Autistic Traits in an Internet Sample of Gender Variant UK Adults

© 2015, Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Recent studies have reported a high prevalence of autistic spectrum conditions (ASCs) in adults with gender dysphoria (GD) versus the general population (Jones et al., 2012; Pasterski, Gilligan, & Curtis, 2014). This study utilized snowball sampling to collect data on gender identities, self-reported diagnoses of ASCs, and AQ-10 scores of individuals with GD. Of 446 respondents, 14% reported an ASC diagnosis. Higher AQ-10 scores were observed in those defining as male (M = 5.66, 95% CI [5.10, 6.22]) versus those defining as female (M = 4.25, 95% CI [3.55, 4.35]) and in those assigned female-at-birth (M = 5.67, 99.9% CI [4.91, 6.43]) versus those assigned as male-at-birth (M = 4.11, 99.9% CI [3.53, 4.69]). The genderqueer group (M = 5.73, 95% CI = [5.20, 6.26]) had the highest observed mean AQ-10 score. This study has implications for the management of those with GD and for researchers owing to both the large number of nonbinary individuals identified and to the complexities identified surrounding language when researching this group.