So, you give birth and come home and marvel that they let you walk out of the hospital doors without having a clue how to take care of this fragile being.
I have neither an ASD nor a trans child, but this was a heartbreaking read. All I would contribute to this discussion is, after years of considering every aspect of gender ideology, there is irrefutable evidence that the tide is turning away from mindless acceptance of the coercive edicts of the trans rights activists (TRAs). This is a long response because there are so many hopeful signs.
These include:
The new laws in Alberta governing puberty blockers, strengthening parental rights regarding social transitioning for teenagers and banning boys participating in girls sports.
The wide acceptance and adherence to the recommendations made in the Cass review.
The removal of DEI programs in huge corporations and Universities like Walmart, Toyota and University of Alberta to name just a few.
Almost all of the countries in Europe who were part of the first wave of gender medicine have now reversed their gender affirming policies and are banning puberty blockers and requiring more expansive psychological counselling that includes restricting most children from transitioning.
In the social media, Facebook just dropped fact checking despite the howls of outrage from the likes of Stonewall and other TRA groups who will no longer have a huge platform where they have unquestioning acceptance of their decrees.
What ever else one might think about the change of government in the US, opposition to the Dems trans/woke policies was proven to be the tipping point since a huge percentage of independents cited it as being the determining factor in their vote, over ANY other issue. What that means for politicians, if they choose to listen, is that gender ideology does not have the support of the electorate.
There is a growing number of de-transitioners whose cases against gender affirming medical treatment (GAMT) providers are going through the courts at this moment. Of all of the factors that will decisively turn the tide, this may well be the most significant because: 1) legal proceedings expose lies like "puberty blockers are reversible" because courts require evidence rather than political catchphrases 2) GAMT will become impossibly expensive to insure once practitioners become financially liable for the harm done to gender confused youth who have undergone irreversible, highly risky surgeries and hormone replacement therapies 3) In a recent case on states rights before SCOTUS, the questions asked by the justices indicated that the verdict is highly likely to uphold the rights of states to curtail GAMT.
Finally the cruelest coercive tactic of gender ideologues, "do you want a dead son or a live daughter?", ie. the narrative that suicides among kids who aren't allowed to transition, has taken a huge hit. The findings of the Cass review and a Finnish study between 1997 and 2019 that found a statistically insignificant (.2%) difference in suicides of gender referred children and a control group, are game changing. Even Chase Strangio, a TRA arguing for GAMT for minors had to admit in front of the Supreme Court that the suicide narrative with trans ID kids was false. The unquestioning acceptance of this narrative is declining and counselling practices are beginning to shift to treat underlying causes of gender confusion, like trauma from sexual assault and porn addiction, which can only help kids having suicidal ideation.
There are many, many more changes to the status quo of blind acceptance of the lie that humans can transition to the opposite sex that are happening right now. I can't point to any evidence that there is a growing acceptance of ASD individuals, but since more than a third of autistic kids descend into the gender morass, hopefully in the near future, gender confusion will be one less agony that these kids and their families will have to endure.
Thank you for sharing this story. Unfortunately, I've heard it a million times.
A trans identity is sometimes the only way an autistic adolescent can get attention that feels like acceptance, but it's all misappropriated and therefore fake. Autism traits are now being reclassified as queer or trans, burying autism and leaving people unrecognised and unsupported. TRAs even claim addressing possible autism in a trans identified person is conversion therapy - so now apparently autism diagnoses are transphobic, go figure, everything is these days isn't it.
I am doing Gender Critical Autistic Voices Interviews on my Substack if anyone would like to share their thoughts - you can be diagnosed or self diagnosed autistic or a family/professional etc. Can be done anonymously. I hope it's OK to leave this link here. Please share with others if you can.
This article is so well written. You could wite volumes, I can imagine, but you selected and crafted this so well. Thank you for sharing this very important perspective. 💛
VERY similar to our family's experience, though we didn't truly understand it was high-functioning autism until she failed to graduate from high school . . . Anyway, your points are well taken. First, if they're not studying, what are they doing? Exposing themselves to dangerous crap! and second, why oh why are schools so gung-ho about inclusiveness for "trans kids" but not for autistic ones???
Thank you for this. You just described our lives perfectly. Except our daughter accumulated so many diagnoses other than autism until she turned 17, was already trans, and was finally diagnosed. Dyslexia, severe anxiety, ARFID, depression, gifted, executive function issues, social anxiety, etc etc etc. Nothing like having the head of school in grade 3 tell you that ‘it makes the school look bad when your child is crying upon leaving school.’ I felt so alone for so many years but then it got so much worse. Once trans ID’ed, the damn eating clinic tried to give her testosterone in the first appointment rather then try to figure out why she was so underweight. They fed us the line in front of her ‘she hates her body and she will kill herself …’ We left the U.S. six months ago. More like ‘fled’! I can assure you doctors in Europe aren’t buying the BS. They understand what biological sex is and refuse to go along with any of it and even refer to her as ma’am. I no longer dread taking our daughter to the doctor. I am livid to hear there are so many of us here. When will the world wake up?!
That was intense reading. It is 100X what i dealt with parenting a child with ADHD. The IEP mandating that I be notified if he is not turning in homework, only to find at the end of the year that he is failing many classes because didn't turn in his work. The system is a mess.
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, George Orwell, H. G. Wells, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen, Immanuel Kant, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin ...
The Abilify that was initially prescribed to my son was marketed to him illegally. It was marketed to him illegally AFTER the manufacturer, Bristol Myer Squibb, had paid a half billion dollar fine for illegally marketing Abilify.
My son was not gay or trans to my knowledge. Like many adolescents targeted for this horrific treatment, he was on the autism spectrum. Quite high on the spectrum. Was only dx'd when his father insisted he seek treatment in his late teens.
It was the stinking pshrink who had him on five psych drugs. Very much against my wishes, but once he turned 18 I had no say. Even tho he was covered by, and treated under, our health insurance policy.
"It's not so much a science as an art," his father was told by the 'doctor', who was responsible imo for my son's death. Responsible for his murder, rather.
Oh but it's all good. Cuz after my son blew his brains out with his sister's gun (lovely piece of 'artwork' I get to be thankfulI I never saw), and I told the pshrink sarcastically "yer drugs worked real well, didn't they?", she offered to refund our insurance copays.
