Is There a Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Abstract

In their Translations article in the January issue of the Journal, Turban and van Schalkwyk provide a critical evaluation of the recently published literature on co-occurring gender dysphoria (GD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).¹ In addition, they refer to this flux in interest as part of a larger increase in publications on transgender people, which are mostly reviews and do not contain new data. Given the low-grade evidence in this field for most clinical recommendations,² good-quality research is of great relevance. We support the debate on the GD-ASD literature and acknowledge that translations of the findings to the lay press such as "Do transgender children just have autism?" are not helpful. Also, we agree with many of the limitations brought forward by the authors and acknowledge that, at present, sound underlying evidence for a GD-ASD link is lacking. However, we believe that some nuance in argumentation could help forward the debate of this clinically important topic.