Autism and gender dysphoria occur together at significantly high rates.

Autism   Comorbidity   Neurodiversity  

The connection between autism and gender dysphoria has emerged through increasingly robust research over the past decade. Early systematic reviews (Glidden et al., 2016)1 first identified unexpectedly high autism rates among youth with gender dysphoria diagnoses.

Clinical studies then provided stronger evidence. Hisle-Gorman et al. (2019)2 found children with autism diagnoses were over four times more likely to receive a gender dysphoria diagnosis. Warrier et al. (2020)3 confirmed elevated rates across five large independent datasets.

Kallitsounaki & Williams’ 2023 meta-analysis4 synthesized 47 studies – including the ones above – finding that 11% of individuals with gender dysphoria have autism diagnoses—compared to 1% in the general population. The analysis also showed statistically significant differences in autism traits between those with gender dysphoria and control groups (g=0.67), with the authors noting the rising number of publications on this overlap.

Kahn et al.’s 2023 study5 analyzed 919,898 youth across eight U.S. hospital systems, revealing that 0.05% had diagnoses of both autism and gender dysphoria. The probability of having a gender dysphoria diagnosis was 0.019 for those with autism, compared to 0.006 for those without—representing three times higher odds (aOR=3.00).

  1. Glidden, D., Bouman, W. P., Jones, B. A., & Arcelus, J. (2016). Gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review of the literature. Sexual Medicine Reviews, 4(1), 3–14. ↩︎
  2. Hisle-Gorman, E., Landis, C. A., Susi, A., Schvey, N. A., Gorman, G. H., Nylund, C. M., & Klein, D. A. (2019). Gender dysphoria in children with autism spectrum disorder. LGBT Health, 6(3), 95–100. ↩︎
  3. Warrier, V., Greenberg, D. M., Weir, E., Buckingham, C., Smith, P., Lai, M. C., … & Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Nature Communications, 11(1), 3959. ↩︎
  4. Kallitsounaki, A., & Williams, D. M. (2023). Autism spectrum disorder and gender dysphoria/incongruence: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53(8), 3103–3117. ↩︎
  5. Kahn, N. F., Sequeira, G. M., Garrison, M. M., Orlich, F., Christakis, D. A., Aye, T., … & Richardson, L. P. (2023). Co-occurring autism spectrum disorder and gender dysphoria in adolescents. Pediatrics, 152(2), e2023061363. ↩︎
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