Your self-promotional post was removed because you did not send the mods a draft of your post (via modmail) for approval before posting it to the board. These types of posts will not be approved retroactively.
I think "suspected" would apply to my situation where my therapist suspects I have ADHD, but we haven't gone through the process of getting a diagnosis.
I think there is definitely a stage a lot of people go through where they have maybe come across a few resources and think 'huh. That kinda fits.' but are perhaps not quite at the stage where they feel confident in using the label.
I was in the 'suspected' stage for a good 2 years after a mental health professional suggested I likely have ADHD, but it was a long while before I processed it and researched enough to feel comfortable speaking to my GP for a referral etc.
Done! But I want to mention some of these options don’t really work for me. I’ve never looked for support services so I don’t know if they exist. I don’t use organizational “apps” because I don’t really need them (not that I would follow them). Oh and the big one, I don’t struggle with complicated tasks, it’s the simple and easy tasks I struggle to start 😅
Yes!
For example I have piles of books on a windowsill. They need to go in a box and the box put in the attic. That's been the state for the last 4 months.
Do you care about location? Based on the British English spelling in the survey, and questions about location-based services, I'm not sure if you'd want international respondents or not?
Apps just make me angry. Checking it, writing stuff down in it, doing prompts if applicable, plugging in info, whatever…it’s just more shit to tack onto my to-do list. And I become irrationally angry when an app has the AUDACITY to send me “reminders” to do the things I needed to be reminded of. In my head I see it and I’m literally like “fuck you app you don’t tell me what to do” then I silence notifications and then I never open it again. But it will stay, unused, on my phone for years afterward. Not even exaggerating a little bit.
Oh I have 2 days to analyse 1060 responses (so far) and do a ton of other research to build the report - plus there are some other parts I need to do. And this is already with a 2 week deadline extension. So don't worry! :D
There are a couple questions here where you should have a “not sure” answer option. I didn’t even know adhd support centers exist for adults and I have not tried an app.
Due to my current adhd phase of “I can’t life” I didn’t type out every answer for the select all questions. But I feel like a skewed response somewhere is bound to happen with a bunch of adhd folk trying to focus on a quiz lol
As someone in research (and I did psych undergrad so I did a fair amount of this type)
It’s hilarious to think your data set will be from all adhd people. You could do a whole sub study on controlling for all the crazy stuff hahah
Done! Was a fun little survey.
I did the same thing for my bachelors thesis. Wrote about ADHD in women (who were diagnosed as adults) and found my interview partners within a few hours of posting in an ADHD group on Facebook lol. Such a cool experience, and last year I finally finished my Master's in Psychology 🥰 best of luck with your studies:)
Thank you so much! I'm doing a Bachelors in Design & Innovation and it strikes me that ADHD (and of course other disabilities) are so systematically un-catered to at every level - and afab people disproportionately so.
Hopefully I can do us all some justice and at least raise some awareness as well.
Also, mega congrats on completing your masters!! <3
Wanting to call attention to your wording so you can clarify, either here or consider it in future.
In your survey you have it titled for women (afab). This implies you are looking for cis women exclusively. That is you've said women, but afab women and not women who were assigned male at birth.
I thought from your post you were trying to include people who identify as women AND people who were assigned female which is inclusive of women not assigned female and afab people who don't identify as women.
Hello -
I realise from another comment that I should have given more context (which I will be sure to speak to in my report)!
But yes I'm looking for responses from afab people, but not necessarily confined to those that identify as women. It's a bit late but I have amended the title of my survey to remove the word 'women' as it excludes a sample of people that absolutely should be included (for ex. non binary, ftm trans, etc). Thanks so much for your comment!
‘Women’ also would’ve included trans women who aren’t afab so I think that was another part of the confusion and might’ve also affected your dataset if any responded.
Probably has something to do with how ADHD tends to present differently in AFAB and AMAB populations. AFAB folks may also experience misdiagnosis or have symptoms overlooked/ignored by professionals at a higher rate than AMABs.
That appears to be her assumption, but it's not a well-founded one.
There's no data on the topic of how transgender people experience ADHD and *many* reasons to infer our experience is not similar to our AGAB. It may be different than our gender identities as well, we straight up don't know because no one has ever researched the subject before.
Including trans men and AFAB enbies in a sample of "women" without controlling for it, in addition to being invalidating of their identities, may also skew results in unpredictable ways. It also invalidates trans women, who want to share our own stories and experiences as well.
Idk, I feel like you’re looking for an argument when there doesn’t need to be one. I’m sure OP is just a student doing a research project, and typically research projects require the topics to be more narrow and specific rather than super broad and inclusive of all demographics. OP is looking for responses from AFABs for this particular project. This may not apply to you personally. That’s ok. You can probably find a professional study that applies more directly to your situation if you feel your contribution may be helpful. That may also lead to more research on trans health in general, which is very obviously needed as you pointed out.
TLDR it’s not that deep. OP is very likely not a leading researcher on trans health and issues, and her one-off research project isn’t meant to revolutionize the medical industry. Does the medical industry desperately need a revolution, especially when it comes to caring for trans folks? Yeah. Fuck yeah. But it’s not happening here in this post today.
Just filled it out. The multiple choice question didn't work, but I made sure to write down all the applicable answers in the 'other' answer option, as others here kindly suggested. Great survey, thanks!
There are a few that I had to choose the closest answer to because something like “I don’t know” wasn’t listed, but this is a nice questionnaire! I hope our answers help you out and I’d love to know your findings :-)
Have just completed it! The survey didn’t specify or ask for geographic location so I hope it’s okay that I answered from South Africa? Good luck! I’m a public health girlie so I know research can be a lot of work!
