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Comment by mffnbs | Hacker News Reader

I find that difficult to believe. Estrogen isn't known to cause large behavioral changes like you've described. The changes in hormones can result in some emotional changes, but I cannot see how they would reduce symptoms of autism.

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Symptoms of being a high-functioning autistic—as perceived by others—include an inability to empathize with peers or with hypotheticals of “natural” human responses. But one obvious confounder for this symptom is that you’re comparing with the wrong peers. Being a woman but not liking the things women like or having the same emotional responses that women tend to have (because, instead, you like the things men like and have the same emotional responses that men have), could get you (incorrectly) labelled as autistic, when all you’re actually experiencing is gender dysphasia.

So these aren't symptoms that the individual is exhibiting but symptoms that are perceived differently by others? I could definitely see that being the case but I also feel as if that's moved the goalpost on what the parent said.

So now men and women have inherently different interests and emotional responses that should result in not only misdiagnosis of autism, but actual diagnosis of gender dysphoria?

I think that my fiancée with ASD and constantly elevated testosterone levels and gender dysphoria would say yes to the inherented differences in an instant.

But there are plenty of symptoms of ASD that have nothing to do with stereotypical gendered behavior. And they are a requirement for diagnosis.

Personally I don't know.

1-2% of males are autistic. A female with stereotypically male traits isn't autistic on that basis.

One of the key things to know about high-functioning ASD is that it's underdiagnosed; which means that many people who have high-functioning ASD only figure out they're on the spectrum if someone points out to them (or their parents) that they "seem autistic"—and they then take that assertion seriously and ask a doctor.

People who are gender-nonconforming and/or trans, are more likely to have the main trigger event for being diagnosed with autism: being told that they seem autistic. Which will lead to more of them "being" autistic (in the medical-statistics sense, under which people who have ASD but are never diagnosed, get categorized as "neurotypical.")

Found the original article if you're interested: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/28/why-are-transgender-pe...

I'm not saying I necessarily believe it, but it's one of the most interesting articles I've read recently.

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