Has anyone had a trans child come back home after a few or several years? Or never? I pray that my son will come back home someday to tell us that his back to being our son. Does this ever happen or is this an unrealistic wish on my part?
Yes, it can happen. Keep the hope despite the suffering. My daughter was not autistic and in college when she was snatched up into the flames of trans hell. Many years later she re-entered our lives as herself. She was not your average kid though - always the smartest kid in the class and did want to be just a cool kid. No one has the answer and every story has its own nuances but I must believe many will exit.
I am very grateful to you for opening up and saying it like it is for you and so many of us. There were aspects of your son's behavior that were similar to my son's behavior when he was growing up. Just like you, I was so frustrated and confused when raising him and trying to get him to conform to the norm while dealing with stress, confusion, and sometimes embarrassment. My son was also above his peers in intelligence, as his teachers told me and as I knew. He was brilliant. I thought of him as an absented-minded professor who would be lost in his intelligent thoughts. He seemed to be in his own world as he played with his toys and as he stared out of the car window just thinking, for example,. He got stressed out so easily. When he was young, he would get upset if I did not give him at least 48 hours' notice that he had an upcoming doctor's appointment. He got upset when playing competitive games with other boys. In the 6th grade, he stood up at a restaurant and screamed at the boy he was playing a game with, claiming that this boy had cheated in the game they were playing. In my shock and embarrassment, I wanted to crawl under the table! He would scream on the way home after I picked him up from school. He said that he hated himself and would hit his head against a wall. He attended a high pressure, all boys, academic private school that met his intellectual level. I wondered if this was the right place for him or not. It was so confusing to know. He always seemed so black and white in his thinking patterns. It was so stressful and difficult. Nothing I tried helped to make a difference, including taking him to psychologists. No one told me that he could be in the high functioning autistic spectrum. Today, my husband and I really do believe that he was that. I wish that all of us parents in this situation could chat together and be friends. We all had such similar experiences. It was such a challenge. And, now I have lost my son (before he had the time to fully grow and figure himself out, as most people do) to the transgender movement. I feel that he and other trans kids that PITT parents write about then (quickly) were swept away from us parents as they walked off a transgender plank into deep waters. It is like falling into the deep end of a pool without any understanding of what is truly happening . They see some sort of utopian dream in the trans movement's experience which is actually one big, harmful lie.
As a parent who has been profoundly affected by gender ideology, but not autism, you have helped me understand this unique exile that you have experienced.
This article shocked me. We have regressed atrociously with regard to the education of autistic children.
I was born in the early 1950s and I knew two autistic children born in the late 50s: my first cousin, and the child of my mom's best friend. Both were educated at a special school for autistic children in New York City. (I have no idea if it still exists or what it was called.) Both kids had classic symptoms of severe autism, but as is often the case, they both had elements of savant syndrome. Both were highly intelligent in specific areas, especially those that allowed for the classification of things: astronomy, bird watching, trains, music, even politics. One had perfect pitch. The other had a prodigious memory for anything that interested him.
This school socialized and educated them both to the extent that they learned to speak, read, write, live semi-independently, hold jobs, develop hobbies, and have social lives to some degree, although both required life-long guardians to manage their finances and some of the tasks of daily living.
All these decades later, I've assumed that the education they received was state-of-the-art and the standard for all autistic children in the 21st century. My mother's friend was well-off, but my aunt and uncle were working-class and had other children as well. I don't know how my cousin's education was financed, but there again, I naively assumed that autistic children fit the definition of "special needs," and thus there would be foundations that provided scholarships for those who couldn't afford the education they needed and deserved.
Instead, the author describes a desert of ignorance and neglect that can only be viewed as willful and shameful. How can this be? I've seen autism up close and personal, and there is no way that a parent alone could have done the job that was required to raise the level of functioning of these children to even a semblance of normality. Autistic children require special help, in tandem with the love, patience and support of their parents. This goes without saying.
Of course, neuro-atypical children are on a spectrum, from very high to very low functioning. Although both of these children were loved, their considerable developmental needs could not have been met solely by their parents, with or without unlimited sums of money. In both these cases, the concentrated attention of trained teachers were needed to bring out their unique predilections, talents and passions.
I would love to know how and why the education of autistic children has devolved so atrociously over the past 60 years. Lack of funds? An overlay of ideological claptrap which destroys everything it touches? And then there's the internet. It's not a coincidence that autism is a major comorbidity for trans-identification.
My heart goes out to the author and all the parents dealing with this rapidly growing cohort of children.
And yet, I have observed that homeschooling is a great option for autistic children. They thrive with structure and routine, and are able to pursue their passions. Also, in a healthy home environment, they have focussed attention from the people that love them the most.
Thank you for this. I have no doubt that you're right. I'm not an expert here, just describing what I observed over decades regarding these two individuals who were severely, not mildly, impaired.
I should have made it clear that the parents in both cases were as active and committed to the well-being of their kids as they could reasonably be. My mother's friend was independently wealthy and had no other children. Her life was almost entirely focused on her child's development. On the other hand, my aunt and uncle scraped by and had three children including my cousin. Home schooling would have been out of the question for them, and professional intervention was a lifesaver for the entire family.
In your opinion, do you think that the degree of disability might influence the need for more of a professional intervention -- not in lieu of, but in additional to parental involvement?
Also, the autism diagnosis is much more widespread than it was 60 years ago, but with more subtle symptoms that can take longer to pinpoint as autism rather than an amorphous "personality disorder."
It's not hopeless! Your grandson is 6 years old. He has a fighting chance because he has a supportive grandmother and because knowledge of harms is catching up with the new technology. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt is helpful and gives reason for optimism going forward for those not yet caught up in this.
Has anyone figured out what's causing the rise in autism spectrum disorders? Sorry to hear your story, and wish you the best. Sad to say, I realized long ago there's no village for any of us really, as this is a society based on individualism and consumerism and the private nuclear family, to name a few - not that everyone doesn't need privacy some of the time, but it's a pathological "need" in western societies (the flip side being pathological attention-seeking) in my opinion and leaves many parents hanging out on a limb all on their own. Thus the difficult decision years ago for me not to have children (outside of not being able to imagine any of the guys I dated as fathers - yikes!) But I applaud anyone who is brave enough to have children under the circumstances, transgenderism being one of the worst of them.