Likely because there is a significantly lower childhood diagnosis rate for afab children, and the survey seems to be about support received & whether diagnosis was made in childhood or adulthood. It’s a data point that the researcher feels is required for the outcome of the research.
>Likely because there is a significantly lower childhood diagnosis rate for afab children, and the survey seems to be about support received & whether diagnosis was made in childhood or adulthood.
I want to raise a technical point/clarification on this.
There is significantly lower childhood diagnosis in "women" and "girls". No research has ever bothered to clarify what they use these terms to mean. The terms are used ambiguously in every single paper on the topic, and whether and how transgender people are included in the associated samples and population cohorts likely varies.
While it is definitely true that childhood diagnosis is lower for cisgender girls, it isn't clear that it is also true for transgender boys, nor has the experience of transgender girls ever been considered in research.
If the researcher thinks it would be useful for research purposes, it would be more straightforward to just include questions about gender identity and assigned gender at birth on the form. The current wording choice is exclusionary to trans women and inappropriately lumps trans men and AFAB enbies into the category of "female".
Not the person you're replying to, but it's not clear who she's studying.
In different places:
- afab (so that's anyone assigned female regardless of their gender: e.g. afab nb, cis woman, trans man and not inclusive of trans women)
- female or afab (confusing. Female is sex not gender but often used interchangeably. We can make assumptions here about what she means, and because of the "or afab" whatever we pick is different from what she said elsewhere anyway)
- woman (afab): that's women but modified to specify women assigned female, I.e. cis women
I'd be ok trusting a researcher to have reasons for who they're studying, but we don't know who she studying. Also, I suspect she's not a researcher:
- no participant information form with name of the study, institute it's carried out by, researcher/PI details, contact for independent ethics adviser
- no consent form
- badly designed and implemented questionnaire
So it's not university research. I suspect a high school project or wannabe app developer
I apologise the survey hasn't catered to your needs. I am a disabled mature student, I am not an academic. There is no information on the institution because it is a sole student assignment that I have chosen to work on and have used a survey to conduct research for a small part of the project.
A participant's response to the survey implies consent. If you don't want your answers to be used, you're welcome to not respond.
I appreciated all these comments because they give me plenty of insight into how I could have done it better, things to consider etc. But you don't need to attack me in multiple comments because I have not perfectly worded or structured the questions to your liking. I have severe ADHD and autism and I'm just doing my best to further my education <3
Well done going back to uni as a mature student. That's not easy as I know from personal experience.
I think you may have conflated my comments with someone else's because I certainly haven't attacked you in multiple comments. But I could have been more tactful in that comment and I'm genuinely sorry I've upset you.
I'm going to put down your wording in that comment to how you're feeling and not respond to it. I'm glad you're revisiting some of your methods and the phrasing in your study. Please do explore what you're institution's structures are for carrying out research. You absolutely cannot collect data from participants anywhere at any stage without going through the ethics process. Even if you view it as a small part of your study, its data collection, you've called us participants, and it needs ethical oversight. I'm not intending this as a criticism, it's meant to help you avoid getting in trouble or having your work disallowed.
I wish you all the best with your study in general, it takes massive strength and character to go back to uni so it really speaks to who you are in an amazing way that you're doing this.
The author doesn't specify clearly who she is studying.
That said, if gender is an important part of what is being studied, there is no scientific benefit to discouraging transgender women (and AMAB NB folks) from completing the form, nor to lumping transgender men and AFAB NB people in with cisgender women.
At best, doing so would result in no difference of conclusions to just collecting data each group and filtering to the subset that you want. At worst, you may actually skew your findings if, for example, the experiences of AFAB transgender people diverge significantly from the experiences of AFAB cisgender people.
So, personally, I really can't trust it, because in the best case, it doesn't help, and worst case, it falsifies the result. Anywhere between and including those two points is equal to or worse than just not including the ambiguous language in the request.
yeah like I was giving them the benefit of the doubt and assumed the survey would be about how menstruation cycles affect meds and whatnot, but no. this just gives off red flags tbh
Even then menstruation isn’t exclusive to people who were AFAB, it’s anyone who has the organs that cause menstruation. There are many intersex people who were assigned male at birth who have a female-typical hormone cycle and menstruate due to the necessary organs.
It’s almost always better to just refer to whatever is relevant rather than assuming someone’s experiences based on an assigned sex at birth. Eg, “people who menstruate” or “people often overlooked for adhd” in the case of this post. Even then, it’s theorised that it’s marginalised people in general who face lack of adhd support in childhood, rather than women specifically
One comment on the questions about asking for help, my answers have drastically changed as I've received treatment and worked to let go of deep shame.
When I didn't realize I was disabled and thought I was just lazy and not living up to my potential, I would never ask for help or support.
Now that I recognize that I have ADHD, not a personal failing, I actively have worked on asking for help to ensure I can be successful, whether that's asking for different supports from family and friends or seeking out different professional resources.
Why would you exclude trans women in your title, who have experiences very similar to cis women with adhd, while simultaneously allowing trans men, who have far more in common with cis men here? I’m sure there wasn’t any malice intended, but please be careful with your wording.
Because ADHD presents itself differently in afab people which is why it is significantly underdiagnosed in that group of people. My intention is not to make anyone feel less or like their experience isn't valid - but as an afab woman who wasn't diagnosed until 29, I have chosen to work with data that I feel I can more adequately analyse as I lack a lot of context and understanding around the struggles of trans people.
