OK, finally, I am writing a thread on female ASD/Asperger's and trans identity.

For me, my thinking I was trans was completely inseparable from my autism. My interest in trans issues became an autistic obsession that I was completely absorbed in;

I didn't really think about anything else. Autism means you have very narrow obsessions that are difficult to see outside of, and trans activism was definitely one of mine from age 16-19. I also, I think, mistook ASD symptoms for gender dysphoria:

1: Difficulty adjusting to change. I simply could not handle the way my body was changing during puberty and the speed at which it was changing. The changes didn't make sense to me. I didn't want to look at my body, take proper care of it, or god forbid show it to anyone else.

2: When you are female & autistic you are aware from a young age that your brain seems to be wired differently to the girls around you (other autistic women will vouch for this). In the current climate, it was easy for me to misinterpret this as having a brain wired like a boy's.

Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that autistic female brains are similar to neurotypical male brains (although all scientific evidence around autism and gender is very limited)

Autism makes you good at systematising but bad at empathising, which are traits we typically associate with men. Not to get all 'not like the other girls' on u but...yeah, with ASD we have to take into account that our thinking process is v different and in many ways more 'male'

and when you're 15, undiagnosed, and surrounded by trans culture online it's easy to come to the conclusion that you must have a male brain because you have typically male patterns of thinking.

It was my autism diagnosis in 2017 that made me begin to put all the parts together and realise I had made the wrong decision wrt transition. It truly changed my life and saved me from doing something I would certainly have regretted.

Basically, being transgender was the only explanation I had at the time for issues that were actually rooted in autism. I thought testosterone would fix me, and make my body as masculine as my brain seemed to be.

In fact, my brain wasn't 'masculine' at all, it was autistic.