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Notes -
New Aella survey post on child sexual assault just dropped: https://aella.substack.com/p/a-whole-lot-of-csa-data
I think her analysis is generally unobjectionable, but do find it notable that she buries the lead on the "non-cis" sexual assault findings. I didn't dig into the crosstabs, but non-cis people are plausibly getting sexually assaulted even before they become openly non-cis. And while there's plausibly causation in the direction of abnormal pre-egg-breaking/transition behavior being more likely to attract sexually assault, the data re: non-cis people reporting more CSA still very much supports the hypothesis that either:
It might be that these hypothesis are both correct, but for different population subsets. For example, nonbinary people might be disproportionately motivated by a desire to escape a concept they associate with their assault, while transgender people are the ones afflicted by a root factor. (Or vica-versa, either explanation would be possible.)
I would personally bet on the second hypothesis predominating, though. And in particular, the associations re: social class/parental age/trauma are suggestive of some specifically anxiety-related problem. Working hypothesis: If you grow up poor or insecure or to young parents or female you become anxious and depressed, which leads you to be more likely to suffer sexual assault, more likely to interpret past events as sexual assault, more likely to start identifying yourself as non-cis (because of body image issues? Data is obviously underspecified and outside the scope of aella's post), and more likely to be negatively affected long-term by sexual assault when it does happen.
...So if you have kids, and want to maximize their chances of identifying as cisgender into adulthood, your top priority should be reducing their opportunities for anxiety. Openly worrying about drag queen story hour and queer books would be ironically counterproductive.
Ideological disclaimer: as a catholic I believe there are only two genders, fixed at birth, but as a transhumanist also I'm in favor of letting anyone, including children, do whatever they want to their own bodies. (I accept some nuance re: having to get psychologists/a judge to sign off that someone is truly acting in their own uncoerced self-interest, with increasing scrutiny in proportion to the danger posed by the modification and the mental irresponsibility of the requestor.)
Am I really the only one who sees an obvious link?
It's autism. Being on the autism spectrum is massively more common among people who are trans (particularly MTF in modern world). Likewise not understanding social cues and being generally weird exposes one to all sorts of issues (and then there's the combination of autism spectrum running in families and how that may affect the previous generation or two's behavior towards future victims...).
Also this being Aella's survey, it almost certainly has a massive self selection bias for people on the spectrum so that's a huge confounding factor.
The thing I don't understand about the autism/trans link is that in my mind autism is partly characterised by the kind of rigid psychological orthodoxy that gets agitated by things like having different kinds food on their plate touching, or a familiar TV show getting a new theme tune. But, somehow, they can overlook the incredibly simple, intuitive and natural definition of man vs woman. If anything I'd expect autists to be stubbornly sceptical of transgenderism's manipulation of the categories.
Never formally diagnosed so can't speak for proper autists, but sufficiently weird and isolated that I can throw my tuppence worth in here.
Back at puberty, I was very ignorant (these were the days before easily accessible information was everywhere and society was nowhere near as openly sex-soaked as now) and so it took me by surprise when my body started changing in ways I did not want! did not like! had not agreed to! So straight away that hits the "rigid psychological orthodoxy that gets agitated by change and unexpected, unexplained divergence from a familiar and accustomed situation/routine" buttons.
Second, suddenly all these limitations started popping up via my mother, mostly but not solely: "you can't do this thing you used to do before anymore now/you have to do that thing" and the only explanation, so far as I got one, was "well now you're a girl". But.... wasn't I a girl before? Why did these changes of "becoming a young woman" mean now all these new things I could not/had to do?
Third, I was never a 'girly girl' so never fit very well (physically or mentally, in what I was interested in) into the categories of "girls are like this". Take all those things on board and I was very much at times feeling "Gosh, it would be so much easier if I were a boy".
I grew out of that, eventually, but I can see how if nowadays there is the push for "kids can be trans! transgender is a thing that exists! make sure kids know all about all the options and don't restrict them to two sexes and one sexuality!" information and treatment, somebody who feels the way I did might conclude (because again, being on the spectrum, you go by your intelligence as your main strength and that is how you make decisions and once you convince yourself this is the right solution it's nearly impossible to budge) that they were indeed 'not the right gender'. Particularly for MtF getting the messaging that "wow, women have it so much easier in today's society, we are all forced to agree Women Are Wonderful, everything is set up for them".
If your body already feels alien to you, not really 'you' (that's your brain and your mind and your intelligence), and Science Has The Answer, then why not change to an easier model with clear(er) definitions that you can fit, simply by dressing this way, growing out your hair, wearing makeup, and taking medication to change the vehicle you have been saddled with? If you're already acting/masking to fit 'normie' perceptions, what's a bit more acting along with that?
"Girls become women" isn't hidden knowledge that autistic people are expected to infer from inexplicable social cues. It's not something arbitrary like code-switching how one should greet their betters vs their equals and how to discern which is which. Every child can see a world of little girls and little boys, and adult men and adult women, and the distinguishing factor between those groups is their age. QED.
Maybe it happens sooner than you were expecting, or would have preferred, and maybe it's attended by seemingly arbitrary and unfamiliar social expectations being placed on you, but a notion that you could escape the discomfort by becoming the opposite sex ought to be less plausible and less preferable than an alternative notion that you could somehow remain a child indefinitely.
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