While not discounting possible environmental factors such as diet, vaccines, microplastics, etc., there does seem to be a large genetic component. My husband and I both have a number of relatives who are "eccentric but brilliant" or "nutty professors", and both my mother and my brother had a lot of autism-type behaviors. Personally, I have ADHD but I always joked I had a streak of autism as well - and since I produced a child who is indisputably on the spectrum, I may have been correct in that assumption.
There has also been a broadening of diagnostic criteria. My eldest daughter is gifted as far as IQ, and was diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder at the age of 24. We knew something was different about her from the time she was an infant; however, when she was evaluated at age 3 by a neuropsychology team, she was not given an an autism diagnosis because back then, one of the main diagnostic criteria was verbal delays. My daughter had a large vocabulary, although her expressive language ability was quite poor - but since she knew a lot of words, she was not considered to meet the criteria for autism spectrum. Since then, research has shown that girls with autism often do not present with the verbal delays that boys typically do. So, right there you'd expect to see a large increase in diagnosed cases. This is also a factor in the increase in ADHD - I was diagnosed at the age of 36; and suddenly my entire life made more sense (high IQ, but inexplicably poor grades and constant discipline problems). When I was growing up, I was labeled as an "underachiever" but ADHD was never considered, as back in the 1970s it was thought to only afflict little boys.
I also think that our lifestyle today exacerbates autistic (and ADHD) tendencies. It's much easier to retreat into your bedroom and do most of your interactions via text or chats. In the past, the kids who are sort of "borderline" cases were just awkward, weird kids who eventually learned how to "blend" simply because there was no alternative. But today, there is less obvious need for learning those social skills; and then the pandemic and all the isolation and reliance on devices seems to have impaired everyone. My friends who are teachers say that their students in general are a lot less functional since the pandemic, and a lot more prone to behavior issues, simply because they lost a couple years that were crucial to developing social skills.
As a person with ADHD who also has a lot of autistic traits, I remember that when I was a child, I felt like other people were so inscrutable and confusing that I wondered if I was actually something other than a human being. I also remember how horrifying puberty was - my body truly felt like it wasn't my own; I was a somewhat clumsy child to begin with and the rapid growth during puberty made me even more prone to crashing into things and tripping over things. My body developed physically much earlier than my brain did; and I remember being horrified by the unwanted attention I got from older boys and from men. So I can totally see how an autistic kid today could easily be convinced that the reason they feel so weird and alien is because they are actually in the wrong body.
Very interesting and informative reply, yours and a few others. I think too that as Susan Z says, "high functioning" autism can be an asset in some ways, especially to a smaller social group. No one person should be expected to live up to unrealistic and unfair social expectations. I sometimes wonder too what else could be behind the prevalence of autism spectrum, not just vaccines (though I wouldn't discount those), but possibly an infant's (and the mother's) birth experiences. Modern birthing can alienate infants from their mothers at such a critical stage, and I believe this is still happening widely. Mary Dodds may be on to something about the Amish in that respect, no high tech birth practices for them, I would think. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to live life as an Amish girl or woman...
Best of luck with all your children!❤️ I have theories about ADHD and other conditions too, but I'm talking out of my area in a way... just some ideas developed from reading and observations over the years. In any case, I think many psychological troubles people (including myself at times) exhibit could be the result of our social circumstances and undue stresses. The other day watching television (and other video services) with ads popping up to get our attention, one second it's suffering animals (ASPCA) and the next it's an ad for thigh-slimming stretch pants for women, then on to some other non-sequitur. It's a wonder any of us ever develop normal emotional reactions or attention spans! Though the weirdness of media is minor compared to some of life's other challenges.
You are so spot on with this. I believe that what we now call high functioning autism is simply an extreme personality type. This is just my opinion based on observations and personal experience. I don't believe that the Asperger's category belongs on a spectrum with severe nonverbal autism. I think they are 2 different issues and should not be lumped together. My husband and his father were electrical engineers with extreme interest in precise, technical language and interaction. My husband was not diagnosed but even he admitted that his parents should have had him tested. But that was not a thing in the 60s and 70s. Also, to his family the social awkwardness and extreme intense, limited focus was just how there were. It was a personality characteristic that didn't prevent success in life. Both my husband and father- in -law used their high intellect to basically mimic proper behavior and learn how to get along socially. I have a few very OCD type tendencies. But not in a pathological way that keeps me from functioning and having a normal life. So what I'm saying is that these characteristics are inherited by our children to some extent. With my ASD son these tendencies are are the extreme side. Had he been raised in a pre-internet, cell phones and transgender ideology time he would have learned to cope just fine and learned to like himself and even come to see his extreme personality type as an asset. Just like his dad and grandfather eventually did. But instead our sick society has caused him to hate his differences and to want to change so completely that he wishes to be another person entirely. This is a terrible shame and makes me so sad.
I would look into vaccines. Children's Health Defense is an excellent resource and as I understand it many have found help by working on the gut biome. I do not have an autistic child but have read countless articles. Dr. Andrew Wakefield is well known as someone who has listened to the parents and sought to expose and guide some sort of alternative response than the mainstream institutions (who hate him).
Many have figured out the cause, but the industry has pushed back and denies any responsibility. You may want to check out the Vaxxed movies on CHD TV.
I have three. My third child is autistic ( high functioning,very smart) and claims he is trans. I feared a lot of things when I had him late in life. But never imagined that transgenderism would be in our lives. I love my ASD son so deeply ...and really enjoy his unique personality and way of dealing with life. I wish he could actually love himself like I love him. He hates himself, that's why he wants an escape.
Same with me, three children, youngest on autistic spectrum hated herself so much she had to kill her female self by identifying as male. This is a desperate way to escape
Wow. I am speechless. I’ve had very limited experience with kids with autism, but now, over the last decade or so, it is all around me: my nephew’s son, several friends’ children, a friend’s grandchild, etc. I heard a statistic that in California, 1 in 22 is diagnosed with autism. Unbelievable. I commend you for fighting on behalf of your child and giving others hope. It’s not easy.
