Dr Kenneth Zucker believes children may be suffering from autism, anxiety or depression, which many growing up not to need sex change surgery

Children facing hormone treatment after being diagnosed as transgender could in fact be autistic, according to a leading psychologist.

Youngsters who believe they were born in the wrong body are seven times more likely than others to be on the autistic spectrum, said Dr Kenneth Zucker.

The autistic trait of ‘fixating’ on subjects could convince children they are the wrong sex, he added.

Dr Zucker was speaking after losing his job amid claims that he was trying to ‘cure’ children by questioning why they become gender-confused.

He believes they may be suffering from autism, anxiety or depression, with many growing up not to need sex change surgery they may regret.

In a documentary on BBC2 tonight, the Canadian child psychologist said of the link with autism: ‘It’s possible that kids who have a tendency to get obsessed or fixated on something may latch on to gender.

‘Just because kids are saying something doesn’t necessarily mean you accept it, or that it’s true, or that it could be in the best interests of the child.’

His view on autism is backed up by a Dutch study that found almost 8 per cent of patients at a gender identity clinic were on the autistic spectrum – seven times the general rate.

It has been suggested that cross-gender behaviour may be caused by some autistic children’s attraction to ‘unusual interests’.

Referrals to the only transgender clinic for youngsters in the UK, London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS centre, are ten times the number five years ago

In Britain children can be given hormone blockers to stop puberty from the age of 10, male-to-female or female-to-male sex hormones at 16, and can undergo a full sex change at 18. Referrals to the only transgender clinic for youngsters in the UK, London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS centre, are ten times the number five years ago.

In the BBC programme Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best?, a woman named as ‘Lou’ reveals she is ‘haunted’ by the double mastectomy she had aged 20 to become a man, a decision she now bitterly regrets.

‘The darkest moment was when I realised I had actually looked normal for a girl, that I had been slim and pretty,’ she said. ‘Now, as a result of having transitioned, I will always have a female body that is freakish.’

After Dr Zucker lost his job at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, 500 clinicians and academics signed a petition in protest against the ‘political’ decision.

After Dr Zucker lost his job at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, 500 clinicians and academics signed a petition in protest against the ‘political’ decision

He had been accused of trying to use ‘conversion therapy’ to cure gender-confused children, despite recommending medical intervention for those who continued to feel they were in the wrong body.

He was even told he could be putting children at risk of suicide by trying to discover if they had other mental health issues. Questioning whether these children should receive treatment, he once said: ‘A four-year-old might say that he is a dog – do you go out and buy him dog food?’

With studies suggesting 80 per cent of gender-confused people never have sex change treatment, Dr Zucker said: ‘You are always trying to think about what these behaviours mean, you are trying to understand what is the relationship between surface behaviours and underlying feelings.’

But Hershel Russell, a transgender psychotherapist and activist in Toronto, accused him of a ‘drop the Barbie’ approach to force children into their natural gender.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health declined to comment.

Carol Povey, of the Centre for Autism at the National Autistic Society, said: ‘There is work to be done to understand how being autistic and transgender may interplay.

‘There is no “one type” of autistic person, and like anyone else, when an autistic person questions their born gender they should get the help and support that they need.