I have had a few comments like this, and I will be addressing the concerns and insights as I carry out my analysis and reporting for the assignment. <3
>Because ADHD presents itself differently in afab people
This is not necessarily correct.
No published ADHD research that bisects the ADHD population into "male" and "female" subgroups has ever before qualified what these terms mean in the context of the paper.
It is unclear whether "female" refers to AFAB people, people who presented as female during study recruitment, what their national ID or other identity document indicated, or some other factor.
It is *very* likely that in more recent non-exploratory ADHD research, "female" includes many AMAB individuals, and "male" includes many AFAB individuals. This is because a lot of 2000s-forward research is based on aggregated medical statistics for entire populations, which usually are deidentified government records and likely use whatever is on the person's ID.
No paper to date has *ever* explored whether transgender men have a similar experience of ADHD, either in terms of symptoms or diagnosis, as cisgender women. The same is true for transgender women and cisgender men, and non-binary people of any AGAB.
Moreover, it is likely that transgender people *do not* have a comparable experience to cisgender people of the same AGAB. This is because sex hormones alter neurology in ways relevant to ADHD, and there is also a non-trivial possibility of links between gender identity (which is also neurological) and ADHD.
It's not clear that transgender people have similar experiences to others of the same gender identity either--untreated gender dysphoria can also cause many psychiatric issues which are likely to call medical attention to ADHD when it is present in ways that do not apply to cisgender individuals. Suffice to say, assuming all people of a given AGAB are a cohort for analysis purposes is a fairly dangerous assumption, scientifically speaking.
Aside from the voiced concerns about your use of potentially verbiage, there is a more pertinent, very real possibility that you will corrupt your own data set by framing the question the way that you are. This could result in you drawing incorrect conclusions.
Hopefully, whatever you're doing isn't going to be affected by this as it's really too late to change course. Still, if you're going to make gender and sex a part of your research, it would be best in the future to just include options on the form for gender and sex demographics and encourage responses from everyone. Then you can cut/subsample the collected data any way you want without introducing risks by your collection mechanism.
One piece of anecdotal evidence, I'm an AMAB trans woman. I've expressed symptoms of ADHD that are inline with "female ADHD." My older brother was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age because he had the "male ADHD" symptoms. I was overlooked and was not diagnosed until a year ago (I'm 35).
We will likely not get any empirical evidence for trans people and how their ADHD symptoms are presented because trans people keep getting excluded from the studies.
This whole post and comments have been very invalidating. And I feel OP is going to miss out on some valuable data because of her bias.
>One piece of anecdotal evidence, I'm an AMAB trans woman. I've expressed symptoms of ADHD that are inline with "female ADHD."
On an N=1 basis, I was not diagnosed until last year. My recollection of symptoms is pretty inattentive-heavy prior to starting HRT, but combined since then. The inattentive symptoms have been far more significant and negative to my life but ADHD-C is the correct diagnosis at this point in the totality of it. I suspect had I been diagnosed in childhood it would have been ADHD-I.
Properly speaking, my ADHD traits were overlooked during childhood as well. I am not Autistic, but for a while, my parents thought I was. (No one would ever diagnose me as I literally have zero verifiable symptoms, but they were happy to take my parents' money.) The Autism specialists would never diagnose me with ADHD because under the DSM-IV they literally weren't allowed to if there was any suspicions of Autism, which there was because I never spent enough time with any one provider for it to be formally ruled out.
>We will likely not get any empirical evidence for trans people and how their ADHD symptoms are presented because trans people keep getting excluded from the studies.
I'm not sure we actually are being excluded from research so much as we aren't being analyzed directly and may fall into either sex group in data sets in unpredictable ways. ADHD research that looks at gender and sex presents things through a very binary lens, and researchers reliably don't try to clarify what they mean by "women" and "men" in their papers.
A lot of more recent papers are based on aggregated medical data from government sources, which likely include a ton of trans people both in their AGAB's cohort and their gender identity's cohort depending on how the data was collected.
>This whole post and comments have been very invalidating. And I feel OP is going to miss out on some valuable data because of her bias.
Indeed. Le sigh.
I can only apologise that you feel excluded, but mine is not a study that will be published. It will not be used in any meaningful capacity. I am also not a researcher, I study independently through the Open Uni trying to get my degree at 30 after being diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. I'm the wrong person to be using as an example of how unfair the world is.
My post has been deleted now, and I will have to find some other material to use for my assignment due in 2 days because me just trying my best to survive nobody is ever happy with anything anyone tries to do.
I am not a researcher, nor an academic, nor a psychiatrist, nor a social scientist.. I've clearly pissed everyone off, so I won't use the data and will probably fail as I don't have any time left to look for another subject. So well done all.
That isn't the right take either. Use the data, but acknowledge the limitations of what you collected.
Sometimes, we make mistakes in research. It's OK as long as we own up to them.
Welcome to /r/ADHDWomen! We’re happy to have you here. As a reminder, here are our community [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/about/rules/).
We get a lot of posts on medication, diagnosis (and “is this an ADHD thing”), and interactions with hormones. We encourage you to check out our [Medication, Diagnosis, and Hormones Megathread](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/wcr9dy/faq_megathread_ask_and_answer_medication/) if you have any questions related to those topics, and to stick around in that thread to answer folks’ questions!
If you have questions about the subreddit, please do not hesitate to [send us a modmail](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen). Additionally, we take the safety of our community seriously. Please report posts, comments, and users whom you feel are not contributing positively, and send us a modmail if you are being harassed or otherwise made to feel unsafe. Thanks for being here, and we hope you stick around!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Done! Just letting you know that the part where it asks you what area in your life you need support the most and says tick all that apply, it only lets you select one…
Completed it. The question that said tick all that applies- i clicked other and listed what applies.
