Cont: Transwomen are not women - part XI

[lionking]

People latch on to whatever idea is socially promoted to explain feelings of being different.

Exactly. To deny fashion doesn’t play an important role in the number of young people requesting gender treatment is head in the sand stuff.

Also, I would like Robin to explain the explosion in the number of underage women requesting such treatment.

 

[Nick Terry]

People latch on to whatever idea is socially promoted to explain feelings of being different.

Inded. It would help if everyone stopped denying that Tumblr and similar social media platforms have done more to drive this than any other factor.

In a lot of cases, being able to connect with communities of likeminded people means getting to express and discover one's true self and core identity.

In many others, identities are adopted and discarded along with the online communities, or the communities suck in people into de facto cults.

The subconscious element is the impact of constant signals and advertising from reading or watching repetitive content. One example being the message conveyed to girls and women by constantly seeing images of slim women - that will have an effect on their body image and can cause dysmorphia, anorexia, etc. Another example is the effects of porn on male sexual behaviours, with previously marginal sexual practices becoming mainstream by dint of sheer repetition and labelling/marketing. These things might not rise to the level of identities, but in some cases overlap with them.

 

[Robin]

Exactly. To deny fashion doesn’t play an important role in the number of young people requesting gender treatment is head in the sand stuff.

Also, I would like Robin to explain the explosion in the number of underage women requesting such treatment.

Why does being able to rule something out imply an obligation to rule something in????

That makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Robin]

What you are saying doesn't make sense.

You are getting this out of context.

The poster suggested that a child might not understand the sources of their social disconnectedness.

I am pointing out that the vast number of autistic children understand perfectly the source of their own.social disconnectedness.

The problem here seems to be that no-one here seems to understand the first thing about autism.or it's treatments.

 

[Robin]

Inded. It would help if everyone stopped denying that Tumblr and similar social media platforms have done more to drive this than any other factor.

In a lot of cases, being able to connect with communities of likeminded people means getting to express and discover one's true self and core identity.

In many others, identities are adopted and discarded along with the online communities, or the communities suck in people into de facto cults.

The subconscious element is the impact of constant signals and advertising from reading or watching repetitive content. One example being the message conveyed to girls and women by constantly seeing images of slim women - that will have an effect on their body image and can cause dysmorphia, anorexia, etc. Another example is the effects of porn on male sexual behaviours, with previously marginal sexual practices becoming mainstream by dint of sheer repetition and labelling/marketing. These things might not rise to the level of identities, but in some cases overlap with them.

But this has nothing to do with autism, it relates to neurotyps equally, if not more, since neurotyps do more social processing subconsciously than those on the spectrum.

 

[Ziggurat]

But that would imply that we should now be seeing fewer gender dysphoria diagnoses since autism is now better understood and being diagnosed more frequently and earlier.

You misunderstand completely. The potential problem isn't misdiagnosis of autism as gender dysphoria. That was never my claim, and that would indeed be quite strange. The potential problem here is misdiagnosis of people who have autism as also having gender dysphoria. They aren't mutually exclusive, and the whole point is that there is an apparent large overlap between the two. And when the typical response to claims of gender dysphoria is affirmation, having a diagnosis of autism does nothing to prevent a misdiagnosis of gender dysphoria.

 

[Robin]

Now surely it's no big mystery why people who lack the mechanism for unconscious social processing are less likely to conform to social norms?

 

[Robin]

You misunderstand completely. The potential problem isn't misdiagnosis of autism as gender dysphoria. That was never my claim, and that would indeed be quite strange. The potential problem here is misdiagnosis of people who have autism as also having gender dysphoria.

As I keep pointing out that makes no difference all to what I am saying.

Do you agree with me that an autistic child today is much more likely to completely understand the reasons for their symptoms now than 20 years ago?

Do you agree that medical professionals are much more likely to understand the reasons for an autistic child's symptoms?

Do you agree that current interventions for spectrum conditions are successful in alleviating these symptoms?

 

[Elaedith]

You are getting this out of context.

The poster suggested that a child might not understand the sources of their social disconnectedness.

I am pointing out that the vast number of autistic children understand perfectly the source of their own.social disconnectedness.

The problem here seems to be that no-one here seems to understand the first thing about autism.or it's treatments.

I disagree that 'the vast number of autistic children understand perfectly the source of their own.social disconnectedness'. Simply putting information online does not mean that people (especially children) understand it, accurately distinguish reliable from unreliable facts, appreciate the full implications, or apply it accurately to themselves. You still need experience to come to an understanding of what the concepts mean.