I am so angry for all of us. The professionals have completely and utterly failed their mandate. My boy too masked so incredibly well that it took him going from straight As to failing half his classes his junior year and making a suicide attempt by driving his car into a concrete barrier going 75 mph to wake them all up. But by that point I had educated myself very well and knew the dangers I was facing as I met with his team of teachers and vice principal. I refused to let trans enter the conversation, instead steering it toward the trauma our family experienced that was the initial launch into this awful place. They still tried to graduate him wearing a "girl gown" (really?! in this day and age?!) with his girl name. I forcefully and unequivocally said "no" and told them it was my job as his parent to protect him from a delusion that will make him a lifelong medical patient—no matter how much harder this makes things in the moment. Because that's what grown-ups do: the thing that needs doing, not the thing that makes the kid feel good.
I'm so sorry for all the ways the grownups ALL failed you, your husband, and your son.
Similar. I was firm with school at the beginning, and I had traction because the support for high functioning autism was atrocious, and because my child was highly gifted in music and literature and getting A+for everything. Plus 'a good student', great at masking.
Luckily the school supported me- no use of pronouns/ alternate uniform, and beyond a few emails and a couple of years it all petered out at school.
But being a social misfit in an environment where there is no real recourse for behaviour from peers (that would be dealt with in criminal proceedings were they to happen in the workplace), takes its toll on fragile children. Who are better dealing with online socialising with its predictable, safe, processable exchanges. And who start to realise they are different to the others around them.
It's tragic.
And then into the arms of the groomers online and at school.
Depression from burn out- the exhaustion it takes to have small social interactions, lunch and morning tea more exhausting to manage than predictable classes.
Anxiety from sensory hypersensitivity, too many senses firing all at once- sound, colour, movement. Plus all bodily alerts constantly firing, on the lookout for danger, fight and flight operational constantly.
And then long term burnout.
Year after year of holding on, keeping going, and the toll is MASSIVE.
So suicidality is right there- close after years of carrying this. Especially the bright kids who have had the ability to tirelessly work so hard to play- act 'normalness' at great personal expense, able to keep gringing harder than peers and getting the marks that give them the measure of kudos that gives them a place amongst their peers/ teachers/ family.
Yes, we have gone backwards carrying for these beautiful souls. Current modern life is too fast, too cluttered, too pressured, too complex for these beautiful, bright children. Throw a device or two into which they can escape, add the CONSTANT unending stream of facts and misinformation available to these fact seeking, black and white thinkers who are still only very naive children. Whether the information is 'good'/ useful/ educational etc etc- there's still just SO MUCH of it, that even adults considered 'healthy users' of the internet, are depressed and overloaded.
Of course suicidal ideation can come along.
An overwhelmed system/ brain can feel trapped in the unending procession of school life trauma. And access to online 'how to's' makes it much easier for the brain in crisis to feel releif at discovering a way out.
Particularly if the autism (dyslexia/ADD/ etc etc) isn't diagnosed, poorly understood, incorrectly medicated etc etc
ie
The current medical models do not support these children.
Children who by diagnosis, are unable to operate their emotional antennae, can't tell if something 'feels off/ not right', unable to identify or notice gut feelings, poorly able to advocate for themselves, naive and very gullible.
Add gender to the parent's search for answers, and ideologically captured medicine, with time poor, overworked, well meaning care professionals, in overwhelmed, under-resourced systems are expediting care of these complex patient cases to the magical gender clinic. ('Oooh this is a bit scary to deal with, and I'm no specialist, so I'll refer you to the gender specialists who will sort through all of your complexities and help you out.')
I can't speak about the gender clinics. I mean, I just can't fathom what drives these people. In my mind they are uneducated admin officers and nurses, doctors with very limited or narrow experience (I mean they just CAN'T understand management of mixed case medical/psychiatric presentations. They certainly DO NOT understand adolescent medicine let alone human development through childhood to adulthood. They DO NOT understand what it takes to move an individual out of anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders. They do NOT understand neurodiversity. These things I can say from direct experience. )
Either that, or there's some hidden agenda.
They are AGP, or have their own personal unresolved mental health history that they've 'band-aid'-ed over with transition or egoic 'hypercaring for poor devils worse off'. I can imagine some are genuinely well supported by transitioning at some time in their lives. And they can't see outside their own experience to accept reality that others may have different pathways.
Anyway
For GPs and A&E Drs there's a black and white pathway laid out for gender care, set in place by a supposedly legitimate specialist body of experts- WPATH. So easy to follow without getting involved in the messy, long winded, poorly described pathway of mental health care.
I think these kids are the canary in the cave.
I think they are loud indicators of trouble in our environments.
And yes, I've experienced some of what you've spoken about.
It's hard. And I hope your firm loving care as a parent of a beautiful soul sees the life ahead that you have envisioned and know is there for this bright spark.
omg - Elisabeth your description of what it's like to navigate this world as an autistic child is dead on. I can see this being written up as its own PITT article. Most people have no idea what hell the world is for neuro-diverse kids.
This hit me hard. It was so true for my son's experience from my perspective: 'Current modern life is too fast, too cluttered, too pressured, too complex for these beautiful, bright children. Throw a device or two into which they can escape, add the CONSTANT unending stream of facts and misinformation available to these fact seeking, black and white thinkers who are still only very naive children. Whether the information is 'good'/ useful/ educational etc etc- there's still just SO MUCH of it, that even adults considered 'healthy users' of the internet, are depressed and overloaded.'
Elizabeth, Yes to everything you have said, including the likely AGP fetishes of some doctors and nutters pushing this ideology. We have the man in a dress as the head of HHS in the U.S., as well as the head of a pediatric gender clinic in California who is married to a woman who thinks she's a man.
Truth exists, I am so sorry for your experience with your son and I am so angry at the "grown-ups" in the room that push this nonsense. I was recently at a medical appointment with my adult daughter, an office complete with "all-gender" bathrooms. The dr. asked what her preferred pronouns were and I wanted to march the doctor out of the room and tell her to stop encouraging this dangerous ideology. I hope your son regains his mental health.
I have neither an ASD nor a trans child, but this was a heartbreaking read. All I would contribute to this discussion is, after years of considering every aspect of gender ideology, there is irrefutable evidence that the tide is turning away from mindless acceptance of the coercive edicts of the trans rights activists (TRAs). This is a long response because there are so many hopeful signs.
These include:
The new laws in Alberta governing puberty blockers, strengthening parental rights regarding social transitioning for teenagers and banning boys participating in girls sports.
The wide acceptance and adherence to the recommendations made in the Cass review.
The removal of DEI programs in huge corporations and Universities like Walmart, Toyota and University of Alberta to name just a few.