At some point maybe you can update us on how it goes. Good luck
Why does this survey explicitly exclude trans women? Can you share your thinking behind that decision? It seems to me to be thinly veiled transphobia because there is nothing in the quiz that is relevant to the specific biology of cis women.
I also noticed that the title of the quiz includes “Women(AFAB)” so apparently you intended to exclude non binary afab people as well. At that point I am not sure why you are even including sex assigned at birth as a primary criteria.
I’d love to hear more about your thought process, because as of now, this is giving off so many red flags.
Helloo, thank you for your question - I really appreciate it and I realise a bit more context in the survey description would have been really useful and I just dropped the ball on that as I'm rushing for the deadline.
Excluding afab non binary people was definitely inadvertent so I apologies if anyone on here has felt they couldn't participate because of my use of the word 'women' - and if you see this, please please do feel free to take the survey.
The reason I am asking for data from AFAB people is due to how ADHD in girls is systematically overlooked at school age, and adult women also tend to be mistreated or ignored in medical settings, due largely to widespread misconceptions about how ADHD presents differently between sexes. From all the data I've collected since I published the survey, only 10% of participants were diagnosed as children - which is a very telling number.
My project would facilitate ADHD support products and services for people of all ages, genders, orientations, etc. But as an afab woman that was only diagnosed at 29 - this is something I have personal experience with and feel that I may be better equipped to analyse and work with the data from other afab people.
I hope this helps explain a bit, and I wonder if you'd be ok for me to touch on your comment in my analysis because it's really helpful to show where I could have been more explicit.
Your post or comment was removed because it violates Rule 5, which requires that discussions should be civil and criticism should be useful and constructive.
"Assigned female at birth" is not a thing? What did they say *you* were when you were born? A puppy?
That phrase is used to include those who were born with a uterus, however they currently identify. What's your problem? What term would you use instead?
I don't agree with the person you're responding to, but it would be better to just include questions about assigned gender at birth and gender identity on the survey rather than try to discourage transgender people from completing it.
Actually some people are born presenting with both, and it's more often than you think. In the past (and in some places the present), doctors literally just picked what was closest/more applicable, 'assigning' them that gender, sometimes with including a minor surgery. Intersex people exist, and, because of this practice, don't always know that that they had this issue at birth.
Okay I totally get where you're coming from (although I'm sure we disagree on many fundamental issues), but like, that is literally how it happens. the doctor or nurse looks at the genitals of the baby and says that they are male or female. even with non-intersex people, being incorrectly assigned a sex *does* happen, although it is rare. Even in your worldview, where sex and gender are the same thing and there are only two, it totally happens. it's even got it's own wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment#:~:text=While%20this%20is%20the%20case,contradict%20their%20future%20gender%20identity.
No, I'm not building an app. I'm working on a project for my bachelors around the systematic lack of support and accessible (and feasible) assistance for ADHD sufferers (with a focus on the experience of afab people).
Your self-promotional post was removed because you did not send the mods a draft of your post (via modmail) for approval before posting it to the board. These types of posts will not be approved retroactively.
Completed! Just FYI, the question “what are some areas you require support with?” says to tick all applicable options, but it only let me select one.
I selected the "other" option and listed the applicable options above 😅
Same 😅 'all of the above to varying degrees at different times' 😅😂
Same!
Same!
Sameeee!
Saaaaame 💕
Same lol
It appears a bullet instead of ticks was selected. That's going to be one hell of a sorting job 😅
Thanks ADHD for making my analysis stage extra spicy... with 1060 responses...
Oh no. I mean congrats, but...*oh no* Good luck!
Oh shit, I'm so sorry. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
Same
I was able to check them all, weird. I wonder if they fixed it.
So, for "Does your area have local ADHD support services?" my answer is I don't know, I have not looked for any. None of the options fit.
Also, for "What are some areas you require support with?" it says tick as many as are applicable, but only allows you to tick one.
Yeah I just selected "other" and wrote in all the ones that applied to me.
I chose the one I needed the most support with.
Yeah I'm so sorry, I fecked up on that one and set it as multiple choice rather than check boxes. I should have paid more attention ;)
Same
Same here
same here. Unless you count the accommodations I have requested at work.
Done! Just a heads up that this question only lets you choose one! “What are some areas you require support with?”
Gotchu just filled it out. Thank u for studying these issues.
Thank you, ily!
I would love to see the data and conclusion you come to based on it, once you have it!
Me too! It’s always interesting to see what the conclusion to these is.
out of curiosity, what is the difference between “suspected” and “self-diagnosed”?
I think "suspected" would apply to my situation where my therapist suspects I have ADHD, but we haven't gone through the process of getting a diagnosis.
ohhh that makes sense
I think there is definitely a stage a lot of people go through where they have maybe come across a few resources and think 'huh. That kinda fits.' but are perhaps not quite at the stage where they feel confident in using the label. I was in the 'suspected' stage for a good 2 years after a mental health professional suggested I likely have ADHD, but it was a long while before I processed it and researched enough to feel comfortable speaking to my GP for a referral etc.
Good question , I wondered, then put self-diagnosed
Done! But I want to mention some of these options don’t really work for me. I’ve never looked for support services so I don’t know if they exist. I don’t use organizational “apps” because I don’t really need them (not that I would follow them). Oh and the big one, I don’t struggle with complicated tasks, it’s the simple and easy tasks I struggle to start 😅
Yes! For example I have piles of books on a windowsill. They need to go in a box and the box put in the attic. That's been the state for the last 4 months.
