Gender identity is a personal concept that describes one’s internal experience of gender. This is influenced by the individual’s external experience of gender or how the rest of the world treats them based on the gender they were assigned at birth. Gender dysphoria is the experience of being assigned a different gender at birth than the gender one actually is internally. People on the autism spectrum seem to experience more gender dysphoria than neurotypical individuals.
Scientific research on this is just beginning, but small-scale studies suggest that social and communication differences between autistic brains and neurotypical brains can increase the experience of gender dysphoria in people with autism, leading to greater differences in gender self-expression.
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