Almost all of the countries in Europe who were part of the first wave of gender medicine have now reversed their gender affirming policies and are banning puberty blockers and requiring more expansive psychological counselling that includes restricting most children from transitioning.
In the social media, Facebook just dropped fact checking despite the howls of outrage from the likes of Stonewall and other TRA groups who will no longer have a huge platform where they have unquestioning acceptance of their decrees.
What ever else one might think about the change of government in the US, opposition to the Dems trans/woke policies was proven to be the tipping point since a huge percentage of independents cited it as being the determining factor in their vote, over ANY other issue. What that means for politicians, if they choose to listen, is that gender ideology does not have the support of the electorate.
There is a growing number of de-transitioners whose cases against gender affirming medical treatment (GAMT) providers are going through the courts at this moment. Of all of the factors that will decisively turn the tide, this may well be the most significant because: 1) legal proceedings expose lies like "puberty blockers are reversible" because courts require evidence rather than political catchphrases 2) GAMT will become impossibly expensive to insure once practitioners become financially liable for the harm done to gender confused youth who have undergone irreversible, highly risky surgeries and hormone replacement therapies 3) In a recent case on states rights before SCOTUS, the questions asked by the justices indicated that the verdict is highly likely to uphold the rights of states to curtail GAMT.
Finally the cruelest coercive tactic of gender ideologues, "do you want a dead son or a live daughter?", ie. the narrative that suicides among kids who aren't allowed to transition, has taken a huge hit. The findings of the Cass review and a Finnish study between 1997 and 2019 that found a statistically insignificant (.2%) difference in suicides of gender referred children and a control group, are game changing. Even Chase Strangio, a TRA arguing for GAMT for minors had to admit in front of the Supreme Court that the suicide narrative with trans ID kids was false. The unquestioning acceptance of this narrative is declining and counselling practices are beginning to shift to treat underlying causes of gender confusion, like trauma from sexual assault and porn addiction, which can only help kids having suicidal ideation.
There are many, many more changes to the status quo of blind acceptance of the lie that humans can transition to the opposite sex that are happening right now. I can't point to any evidence that there is a growing acceptance of ASD individuals, but since more than a third of autistic kids descend into the gender morass, hopefully in the near future, gender confusion will be one less agony that these kids and their families will have to endure.
Thank you for sharing this story. Unfortunately, I've heard it a million times.
A trans identity is sometimes the only way an autistic adolescent can get attention that feels like acceptance, but it's all misappropriated and therefore fake. Autism traits are now being reclassified as queer or trans, burying autism and leaving people unrecognised and unsupported. TRAs even claim addressing possible autism in a trans identified person is conversion therapy - so now apparently autism diagnoses are transphobic, go figure, everything is these days isn't it.
I am doing Gender Critical Autistic Voices Interviews on my Substack if anyone would like to share their thoughts - you can be diagnosed or self diagnosed autistic or a family/professional etc. Can be done anonymously. I hope it's OK to leave this link here. Please share with others if you can.
https://open.substack.com/pub/neuropoppins/p/gender-critical-autistic-voices-interviews?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3auw24
There are some people suggesting vaccines cause autism in these comments. This is not true. Autism is genetic and neurological.
This article is so well written. You could wite volumes, I can imagine, but you selected and crafted this so well. Thank you for sharing this very important perspective. 💛
VERY similar to our family's experience, though we didn't truly understand it was high-functioning autism until she failed to graduate from high school . . . Anyway, your points are well taken. First, if they're not studying, what are they doing? Exposing themselves to dangerous crap! and second, why oh why are schools so gung-ho about inclusiveness for "trans kids" but not for autistic ones???
Thank you for this. You just described our lives perfectly. Except our daughter accumulated so many diagnoses other than autism until she turned 17, was already trans, and was finally diagnosed. Dyslexia, severe anxiety, ARFID, depression, gifted, executive function issues, social anxiety, etc etc etc. Nothing like having the head of school in grade 3 tell you that ‘it makes the school look bad when your child is crying upon leaving school.’ I felt so alone for so many years but then it got so much worse. Once trans ID’ed, the damn eating clinic tried to give her testosterone in the first appointment rather then try to figure out why she was so underweight. They fed us the line in front of her ‘she hates her body and she will kill herself …’ We left the U.S. six months ago. More like ‘fled’! I can assure you doctors in Europe aren’t buying the BS. They understand what biological sex is and refuse to go along with any of it and even refer to her as ma’am. I no longer dread taking our daughter to the doctor. I am livid to hear there are so many of us here. When will the world wake up?!
That was intense reading. It is 100X what i dealt with parenting a child with ADHD. The IEP mandating that I be notified if he is not turning in homework, only to find at the end of the year that he is failing many classes because didn't turn in his work. The system is a mess.
There really needs to be some kind of pre-natal testing for autism.
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, George Orwell, H. G. Wells, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen, Immanuel Kant, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin ...
Why does there? Because I really don't like where this could be going...
I agree. I really need the original poster to actually think through what is implied with that comment.
Can you walk me through why that might be helpful?
They are terrorizing the parents of ASD children, because those people are likely to question and criticize the vaccine program.
They murdered my son.
Personally, I would like to see people hang. Or worse. But will settle for lifetime prison terms.
Oh and btw, asshole who removed yer comment ..
The Abilify that was initially prescribed to my son was marketed to him illegally. It was marketed to him illegally AFTER the manufacturer, Bristol Myer Squibb, had paid a half billion dollar fine for illegally marketing Abilify.
My son was not gay or trans to my knowledge. Like many adolescents targeted for this horrific treatment, he was on the autism spectrum. Quite high on the spectrum. Was only dx'd when his father insisted he seek treatment in his late teens.
It was the stinking pshrink who had him on five psych drugs. Very much against my wishes, but once he turned 18 I had no say. Even tho he was covered by, and treated under, our health insurance policy.
"It's not so much a science as an art," his father was told by the 'doctor', who was responsible imo for my son's death. Responsible for his murder, rather.
Oh but it's all good. Cuz after my son blew his brains out with his sister's gun (lovely piece of 'artwork' I get to be thankfulI I never saw), and I told the pshrink sarcastically "yer drugs worked real well, didn't they?", she offered to refund our insurance copays.