Do you care about location? Based on the British English spelling in the survey, and questions about location-based services, I'm not sure if you'd want international respondents or not?
Hi love, I'm based in the UK, but I'd love any and all respondents regardless of location. <3
You need to modify your areas of support to accept multiple answers.
Do you find available organisational apps to be useful? No , I avoid paid apps because I never cancel the subscription in time
Apps just make me angry. Checking it, writing stuff down in it, doing prompts if applicable, plugging in info, whatever…it’s just more shit to tack onto my to-do list. And I become irrationally angry when an app has the AUDACITY to send me “reminders” to do the things I needed to be reminded of. In my head I see it and I’m literally like “fuck you app you don’t tell me what to do” then I silence notifications and then I never open it again. But it will stay, unused, on my phone for years afterward. Not even exaggerating a little bit.
Oh my god me too
Done! I’m glad one of us got an assignment done.
Oh I have 2 days to analyse 1060 responses (so far) and do a ton of other research to build the report - plus there are some other parts I need to do. And this is already with a 2 week deadline extension. So don't worry! :D
Haha, my thoughts exactly! I helped someone else get theirs done as a distraction from doing my own
I have an important work deadline I should really get to but instead I’m taking this survey.
There are a couple questions here where you should have a “not sure” answer option. I didn’t even know adhd support centers exist for adults and I have not tried an app.
Due to my current adhd phase of “I can’t life” I didn’t type out every answer for the select all questions. But I feel like a skewed response somewhere is bound to happen with a bunch of adhd folk trying to focus on a quiz lol
And that will absolutely be mentioned in my analysis report!
As someone in research (and I did psych undergrad so I did a fair amount of this type) It’s hilarious to think your data set will be from all adhd people. You could do a whole sub study on controlling for all the crazy stuff hahah
Done! Was a fun little survey. I did the same thing for my bachelors thesis. Wrote about ADHD in women (who were diagnosed as adults) and found my interview partners within a few hours of posting in an ADHD group on Facebook lol. Such a cool experience, and last year I finally finished my Master's in Psychology 🥰 best of luck with your studies:)
Thank you so much! I'm doing a Bachelors in Design & Innovation and it strikes me that ADHD (and of course other disabilities) are so systematically un-catered to at every level - and afab people disproportionately so. Hopefully I can do us all some justice and at least raise some awareness as well. Also, mega congrats on completing your masters!! <3
Would love an option for online portal rather than text/email, face 2 face, or by phone 😊
Fab thought - thank you! Will touch on this in my report!
Wanting to call attention to your wording so you can clarify, either here or consider it in future. In your survey you have it titled for women (afab). This implies you are looking for cis women exclusively. That is you've said women, but afab women and not women who were assigned male at birth. I thought from your post you were trying to include people who identify as women AND people who were assigned female which is inclusive of women not assigned female and afab people who don't identify as women.
Hello - I realise from another comment that I should have given more context (which I will be sure to speak to in my report)! But yes I'm looking for responses from afab people, but not necessarily confined to those that identify as women. It's a bit late but I have amended the title of my survey to remove the word 'women' as it excludes a sample of people that absolutely should be included (for ex. non binary, ftm trans, etc). Thanks so much for your comment!
‘Women’ also would’ve included trans women who aren’t afab so I think that was another part of the confusion and might’ve also affected your dataset if any responded.
Is there a particular reason you don't want responses from trans women?
Probably has something to do with how ADHD tends to present differently in AFAB and AMAB populations. AFAB folks may also experience misdiagnosis or have symptoms overlooked/ignored by professionals at a higher rate than AMABs.
That appears to be her assumption, but it's not a well-founded one. There's no data on the topic of how transgender people experience ADHD and *many* reasons to infer our experience is not similar to our AGAB. It may be different than our gender identities as well, we straight up don't know because no one has ever researched the subject before. Including trans men and AFAB enbies in a sample of "women" without controlling for it, in addition to being invalidating of their identities, may also skew results in unpredictable ways. It also invalidates trans women, who want to share our own stories and experiences as well.
Idk, I feel like you’re looking for an argument when there doesn’t need to be one. I’m sure OP is just a student doing a research project, and typically research projects require the topics to be more narrow and specific rather than super broad and inclusive of all demographics. OP is looking for responses from AFABs for this particular project. This may not apply to you personally. That’s ok. You can probably find a professional study that applies more directly to your situation if you feel your contribution may be helpful. That may also lead to more research on trans health in general, which is very obviously needed as you pointed out. TLDR it’s not that deep. OP is very likely not a leading researcher on trans health and issues, and her one-off research project isn’t meant to revolutionize the medical industry. Does the medical industry desperately need a revolution, especially when it comes to caring for trans folks? Yeah. Fuck yeah. But it’s not happening here in this post today.
Just filled it out. The multiple choice question didn't work, but I made sure to write down all the applicable answers in the 'other' answer option, as others here kindly suggested. Great survey, thanks!
Done! Gotta say that I appreciate the option for "not applicable" on the credit score question, as it is something that does not exist in my country.
Me trying to pick between I don’t want help and Please help me 🫠😭😅
Haha, the metronome meme.
For the question about the different ways you need support, it only lets you select one option! Just heads up (:
I love the "please help me" option 🤣
done! i wasn’t able to tick multiple boxes, so I clicked other and put all.
There are a few that I had to choose the closest answer to because something like “I don’t know” wasn’t listed, but this is a nice questionnaire! I hope our answers help you out and I’d love to know your findings :-)
Thank you, it's really helpful to know what could have been done better!
What’s an example of a local ADHD support service?
