The increasingly convincing link between autism and gender dysphoric kids
by Michael Cook, MercatorNet:
The number of autistic kids is skyrocketing. The number of transgender kids is skyrocketing. Is there a link?
Yes, said a controversial Canadian expert on transgender issues on a BBC documentary earlier this month. Kenneth Zucker is a distinguished figure in the field of the psychology of sexual behaviour. He is the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behaviour and a professor at the University of Toronto.
In 2015 he was summarily dismissed as Head of the Gender Identity Service at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) over his views on whether homosexual and transgender identities are fixed and immutable.
In the BBC feature he argues that most children with gender dysphoria eventually overcome the sensation that they have been born in the “wrong body”. He also suggests that it might be wrong for parents to encourage their children to transition. In the UK, according to the London Telegraph, the number of children under 11 referred for gender dysphoria almost quadrupled between 2009-10 and 2014-15 to 77. Astonishingly, this figure includes 47 under the age of five and two who were only three years old.
Dr Zucker is deeply skeptical about a diagnosis of transgender for these children. He told the BBC:
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