Has anyone had a trans child come back home after a few or several years? Or never? I pray that my son will come back home someday to tell us that his back to being our son. Does this ever happen or is this an unrealistic wish on my part?
Yes, it can happen. Keep the hope despite the suffering. My daughter was not autistic and in college when she was snatched up into the flames of trans hell. Many years later she re-entered our lives as herself. She was not your average kid though - always the smartest kid in the class and did want to be just a cool kid. No one has the answer and every story has its own nuances but I must believe many will exit.
Thank you so much.
I am very grateful to you for opening up and saying it like it is for you and so many of us. There were aspects of your son's behavior that were similar to my son's behavior when he was growing up. Just like you, I was so frustrated and confused when raising him and trying to get him to conform to the norm while dealing with stress, confusion, and sometimes embarrassment. My son was also above his peers in intelligence, as his teachers told me and as I knew. He was brilliant. I thought of him as an absented-minded professor who would be lost in his intelligent thoughts. He seemed to be in his own world as he played with his toys and as he stared out of the car window just thinking, for example,. He got stressed out so easily. When he was young, he would get upset if I did not give him at least 48 hours' notice that he had an upcoming doctor's appointment. He got upset when playing competitive games with other boys. In the 6th grade, he stood up at a restaurant and screamed at the boy he was playing a game with, claiming that this boy had cheated in the game they were playing. In my shock and embarrassment, I wanted to crawl under the table! He would scream on the way home after I picked him up from school. He said that he hated himself and would hit his head against a wall. He attended a high pressure, all boys, academic private school that met his intellectual level. I wondered if this was the right place for him or not. It was so confusing to know. He always seemed so black and white in his thinking patterns. It was so stressful and difficult. Nothing I tried helped to make a difference, including taking him to psychologists. No one told me that he could be in the high functioning autistic spectrum. Today, my husband and I really do believe that he was that. I wish that all of us parents in this situation could chat together and be friends. We all had such similar experiences. It was such a challenge. And, now I have lost my son (before he had the time to fully grow and figure himself out, as most people do) to the transgender movement. I feel that he and other trans kids that PITT parents write about then (quickly) were swept away from us parents as they walked off a transgender plank into deep waters. It is like falling into the deep end of a pool without any understanding of what is truly happening . They see some sort of utopian dream in the trans movement's experience which is actually one big, harmful lie.
Nicely done!
As a parent who has been profoundly affected by gender ideology, but not autism, you have helped me understand this unique exile that you have experienced.
Thank you.
This article shocked me. We have regressed atrociously with regard to the education of autistic children.
I was born in the early 1950s and I knew two autistic children born in the late 50s: my first cousin, and the child of my mom's best friend. Both were educated at a special school for autistic children in New York City. (I have no idea if it still exists or what it was called.) Both kids had classic symptoms of severe autism, but as is often the case, they both had elements of savant syndrome. Both were highly intelligent in specific areas, especially those that allowed for the classification of things: astronomy, bird watching, trains, music, even politics. One had perfect pitch. The other had a prodigious memory for anything that interested him.
This school socialized and educated them both to the extent that they learned to speak, read, write, live semi-independently, hold jobs, develop hobbies, and have social lives to some degree, although both required life-long guardians to manage their finances and some of the tasks of daily living.
All these decades later, I've assumed that the education they received was state-of-the-art and the standard for all autistic children in the 21st century. My mother's friend was well-off, but my aunt and uncle were working-class and had other children as well. I don't know how my cousin's education was financed, but there again, I naively assumed that autistic children fit the definition of "special needs," and thus there would be foundations that provided scholarships for those who couldn't afford the education they needed and deserved.
Instead, the author describes a desert of ignorance and neglect that can only be viewed as willful and shameful. How can this be? I've seen autism up close and personal, and there is no way that a parent alone could have done the job that was required to raise the level of functioning of these children to even a semblance of normality. Autistic children require special help, in tandem with the love, patience and support of their parents. This goes without saying.
Of course, neuro-atypical children are on a spectrum, from very high to very low functioning. Although both of these children were loved, their considerable developmental needs could not have been met solely by their parents, with or without unlimited sums of money. In both these cases, the concentrated attention of trained teachers were needed to bring out their unique predilections, talents and passions.
I would love to know how and why the education of autistic children has devolved so atrociously over the past 60 years. Lack of funds? An overlay of ideological claptrap which destroys everything it touches? And then there's the internet. It's not a coincidence that autism is a major comorbidity for trans-identification.
My heart goes out to the author and all the parents dealing with this rapidly growing cohort of children.
And yet, I have observed that homeschooling is a great option for autistic children. They thrive with structure and routine, and are able to pursue their passions. Also, in a healthy home environment, they have focussed attention from the people that love them the most.
Thank you for this. I have no doubt that you're right. I'm not an expert here, just describing what I observed over decades regarding these two individuals who were severely, not mildly, impaired.
I should have made it clear that the parents in both cases were as active and committed to the well-being of their kids as they could reasonably be. My mother's friend was independently wealthy and had no other children. Her life was almost entirely focused on her child's development. On the other hand, my aunt and uncle scraped by and had three children including my cousin. Home schooling would have been out of the question for them, and professional intervention was a lifesaver for the entire family.
In your opinion, do you think that the degree of disability might influence the need for more of a professional intervention -- not in lieu of, but in additional to parental involvement?
Also, the autism diagnosis is much more widespread than it was 60 years ago, but with more subtle symptoms that can take longer to pinpoint as autism rather than an amorphous "personality disorder."
You cannot know how much this made me cry today... My 6 beautiful year old grand son, autistic... LORD PROTECT THESE KIDS!
It's not hopeless! Your grandson is 6 years old. He has a fighting chance because he has a supportive grandmother and because knowledge of harms is catching up with the new technology. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt is helpful and gives reason for optimism going forward for those not yet caught up in this.
Has anyone figured out what's causing the rise in autism spectrum disorders? Sorry to hear your story, and wish you the best. Sad to say, I realized long ago there's no village for any of us really, as this is a society based on individualism and consumerism and the private nuclear family, to name a few - not that everyone doesn't need privacy some of the time, but it's a pathological "need" in western societies (the flip side being pathological attention-seeking) in my opinion and leaves many parents hanging out on a limb all on their own. Thus the difficult decision years ago for me not to have children (outside of not being able to imagine any of the guys I dated as fathers - yikes!) But I applaud anyone who is brave enough to have children under the circumstances, transgenderism being one of the worst of them.