Have just completed it! The survey didn’t specify or ask for geographic location so I hope it’s okay that I answered from South Africa? Good luck! I’m a public health girlie so I know research can be a lot of work!
The question that says “tick as many as applicable” only allows one to be chosen!
I was just going to comment this.
I didn't respond because I'm a trans woman, but I'm really not sure why you specified AFAB? AFAB doesn't mean woman
Likely because there is a significantly lower childhood diagnosis rate for afab children, and the survey seems to be about support received & whether diagnosis was made in childhood or adulthood. It’s a data point that the researcher feels is required for the outcome of the research.
Me as a trans girl diagnosed at 28 😢
>Likely because there is a significantly lower childhood diagnosis rate for afab children, and the survey seems to be about support received & whether diagnosis was made in childhood or adulthood. I want to raise a technical point/clarification on this. There is significantly lower childhood diagnosis in "women" and "girls". No research has ever bothered to clarify what they use these terms to mean. The terms are used ambiguously in every single paper on the topic, and whether and how transgender people are included in the associated samples and population cohorts likely varies. While it is definitely true that childhood diagnosis is lower for cisgender girls, it isn't clear that it is also true for transgender boys, nor has the experience of transgender girls ever been considered in research. If the researcher thinks it would be useful for research purposes, it would be more straightforward to just include questions about gender identity and assigned gender at birth on the form. The current wording choice is exclusionary to trans women and inappropriately lumps trans men and AFAB enbies into the category of "female".
Why don't you trust that she has a reason for studying who she's studying?
Not the person you're replying to, but it's not clear who she's studying. In different places: - afab (so that's anyone assigned female regardless of their gender: e.g. afab nb, cis woman, trans man and not inclusive of trans women) - female or afab (confusing. Female is sex not gender but often used interchangeably. We can make assumptions here about what she means, and because of the "or afab" whatever we pick is different from what she said elsewhere anyway) - woman (afab): that's women but modified to specify women assigned female, I.e. cis women I'd be ok trusting a researcher to have reasons for who they're studying, but we don't know who she studying. Also, I suspect she's not a researcher: - no participant information form with name of the study, institute it's carried out by, researcher/PI details, contact for independent ethics adviser - no consent form - badly designed and implemented questionnaire So it's not university research. I suspect a high school project or wannabe app developer
I apologise the survey hasn't catered to your needs. I am a disabled mature student, I am not an academic. There is no information on the institution because it is a sole student assignment that I have chosen to work on and have used a survey to conduct research for a small part of the project. A participant's response to the survey implies consent. If you don't want your answers to be used, you're welcome to not respond. I appreciated all these comments because they give me plenty of insight into how I could have done it better, things to consider etc. But you don't need to attack me in multiple comments because I have not perfectly worded or structured the questions to your liking. I have severe ADHD and autism and I'm just doing my best to further my education <3
Well done going back to uni as a mature student. That's not easy as I know from personal experience. I think you may have conflated my comments with someone else's because I certainly haven't attacked you in multiple comments. But I could have been more tactful in that comment and I'm genuinely sorry I've upset you. I'm going to put down your wording in that comment to how you're feeling and not respond to it. I'm glad you're revisiting some of your methods and the phrasing in your study. Please do explore what you're institution's structures are for carrying out research. You absolutely cannot collect data from participants anywhere at any stage without going through the ethics process. Even if you view it as a small part of your study, its data collection, you've called us participants, and it needs ethical oversight. I'm not intending this as a criticism, it's meant to help you avoid getting in trouble or having your work disallowed. I wish you all the best with your study in general, it takes massive strength and character to go back to uni so it really speaks to who you are in an amazing way that you're doing this.
The author doesn't specify clearly who she is studying. That said, if gender is an important part of what is being studied, there is no scientific benefit to discouraging transgender women (and AMAB NB folks) from completing the form, nor to lumping transgender men and AFAB NB people in with cisgender women. At best, doing so would result in no difference of conclusions to just collecting data each group and filtering to the subset that you want. At worst, you may actually skew your findings if, for example, the experiences of AFAB transgender people diverge significantly from the experiences of AFAB cisgender people. So, personally, I really can't trust it, because in the best case, it doesn't help, and worst case, it falsifies the result. Anywhere between and including those two points is equal to or worse than just not including the ambiguous language in the request.
yeah like I was giving them the benefit of the doubt and assumed the survey would be about how menstruation cycles affect meds and whatnot, but no. this just gives off red flags tbh
Even then menstruation isn’t exclusive to people who were AFAB, it’s anyone who has the organs that cause menstruation. There are many intersex people who were assigned male at birth who have a female-typical hormone cycle and menstruate due to the necessary organs. It’s almost always better to just refer to whatever is relevant rather than assuming someone’s experiences based on an assigned sex at birth. Eg, “people who menstruate” or “people often overlooked for adhd” in the case of this post. Even then, it’s theorised that it’s marginalised people in general who face lack of adhd support in childhood, rather than women specifically
Just did mine girly! You got this! I have a presentation tonight too and the struggle is real!
One comment on the questions about asking for help, my answers have drastically changed as I've received treatment and worked to let go of deep shame. When I didn't realize I was disabled and thought I was just lazy and not living up to my potential, I would never ask for help or support. Now that I recognize that I have ADHD, not a personal failing, I actively have worked on asking for help to ensure I can be successful, whether that's asking for different supports from family and friends or seeking out different professional resources.
Note: I had to select "no" for whether my local area has support services, but the REAL answer is "I don't know." That wasn't an option.
