[sascha_sl]

> I think the parallel you are trying to draw here is very questionable.

The parallel is that both groups are unduely pathologized in the wrong way (not wanting to be healed, but needing support) and have groups that frame their exterminationist thought though that pathologization. Oh, and conversion therapy is advocated for either, except for ASD we called it ABA.

> That fear seems to me to be grounded in ignorance of the actual state of autism genetics research.

Ultimately, it's the thought that counts. It also plays into essentializing either too much. Just as ASD is a set of often interlinking but inconsistently related symptoms ("kitchen sink", as you said), being trans likely has genetic, neurological, environmental and even sociological component that are likely responsible in different quantities for different people.

The anxiety also lies in a precedent for finding the true™ cause and dismissing all who do not fit this model. Even if a research paper claiming to have "found the cause for autism/transness" would have a very long list of caveats and limitations and mark itself as early exporatory research, you know someone would absolutely weaponize it for their culture war.