No autism in Amish society. No vaccines or processed food either.
How do you know there is no autism in Amish society? Has that been studied? Would the Amish even allow that?
While not discounting possible environmental factors such as diet, vaccines, microplastics, etc., there does seem to be a large genetic component. My husband and I both have a number of relatives who are "eccentric but brilliant" or "nutty professors", and both my mother and my brother had a lot of autism-type behaviors. Personally, I have ADHD but I always joked I had a streak of autism as well - and since I produced a child who is indisputably on the spectrum, I may have been correct in that assumption.
There has also been a broadening of diagnostic criteria. My eldest daughter is gifted as far as IQ, and was diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder at the age of 24. We knew something was different about her from the time she was an infant; however, when she was evaluated at age 3 by a neuropsychology team, she was not given an an autism diagnosis because back then, one of the main diagnostic criteria was verbal delays. My daughter had a large vocabulary, although her expressive language ability was quite poor - but since she knew a lot of words, she was not considered to meet the criteria for autism spectrum. Since then, research has shown that girls with autism often do not present with the verbal delays that boys typically do. So, right there you'd expect to see a large increase in diagnosed cases. This is also a factor in the increase in ADHD - I was diagnosed at the age of 36; and suddenly my entire life made more sense (high IQ, but inexplicably poor grades and constant discipline problems). When I was growing up, I was labeled as an "underachiever" but ADHD was never considered, as back in the 1970s it was thought to only afflict little boys.
I also think that our lifestyle today exacerbates autistic (and ADHD) tendencies. It's much easier to retreat into your bedroom and do most of your interactions via text or chats. In the past, the kids who are sort of "borderline" cases were just awkward, weird kids who eventually learned how to "blend" simply because there was no alternative. But today, there is less obvious need for learning those social skills; and then the pandemic and all the isolation and reliance on devices seems to have impaired everyone. My friends who are teachers say that their students in general are a lot less functional since the pandemic, and a lot more prone to behavior issues, simply because they lost a couple years that were crucial to developing social skills.
As a person with ADHD who also has a lot of autistic traits, I remember that when I was a child, I felt like other people were so inscrutable and confusing that I wondered if I was actually something other than a human being. I also remember how horrifying puberty was - my body truly felt like it wasn't my own; I was a somewhat clumsy child to begin with and the rapid growth during puberty made me even more prone to crashing into things and tripping over things. My body developed physically much earlier than my brain did; and I remember being horrified by the unwanted attention I got from older boys and from men. So I can totally see how an autistic kid today could easily be convinced that the reason they feel so weird and alien is because they are actually in the wrong body.
Very interesting and informative reply, yours and a few others. I think too that as Susan Z says, "high functioning" autism can be an asset in some ways, especially to a smaller social group. No one person should be expected to live up to unrealistic and unfair social expectations. I sometimes wonder too what else could be behind the prevalence of autism spectrum, not just vaccines (though I wouldn't discount those), but possibly an infant's (and the mother's) birth experiences. Modern birthing can alienate infants from their mothers at such a critical stage, and I believe this is still happening widely. Mary Dodds may be on to something about the Amish in that respect, no high tech birth practices for them, I would think. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to live life as an Amish girl or woman...
My autistic daughter was five weeks early, and it was a very medicalized birth as she was in distress - so there may be something in that.
My other two were natural births with a midwife; one kid has ADHD and the other is the closest thing we have to a normal person in our family.
Best of luck with all your children!❤️ I have theories about ADHD and other conditions too, but I'm talking out of my area in a way... just some ideas developed from reading and observations over the years. In any case, I think many psychological troubles people (including myself at times) exhibit could be the result of our social circumstances and undue stresses. The other day watching television (and other video services) with ads popping up to get our attention, one second it's suffering animals (ASPCA) and the next it's an ad for thigh-slimming stretch pants for women, then on to some other non-sequitur. It's a wonder any of us ever develop normal emotional reactions or attention spans! Though the weirdness of media is minor compared to some of life's other challenges.
You are so spot on with this. I believe that what we now call high functioning autism is simply an extreme personality type. This is just my opinion based on observations and personal experience. I don't believe that the Asperger's category belongs on a spectrum with severe nonverbal autism. I think they are 2 different issues and should not be lumped together. My husband and his father were electrical engineers with extreme interest in precise, technical language and interaction. My husband was not diagnosed but even he admitted that his parents should have had him tested. But that was not a thing in the 60s and 70s. Also, to his family the social awkwardness and extreme intense, limited focus was just how there were. It was a personality characteristic that didn't prevent success in life. Both my husband and father- in -law used their high intellect to basically mimic proper behavior and learn how to get along socially. I have a few very OCD type tendencies. But not in a pathological way that keeps me from functioning and having a normal life. So what I'm saying is that these characteristics are inherited by our children to some extent. With my ASD son these tendencies are are the extreme side. Had he been raised in a pre-internet, cell phones and transgender ideology time he would have learned to cope just fine and learned to like himself and even come to see his extreme personality type as an asset. Just like his dad and grandfather eventually did. But instead our sick society has caused him to hate his differences and to want to change so completely that he wishes to be another person entirely. This is a terrible shame and makes me so sad.
I would look into vaccines. Children's Health Defense is an excellent resource and as I understand it many have found help by working on the gut biome. I do not have an autistic child but have read countless articles. Dr. Andrew Wakefield is well known as someone who has listened to the parents and sought to expose and guide some sort of alternative response than the mainstream institutions (who hate him).
Many have figured out the cause, but the industry has pushed back and denies any responsibility. You may want to check out the Vaxxed movies on CHD TV.
I have three. My third child is autistic ( high functioning,very smart) and claims he is trans. I feared a lot of things when I had him late in life. But never imagined that transgenderism would be in our lives. I love my ASD son so deeply ...and really enjoy his unique personality and way of dealing with life. I wish he could actually love himself like I love him. He hates himself, that's why he wants an escape.
Same with me, three children, youngest on autistic spectrum hated herself so much she had to kill her female self by identifying as male. This is a desperate way to escape
Wow. So much like my son.
Not my daughter, my son. go away moron.