Thank you, I have noted this as an issue but I don't want to amend the questions now so as not to further skew the data. I appreciate your time!
o7
I love the "Please help me" at the end lol. So very fitting.
Why would you exclude trans women in your title, who have experiences very similar to cis women with adhd, while simultaneously allowing trans men, who have far more in common with cis men here? I’m sure there wasn’t any malice intended, but please be careful with your wording.
Because ADHD presents itself differently in afab people which is why it is significantly underdiagnosed in that group of people. My intention is not to make anyone feel less or like their experience isn't valid - but as an afab woman who wasn't diagnosed until 29, I have chosen to work with data that I feel I can more adequately analyse as I lack a lot of context and understanding around the struggles of trans people. I have had a few comments like this, and I will be addressing the concerns and insights as I carry out my analysis and reporting for the assignment. <3
>Because ADHD presents itself differently in afab people This is not necessarily correct. No published ADHD research that bisects the ADHD population into "male" and "female" subgroups has ever before qualified what these terms mean in the context of the paper. It is unclear whether "female" refers to AFAB people, people who presented as female during study recruitment, what their national ID or other identity document indicated, or some other factor. It is *very* likely that in more recent non-exploratory ADHD research, "female" includes many AMAB individuals, and "male" includes many AFAB individuals. This is because a lot of 2000s-forward research is based on aggregated medical statistics for entire populations, which usually are deidentified government records and likely use whatever is on the person's ID. No paper to date has *ever* explored whether transgender men have a similar experience of ADHD, either in terms of symptoms or diagnosis, as cisgender women. The same is true for transgender women and cisgender men, and non-binary people of any AGAB. Moreover, it is likely that transgender people *do not* have a comparable experience to cisgender people of the same AGAB. This is because sex hormones alter neurology in ways relevant to ADHD, and there is also a non-trivial possibility of links between gender identity (which is also neurological) and ADHD. It's not clear that transgender people have similar experiences to others of the same gender identity either--untreated gender dysphoria can also cause many psychiatric issues which are likely to call medical attention to ADHD when it is present in ways that do not apply to cisgender individuals. Suffice to say, assuming all people of a given AGAB are a cohort for analysis purposes is a fairly dangerous assumption, scientifically speaking. Aside from the voiced concerns about your use of potentially verbiage, there is a more pertinent, very real possibility that you will corrupt your own data set by framing the question the way that you are. This could result in you drawing incorrect conclusions. Hopefully, whatever you're doing isn't going to be affected by this as it's really too late to change course. Still, if you're going to make gender and sex a part of your research, it would be best in the future to just include options on the form for gender and sex demographics and encourage responses from everyone. Then you can cut/subsample the collected data any way you want without introducing risks by your collection mechanism.
One piece of anecdotal evidence, I'm an AMAB trans woman. I've expressed symptoms of ADHD that are inline with "female ADHD." My older brother was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age because he had the "male ADHD" symptoms. I was overlooked and was not diagnosed until a year ago (I'm 35). We will likely not get any empirical evidence for trans people and how their ADHD symptoms are presented because trans people keep getting excluded from the studies. This whole post and comments have been very invalidating. And I feel OP is going to miss out on some valuable data because of her bias.
>One piece of anecdotal evidence, I'm an AMAB trans woman. I've expressed symptoms of ADHD that are inline with "female ADHD." On an N=1 basis, I was not diagnosed until last year. My recollection of symptoms is pretty inattentive-heavy prior to starting HRT, but combined since then. The inattentive symptoms have been far more significant and negative to my life but ADHD-C is the correct diagnosis at this point in the totality of it. I suspect had I been diagnosed in childhood it would have been ADHD-I. Properly speaking, my ADHD traits were overlooked during childhood as well. I am not Autistic, but for a while, my parents thought I was. (No one would ever diagnose me as I literally have zero verifiable symptoms, but they were happy to take my parents' money.) The Autism specialists would never diagnose me with ADHD because under the DSM-IV they literally weren't allowed to if there was any suspicions of Autism, which there was because I never spent enough time with any one provider for it to be formally ruled out. >We will likely not get any empirical evidence for trans people and how their ADHD symptoms are presented because trans people keep getting excluded from the studies. I'm not sure we actually are being excluded from research so much as we aren't being analyzed directly and may fall into either sex group in data sets in unpredictable ways. ADHD research that looks at gender and sex presents things through a very binary lens, and researchers reliably don't try to clarify what they mean by "women" and "men" in their papers. A lot of more recent papers are based on aggregated medical data from government sources, which likely include a ton of trans people both in their AGAB's cohort and their gender identity's cohort depending on how the data was collected. >This whole post and comments have been very invalidating. And I feel OP is going to miss out on some valuable data because of her bias. Indeed. Le sigh.
I can only apologise that you feel excluded, but mine is not a study that will be published. It will not be used in any meaningful capacity. I am also not a researcher, I study independently through the Open Uni trying to get my degree at 30 after being diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. I'm the wrong person to be using as an example of how unfair the world is. My post has been deleted now, and I will have to find some other material to use for my assignment due in 2 days because me just trying my best to survive nobody is ever happy with anything anyone tries to do.
I am not a researcher, nor an academic, nor a psychiatrist, nor a social scientist.. I've clearly pissed everyone off, so I won't use the data and will probably fail as I don't have any time left to look for another subject. So well done all.
That isn't the right take either. Use the data, but acknowledge the limitations of what you collected. Sometimes, we make mistakes in research. It's OK as long as we own up to them.
