Autistic and transgender/gender diverse (TGD) people reported experiencing lower quality healthcare than both autistic and non-autistic people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth (cisgender).
This is according to a study – “Autistic and transgender/gender diverse people’s experiences of health and healthcare” by Kate Green, Elizabeth Weir, Lily Wright, Carrie Allison and Simon Baron-Cohen – appeared in Molecular Autism.
Previous studies actually already looked into this – e.g. a 2020 study by the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge involving over 640,000 people found that TGD people are more likely to be autistic and have higher levels of autistic traits than other people.
Nonetheless, according to the researchers, there are no studies that consider risks of mental health conditions, physical health conditions, and healthcare quality among autistic TGD people.
For this study, the researchers used an anonymous, self-report survey to compare the experiences of 174 autistic TGD individuals, 1,094 autistic cisgender individuals, and 1,295 non-autistic cisgender individuals. The survey assessed: rates of mental health conditions and physical health conditions, and quality of 51 different aspects of healthcare experiences.
Some of the key findings included:
- Autistic TGD and autistic cisgender adults had significantly poorer healthcare experiences. According to the researchers, this confirmed that autistic people may have poorer quality healthcare than non-autistic cisgender individuals, regardless of their own gender identity.
- Autistic TGD people were three to 11 times more likely to report anxiety, shutdowns, and meltdowns related to common healthcare experiences.
- Only two out of 10 autistic cisgender adults, and only one out of 10 autistic TGD adult stated that they: understood what their healthcare professional meant when discussing their health; knew what was expected of them when seeing a healthcare professional; or were able to describe how bad their pain felt.
- For every 10 non-autistic cisgender people with at least one diagnosed physical health condition, there were 15 autistic cisgender people and 23 autistic TGD people.
- For every 10 non-autistic cisgender people who reported at least one diagnosed mental health condition, there were 50 autistic cisgender people and 109 autistic TGD people who reported the same.
“Autistic people have poorer self-reported health and healthcare; however, being gender diverse is associated with further risk for certain adverse experiences and outcomes,” the researchers stated.
They recommended future research on the health and healthcare experiences of transgender/gender diverse autistic people, as well as “greater recognition of challenges and reasonable adjustments… for people with marginalized, intersectional identities in clinical practice.”
