowledging that we live in a very gendered society, and everyone individual’s conception of gender can vary wildly.
We need to teach kids that they are only here to express themselves, not fit into a small pre-made box. Telling a child they can’t be a boy or a girl, or forcing intersex children to identify with a binary gender is unfairly limiting.
Yes, we also need to let them explore their gender without making any demand they be trans or cis and teach children that transitioning won’t solve all their problems at all. The majority of trans children (yes, even the very young ones) understand this. Transitioning and support around gender exploration often gives them space to deal with other problems they may have in their life, as it means more accurately being yourself in the world. The very very few cases where a trans child who may be autistic thinks transitioning will fix all their problems will realise this after talks with gender specialist and experiences of non-medical transitioning, like clothing changes and hairstyle changes.
Trans children often have no medical input, but if they do in the UK it is only hormone blocker, which gives a child time to decide what steps might be best for them to take, with the right support, obviously. Changing hair and clothing choices are all reversible steps that give children the freedom to take joy in exploring self-expression! Trans kids do not get hormone treatment until they are 16, and surgery at 18, all after many consultations more than you would need for a full body tattoo or nose job.
Children are smart. The information about how trans people exist and can change their appearance, and if they want to bodies, is widely and increasingly available.
This has given way for more children to experiment with gender and identity in ways and scale not previously seen. This should be encouraged to encourage growth and self development without wishing to dictate that for your child. Only you child has direct experience with what their concept of gender and how they fit into that is.
Autonomy to express oneself in a way that causes no harm to other is something it makes philosophical sense to celebrate.
Autistic children have probably benefited from this recent shift in attitudes toward trans people the most, as we often struggle with social constructs as a whole, and are more likely to break down ideas of gender and the gender binary.
Autistic children are more likely to have a complex, nuanced concept of gender meaning they are more able to explore themselves than their neurotypical peers. Limiting their self-expression because of their autism not only doesn’t make sense but is discrimination. Autistic folk are just as capable of understanding themselves as non-autistic folk
Our autism does not invalidate our conception of gender, but just means we are people more likely to explore it critically. A lot of us are quite curious and introverted and so more likely to develop that self-insight it requires to understand what it means to be trans and evaluate if that fits our perception of ourselves. The ability to have a valid conception of self is not limited to non-autistic people. We’re just more likely to challenge arbitrary norms.
