How Our Society Harms Trans People Who Are Also Autistic

What happens when you have to combat not only transphobia, but also ableism?

Earlier this year, BBC Two ran a documentary called Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best? The film features Dr. Kenneth Zucker, the former head of the now-closed and discredited Gender Identity Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and loud media advocate for conversion therapy for transgender children. During the documentary, Zucker makes the claim that transgender children are autistic kids who are fixated on gender. It’s a belief that is increasingly common among those pushing for transphobic corrective medical “solutions” for transgender children and adults, drawn from a gross misinterpretation of current medical studies on the link between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and gender dysphoria.

There is a link between those with ASD and those with gender dysphoria; though the research done on the subject is thin, a 2010 study out of the Netherlands found that 7.8% of people diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) under the older fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—it was revised in 2013 for the DSM-V—also had an ASD diagnosis. It’s estimated that only 0.6% to 1% of the general population have GID. However, popular conservative…