 

[Ziggurat]

As I keep pointing out that makes no difference all to what I am saying.

Do you agree with me that an autistic child today is much more likely to completely understand the reasons for their symptoms now than 20 years ago?

No. That's a stupid assertion. Children do not understand themselves. That applies to neurotypical and autistic children. Hell, most adults don't really understand themselves. The entire profession of psychology exists in large part because we're bad at introspection.

Do you agree that medical professionals are much more likely to understand the reasons for an autistic child's symptoms?

No. That's a stupid assertion. Most medical professionals do not specialize in autism.

Do you agree that current interventions for spectrum conditions are successful in alleviating these symptoms?

No. That's a stupid assertion. Autism isn't curable. Its symptoms are not alleviated, they are managed, and not always "successfully".

 

[Elaedith]

Now surely it's no big mystery why people who lack the mechanism for unconscious social processing are less likely to conform to social norms?

That doesn't follow either. Not picking up social norms unconsciously simply means needing to devote more mental effort to work out what they are. This doesn't automatically translate into not wanting to conform to them, which is likely to depend on other personality traits.

To the extent that somebody does need to work hard to understand social norms which don't make sense to them, this may make them more inclined to accept to an explanation that seems to provide an alternative, and conform to that.

 

[Robin]

That doesn't follow either.,t.

The only thing I said was that people without the neural mechanisms for unconscious social processing are less likely to conform to social norms.

I didn't say they couldn't work out what they were and conform to them. In fact that is the basis for much of the intervention in autism conditions.

You have basically missed the point of all that I have been saying.

 

[Robin]

But if you've read John Elder Robison's Look Me on the Eye, he challenged the idea that it is the job of people on the Spectrum to mimic the social cues of neurotyps but rather to explain our condition and help them relate to us.

 

[Robin]

So let's state this again:

People without the neural mechanisms for unconscious social processing are less likely to conform to social norms than those with those mechanisms.

If you disagree with that the you probably no exactly nothi g about autism.

 

[Robin]

No. That's a stupid assertion. Children do not understand themselves.

I am on the spectrum, all three of my kids are on the spectrum. Through support groups I speak to many on the spectrum and I work closely with the professionals who manage my kids interventions.

The whole basis of the interventions is to make them aware of their condition and the reasons for their inability to connect with mainstream society and to give them strategies to overcome the barrier

They wouldn't do this and it wouldn't work if children lacked the ability to understand their condition.

But it will surprise you to learn that it turns out that children are not complete ******* idiots as you appear to suppose.

Indeed this strategy often works even with children who have mild to moderate intellectual disabilities.

 

[Robin]

Nor will understanding one's own autistic spectrum condition lead to not self-identifying as trans.

Nobody said it would. For example they might be trans.

What I said is that understanding one's own autistic spectrum condition will dramatically reduce the chances that you will mistake the autism symptoms for symptoms of something else.

As I said, autistic kids thoroughly understand the reasons for their social disconnectedness so they don't need to seek answers for that elsewhere.

 

[theprestige]

Now surely it's no big mystery why people who lack the mechanism for unconscious social processing are less likely to conform to social norms?

Gender dysphoria is more like other forms of BIID than it is like other forms of social nonconformity.

 

[Robin]

Just to clear a couple of things up according to the dictionary 'alleviate" means to reduce suffering from something so interventions do alleviate the symptoms arising from being on the spectrum. It nearly always reduced suffering.

The reason that autism can't be cured is that autism isn't a disease in the first place. We don't want to be converted into neurotyps and forgo the advantages of being on the spectrum.

 

[Samson]

Just to clear a couple of things up according to the dictionary 'alleviate" means to reduce suffering from something so interventions do alleviate the symptoms arising from being on the spectrum. It nearly always reduced suffering.

The reason that autism can't be cured is that autism isn't a disease in the first place. We don't want to be converted into neurotyps and forgo the advantages of being on the spectrum.

Do you see it as analogous, self identifying as autistic, and self identifying as trans gender?

 

[d4m10n]

As I said, autistic kids thoroughly understand the reasons for their social disconnectedness so they don't need to seek answers for that elsewhere.

This may well be true for the kids who are in contact with support groups such as the ones you mentioned, but why assume it is equally true for your median GIDS patient at the Tavi, who are being told to prioritize the gender identity treatment pathway over other developmental concerns?