Wow. I am speechless. I’ve had very limited experience with kids with autism, but now, over the last decade or so, it is all around me: my nephew’s son, several friends’ children, a friend’s grandchild, etc. I heard a statistic that in California, 1 in 22 is diagnosed with autism. Unbelievable. I commend you for fighting on behalf of your child and giving others hope. It’s not easy.
I am so angry for all of us. The professionals have completely and utterly failed their mandate. My boy too masked so incredibly well that it took him going from straight As to failing half his classes his junior year and making a suicide attempt by driving his car into a concrete barrier going 75 mph to wake them all up. But by that point I had educated myself very well and knew the dangers I was facing as I met with his team of teachers and vice principal. I refused to let trans enter the conversation, instead steering it toward the trauma our family experienced that was the initial launch into this awful place. They still tried to graduate him wearing a "girl gown" (really?! in this day and age?!) with his girl name. I forcefully and unequivocally said "no" and told them it was my job as his parent to protect him from a delusion that will make him a lifelong medical patient—no matter how much harder this makes things in the moment. Because that's what grown-ups do: the thing that needs doing, not the thing that makes the kid feel good.
I'm so sorry for all the ways the grownups ALL failed you, your husband, and your son.
Similar. I was firm with school at the beginning, and I had traction because the support for high functioning autism was atrocious, and because my child was highly gifted in music and literature and getting A+for everything. Plus 'a good student', great at masking.
Luckily the school supported me- no use of pronouns/ alternate uniform, and beyond a few emails and a couple of years it all petered out at school.
But being a social misfit in an environment where there is no real recourse for behaviour from peers (that would be dealt with in criminal proceedings were they to happen in the workplace), takes its toll on fragile children. Who are better dealing with online socialising with its predictable, safe, processable exchanges. And who start to realise they are different to the others around them.
It's tragic.
And then into the arms of the groomers online and at school.
Depression from burn out- the exhaustion it takes to have small social interactions, lunch and morning tea more exhausting to manage than predictable classes.
Anxiety from sensory hypersensitivity, too many senses firing all at once- sound, colour, movement. Plus all bodily alerts constantly firing, on the lookout for danger, fight and flight operational constantly.
And then long term burnout.
Year after year of holding on, keeping going, and the toll is MASSIVE.
So suicidality is right there- close after years of carrying this. Especially the bright kids who have had the ability to tirelessly work so hard to play- act 'normalness' at great personal expense, able to keep gringing harder than peers and getting the marks that give them the measure of kudos that gives them a place amongst their peers/ teachers/ family.
Yes, we have gone backwards carrying for these beautiful souls. Current modern life is too fast, too cluttered, too pressured, too complex for these beautiful, bright children. Throw a device or two into which they can escape, add the CONSTANT unending stream of facts and misinformation available to these fact seeking, black and white thinkers who are still only very naive children. Whether the information is 'good'/ useful/ educational etc etc- there's still just SO MUCH of it, that even adults considered 'healthy users' of the internet, are depressed and overloaded.
Of course suicidal ideation can come along.
An overwhelmed system/ brain can feel trapped in the unending procession of school life trauma. And access to online 'how to's' makes it much easier for the brain in crisis to feel releif at discovering a way out.
Particularly if the autism (dyslexia/ADD/ etc etc) isn't diagnosed, poorly understood, incorrectly medicated etc etc
ie
The current medical models do not support these children.
Children who by diagnosis, are unable to operate their emotional antennae, can't tell if something 'feels off/ not right', unable to identify or notice gut feelings, poorly able to advocate for themselves, naive and very gullible.
Add gender to the parent's search for answers, and ideologically captured medicine, with time poor, overworked, well meaning care professionals, in overwhelmed, under-resourced systems are expediting care of these complex patient cases to the magical gender clinic. ('Oooh this is a bit scary to deal with, and I'm no specialist, so I'll refer you to the gender specialists who will sort through all of your complexities and help you out.')
I can't speak about the gender clinics. I mean, I just can't fathom what drives these people. In my mind they are uneducated admin officers and nurses, doctors with very limited or narrow experience (I mean they just CAN'T understand management of mixed case medical/psychiatric presentations. They certainly DO NOT understand adolescent medicine let alone human development through childhood to adulthood. They DO NOT understand what it takes to move an individual out of anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders. They do NOT understand neurodiversity. These things I can say from direct experience. )
Either that, or there's some hidden agenda.
They are AGP, or have their own personal unresolved mental health history that they've 'band-aid'-ed over with transition or egoic 'hypercaring for poor devils worse off'. I can imagine some are genuinely well supported by transitioning at some time in their lives. And they can't see outside their own experience to accept reality that others may have different pathways.
Anyway
For GPs and A&E Drs there's a black and white pathway laid out for gender care, set in place by a supposedly legitimate specialist body of experts- WPATH. So easy to follow without getting involved in the messy, long winded, poorly described pathway of mental health care.
I think these kids are the canary in the cave.
I think they are loud indicators of trouble in our environments.
And yes, I've experienced some of what you've spoken about.
It's hard. And I hope your firm loving care as a parent of a beautiful soul sees the life ahead that you have envisioned and know is there for this bright spark.
X
omg - Elisabeth your description of what it's like to navigate this world as an autistic child is dead on. I can see this being written up as its own PITT article. Most people have no idea what hell the world is for neuro-diverse kids.
This hit me hard. It was so true for my son's experience from my perspective: 'Current modern life is too fast, too cluttered, too pressured, too complex for these beautiful, bright children. Throw a device or two into which they can escape, add the CONSTANT unending stream of facts and misinformation available to these fact seeking, black and white thinkers who are still only very naive children. Whether the information is 'good'/ useful/ educational etc etc- there's still just SO MUCH of it, that even adults considered 'healthy users' of the internet, are depressed and overloaded.'
Elizabeth, Yes to everything you have said, including the likely AGP fetishes of some doctors and nutters pushing this ideology. We have the man in a dress as the head of HHS in the U.S., as well as the head of a pediatric gender clinic in California who is married to a woman who thinks she's a man.
Truth exists, I am so sorry for your experience with your son and I am so angry at the "grown-ups" in the room that push this nonsense. I was recently at a medical appointment with my adult daughter, an office complete with "all-gender" bathrooms. The dr. asked what her preferred pronouns were and I wanted to march the doctor out of the room and tell her to stop encouraging this dangerous ideology. I hope your son regains his mental health.