Autism and Gender Dysphoria, Part 4
By Mary Smith
Rigidity / Black-and-White Thinking
Autistic people are especially prone to rigid or ‘black-and-white’ thinking. Anyone with a gender dysphoric child caught up in the current trans-identifying maelstrom will attest to how difficult it can be to challenge their ideas. Many parents describe their children as ‘reading from a script’, parroting an activist’s stance that they have learned by rote in online communities. Black-and-white thinking goes hand in hand with a strong sense of social justice and a kind of moral absolutism — another reason why the trans rights movement can hold such appeal.
Literal thinking of this kind can lead autistic kids to assume that if someone uses opposite sex pronouns when referring to them, they have actually changed sex. The situation becomes critical when the whole of society colludes in this delusion, often starting with family and friends, and spreading to include schools, the health services, charities, police, government, media and corporations.
Christina Buttons unpacks the significance of black-and-white thinking as it relates to gender dysphoria in a series of incisive bullet points in her article, ‘How Autistic Traits can be Mistaken for Gender Dysphoria’.
In Gender Dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder: a narrative review, the authors speculate that rigidity of thought in autistic individuals can worsen symptoms of gender dysphoria (GD):
Developmental rigidity. As part of normative gender development, children between the ages of three and five show more rigid gender-stereotypical beliefs as compared to older children (Ruble et al., 2007), which then decreases after the age of five. It is hypothesized that individuals with ASD may not reach this level of flexibility in their gender development, due to their general rigidity and are therefore prone to develop GD (de Vries et al., 2010). For example, Lemaire et al. (2014) described a case of a 23-year-old woman in which the rigid thinking of ASD might have contributed to GD, or at least increased the difficulty in coping with GD.’ [p.76]
Diagnosing gender dysphoria in young autistic people often involves ‘diagnostic overshadowing’, which describes a situation where one perceived condition or disability – gender dysphoria, in this case – ‘overshadows’ every other factor which might be contributing to the patient’s health/state of mind, in our case, including autism.
A trans identity can be seen to explain why people are the way they are, along the lines of, ‘if you’ve ever experienced any doubt about your gender identity then you’re likely to be trans…’, an argument which is widely peddled online to gender-questioning children. What is taken to be a ‘trutrans’ identity can, however, easily be confused with autism itself. A ‘trutrans’ identity is defined as ‘insistent, consistent and persistent’, which are all traits that also apply to an autistic mindset.
Many children who would otherwise tick all the boxes for Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) believe they are the exception to the rule. In other words, they acknowledge the possibility of the existence of social contagion, or that a trans identity may be a trendy lifestyle choice for an exponentially growing group of young people, all whilst insisting that their own case is different. The clarity of this narrative is itself an example of black-and-white thinking. Parents often describe children and young people as rewriting their own history, claiming that they have ‘always been trans’. This exercise in confirmation bias mis-remembers a non-dysphoric past as being littered with telltale signs. The trans mythos is full of rigidity and black-and-white thinking. It is almost as if the myth was specifically designed for an autistic sensibility.
Insistent slogans like ‘Transwomen Are Women’ seem to fit with this mental rigidity. At the same time, this mantra could be considered an incantatory example of magical thinking.
It is noteworthy that the trans community adheres so rigidly to self-ascribed gender roles, with people of both sexes often opting for the most stereotypical vision of manhood or womanhood, respectively. This is despite the inherent contradiction with the much-touted idea that gender identity is fluid.
Special Interests
Autistic children tend to have special interests which can range from a love of dinosaurs to an exhaustive knowledge of all things Disney-related. As we have seen, autistic people have a remarkable ability to systematise, which can manifest as an impressive level of expertise in a specific field, bordering on obsession. For example, a child in love with the world of Pokémon may display an encyclopaedic knowledge of this invented universe, and classification skills on a level with a botanist or zoologist.
One issue with the trans preoccupation is that, because it involves the very concept of the self, it can become a lasting obsession. Other special interests, in contrast, are more easily discarded in favour of new passions. A younger child may exhibit a deep and years-long fascination with, say, minerals and rock collecting, only to lose interest and become passionate about the back-catalogue of 007 films. A special interest in the world of gender tends to have longevity, with the added impetus of a social contagion. Young people spend many hours online researching gender identity ideology. This personal interest appears to explain why they feel ‘different’ within society and in their own bodies. This interest is also fuelled by its resonance with a seemingly unstoppable worldwide movement.
In Think About Things Differently: Autism and Gender Identity, Jane Galloway points out that there is something more compelling about a trans obsession than other types of special interest for the following reason:
Hours a day have been spent on the internet, on forums and websites and on social media, researching and watching every YouTube video and TikTok channel they can, as they go into a state of autistic hyperfocus. This creates a feedback loop whereby the more time they spend researching their interest and interacting with others online, the more convinced they become that this represents their true authentic self. (5.4.8)
As with all special interests, there is a tendency towards repetition, which creates a feeling of safety and security. The accumulation of knowledge in a particular subject area is common to both hobbyists and experts. However, the way this works with a trans obsession is significantly different. While niche ‘obsessions’ are validated within small communities of aficionados, a trans obsession is affirmed not only within LGBTQIA+ communities and forums, but also within society as a whole. Indeed, a trans identity has the cachet of an oppressed minority status, all whilst being utterly mainstream and aggressively pushed by children’s television programmes and overt advertising across the board aimed at discrete children’s age groups: from takeaway coffee ads depicting teens with double mastectomy scars, to pink, white and blue packaged sweeties designed to appeal to very young children. And arguably, as we have seen, a trans obsession can appear to explain why autistic young people feel different in the first place. It can confer a sense of purpose, meaning and selfhood, offering a quick-fix solution to the painful intangibles of growing up, in what Jane Galloway has termed ‘the landscape of action’.
Once entered, that landscape of action is extraordinarily hard to leave, especially when ADHD traits are also present. In our final instalment (Part 5) we explore the ADHD overlap, offer practical strategies for parents, examine why therapy with autistic gender-distressed clients is so challenging, and ask what the de-pathologisation of autism and of gender dysphoria really means for vulnerable young people.
Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
Mary Smith is a UK writer, researcher, and parent, engaged in resisting gender ideology and its harms.
Image: Photo by Tanja Tepavac on Unsplash
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