Varun Warrier and Simon Baron-Cohen in The Conversation:
In our latest study, published in Nature Communications, we found that transgender and gender-diverse adults were between three and six times more likely to be diagnosed as autistic compared with cisgender adults. But this only includes diagnosed autism – and many adults on the spectrum may be undiagnosed. We estimate that around 1-1.5% of the global population may be autistic. This would suggest that somewhere between 3-9% of transgender and gender-diverse adults may be autistic.
We also found that, regardless of an autism diagnosis, transgender and gender-diverse adults were also more likely to report a higher level of autistic traits compared with cisgender adults. We know that autism may present slightly differently in cisgender men and women. Yet we don’t know if autism presents differently in transgender and gender-diverse individuals – and this is something we need to understand to ensure that doctors can better identify autism in this group.
More here.