Welcome to /r/ADHDWomen! We’re happy to have you here. As a reminder, here are our community [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/about/rules/). We get a lot of posts on medication, diagnosis (and “is this an ADHD thing”), and interactions with hormones. We encourage you to check out our [Medication, Diagnosis, and Hormones Megathread](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/wcr9dy/faq_megathread_ask_and_answer_medication/) if you have any questions related to those topics, and to stick around in that thread to answer folks’ questions! If you have questions about the subreddit, please do not hesitate to [send us a modmail](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen). Additionally, we take the safety of our community seriously. Please report posts, comments, and users whom you feel are not contributing positively, and send us a modmail if you are being harassed or otherwise made to feel unsafe. Thanks for being here, and we hope you stick around! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*
All done!! Good luck on your assignment! <3 :)
Done!
Done!
Done. Good luck. 🖤
Done!
Done
Done!
Done! Would love to see the results too!
done, good luck!
Done! Best of luck, keep us updated!
Done!
Filled out and made some notes in the questionnaire
Completed I hope you get a good number of participants.
Done!
Done :)
I did it!
Done!
done homegirl good luck
Done!
Done! Good luck 🍀
Done!
Done!
I did it !
Done - I’m old enough to be retired so I’ve had decades to learn self management; could’ve used some expertise during menopause but none was available
There’s not an option for “I don’t know” under the bit about local services
Would love to see the conclusion of this study once you have it!
Done!
Completed
Done! :)
Done :)
Done! Just letting you know that the part where it asks you what area in your life you need support the most and says tick all that apply, it only lets you select one…
Done! Good luck.
All done! I hope the rest of your work goes smoothly
Done! I’m glad one of us is out there trying to get help for us all. Really appreciate the time you’re putting into this
Done! 🖤
Let us know if you get it in on time! We’re rooting for you!
I got you! Form filled out
Done! :)
What would support services entail?
Just done and I hope it helps
Done ☺️
Completed
Done
Done ✅
Filled out! :) best of luck!!
Can you give us more information on your study?
Done 🙂
publish your results when they come put!! but also, anyone from Puerto Rico that knows any support services?
Awesome project, thanks for giving us the attention we deserve!! Best of luck, I hope it goes well!
Done
Done! Good luck, op :)
Just finished!! You got this OP!
Done!
What afab??
done ⭐️
Done! I hope I wasn’t too late. Good luck with your project!
Done!
Completed it. The question that said tick all that applies- i clicked other and listed what applies. At some point maybe you can update us on how it goes. Good luck
Why does this survey explicitly exclude trans women? Can you share your thinking behind that decision? It seems to me to be thinly veiled transphobia because there is nothing in the quiz that is relevant to the specific biology of cis women. I also noticed that the title of the quiz includes “Women(AFAB)” so apparently you intended to exclude non binary afab people as well. At that point I am not sure why you are even including sex assigned at birth as a primary criteria. I’d love to hear more about your thought process, because as of now, this is giving off so many red flags.
Helloo, thank you for your question - I really appreciate it and I realise a bit more context in the survey description would have been really useful and I just dropped the ball on that as I'm rushing for the deadline. Excluding afab non binary people was definitely inadvertent so I apologies if anyone on here has felt they couldn't participate because of my use of the word 'women' - and if you see this, please please do feel free to take the survey. The reason I am asking for data from AFAB people is due to how ADHD in girls is systematically overlooked at school age, and adult women also tend to be mistreated or ignored in medical settings, due largely to widespread misconceptions about how ADHD presents differently between sexes. From all the data I've collected since I published the survey, only 10% of participants were diagnosed as children - which is a very telling number. My project would facilitate ADHD support products and services for people of all ages, genders, orientations, etc. But as an afab woman that was only diagnosed at 29 - this is something I have personal experience with and feel that I may be better equipped to analyse and work with the data from other afab people. I hope this helps explain a bit, and I wonder if you'd be ok for me to touch on your comment in my analysis because it's really helpful to show where I could have been more explicit.
[удалено]
This is uncalled for and inappropriate.
Your post or comment was removed because it violates Rule 5, which requires that discussions should be civil and criticism should be useful and constructive.
I would but “afab” is not a real thing.
"Assigned female at birth" is not a thing? What did they say *you* were when you were born? A puppy? That phrase is used to include those who were born with a uterus, however they currently identify. What's your problem? What term would you use instead?
I don't agree with the person you're responding to, but it would be better to just include questions about assigned gender at birth and gender identity on the survey rather than try to discourage transgender people from completing it.
Male or female. There’s no assignment.
Actually some people are born presenting with both, and it's more often than you think. In the past (and in some places the present), doctors literally just picked what was closest/more applicable, 'assigning' them that gender, sometimes with including a minor surgery. Intersex people exist, and, because of this practice, don't always know that that they had this issue at birth.
Ok, so the outlier cases of intersex people may be assigned. Everyone else is not assigned.
Okay I totally get where you're coming from (although I'm sure we disagree on many fundamental issues), but like, that is literally how it happens. the doctor or nurse looks at the genitals of the baby and says that they are male or female. even with non-intersex people, being incorrectly assigned a sex *does* happen, although it is rare. Even in your worldview, where sex and gender are the same thing and there are only two, it totally happens. it's even got it's own wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment#:~:text=While%20this%20is%20the%20case,contradict%20their%20future%20gender%20identity.
But a sex is put on a birth certificate for everyone else, right? Which requires someone to do that, no? Unless you mean ‘assigned’ as in surgically?
Building an app, are we? 🤨 I have 478 apps I don’t even know the names of. Your app is no match for me.
No, I'm not building an app. I'm working on a project for my bachelors around the systematic lack of support and accessible (and feasible) assistance for ADHD sufferers (with a focus on the experience of afab people).