Co-occurrence does not mean cause
Dr Helen Webberley on Triggernometry: the trans debate, with Konstantin Kisin, Triggernometry
If someone is transgender and also autistic, or transgender and also gay, or transgender and has been through trauma, then one of those things must explain the other. The transgender identity needs a cause, and finding a co-occurrence is the same as finding one.
Co-occurrence is not causation, and this is one of the places where motivated reasoning does the most damage. Yes, some trans people are autistic. Some are gay. Some have lived through hard things. So have plenty of people who are not trans. The question "but why are they really trans?" only gets asked of trans people, never of anyone else, and that asymmetry tells you everything about what the question is actually for. The vast majority of trans people are trans for the same reason anyone is anything: because that is who they are. That is not a gap in the explanation. That is the explanation.
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