In March 2022, as a high-school senior early in gender transition, I released the article Why The Trans Programmer (Kychenthal 2022) discussing the perceived notion that transgender women disproportionately enter technological fields, primarily computer science.
I set out to speculate as to why by using the r/transprogrammer subreddit to poll 138 individual experiences with technological fields, educational experiences, and more. I discovered a disproportionate amount of transfeminine individuals in computing fields, and speculated this could be from a myriad of factors mostly surrounding socialization and perceptions of computing as a field. I further explored this, and some of the historical context surrounding women in computing, in a 45 minute video-essay on my YouTube channel.
“Within the trans communities polled, there is a large discrepancy between those Assigned Male at Birth (AMAB) and Assigned Female at Birth (AFAB). Although Intersex was a polling option, no respondents identified as intersex … There was an overwhelming majority of respondents who identified as AMAB at 89% or 113 of the total responses. Within the self-identification section, 80.4% identified as trans-femine or a trans woman, 6.5% identified as trans masculine or a trans man, while 34.8% identified as non-binary or gender-queer. Furthermore, 71.6% of trans individuals polled believe there is likely a disproportionate amount of trans people in computer science, with 16.4% believing the contrary.”
Comments on the video, above all else, recommended one specific aspect of identity I had yet to look into: neurodivergence.
”I think there are more transwomen programmers today because trans individuals are statistically more likely to be on the autism spectrum. A lot of programmers are on the spectrum or are otherwise neurodivergent (ie ADHD).”
”… I think it could be related to the fact that we tend to socialize online, so we just end up liking computers ig. It could also be the fact that a lot of trans people are autistic and the stereotype that autistic people are into math and logical thinking.”
”My theory is that groups that don’t care as much about fitting in have higher rates of transgender. For example autistic folks typically care less about society’s rules and more willing to embrace their gender. Where as the jocks would be ridiculed so they deny it or stay in the closet. But as society becomes more accepting I think this will help those other groups have higher rates of transgender individuals. But I still agree your points and programming will probably always have a higher rate of us :)”
Purely by anecdotal and circumstantial evidence, I do believe there are more trans-women programmers today because trans individuals are more likely by upwards of 6x to be on the autism spectrum (Warrier et al. 2020) in conjunction with autistic people are more likely by upwards of 3x to enter computing fields (Wei et al. 2012).